By Ralph Holibaugh
Mr. Best was the most extraordinary musician and teacher I’ve known. I first met this former coal miner from County Durham, England in 1954. He was thin, tall, bald, and had huge hands. I had heard that he was a euphonium soloist in the Alliance City Band (ACB), and that he was also the best trumpet teacher in northeastern Ohio. It was rumored that after a spectacularly dismal lesson with a student who repeatedly did not practice, Mr. Best gave back his fee to the student with the understanding that he and his pupil no longer had a musical relationship.
That rumor quickly became more personal. In my earliest lessons I had a very much used trumpet. After my several failed attempts to execute a passage, Mr. Best grabbed the horn from me and said, “Like this!” He couldn’t get a sound. I soon had a new trumpet. William Booth Best was, indeed, a serious musician and demanding teacher.
I was in 5th grade when Mr. Best accompanied me to my first rehearsal with the ACB. I learned from band members that after he left the colliery brass bands of England and immigrated to the U.S., he had settled in Beloit, Ohio to work in potteries for a living, but he also continued to play in bands throughout his life. In keeping with English musical tradition, he taught trumpet to his son, “Charlie,” who became a professional performer, a musically gifted five-year old, Clyde Hunt, and other outstanding pupils such as Roger Tayler, Ralph Kropf ( later a director of the ACB), Kropf’s brother, Eldon, and others.
Mr. Best had ‘rescued’ the Band twice when he became director twice as documented masterfully by Paul Hobe. When the demands of WWII depleted its ranks, he took over its leadership in order to keep the Band functioning.
There is an argument to be made that Mr. Best was the most broadly influential figure in the history of the ACB. Like Emil Rinkendorf, his standards of precision and overall excellence were very high; he had assisted “Rinky.” But after more than 45 years of unbroken service to the ACB, and in light of the heritage of superior students that he left in his wake, a revised assessment of ACB’s history is overdue.