STERLING WEED KNEW HOW TO MAKE THEM DANCE

Band leader Sterling Weed dies

A Few Former Students Pose With Mr. Weed During The BFA-Fairfax Centennial

Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2005

By Jill Fahy
Free Press Staff Writer

Sterling Weed knew how to make them dance.

His secret to getting their feet moving was simple, some say.

"He had good music, and he had loyal band members who were right with him," Weed's step-daughter Judy Derby said.

Weed, the 104-year-old band leader and former music teacher, died Sunday at his home in St. Albans. His dear friend and caretaker, Meredith Gillilan, 77, was by his side.

"It was age, and he was just worn out, really," Derby said Monday night from her home in Enosburg.

The beloved bandleader serenaded couples on the dance floor for nearly 80 years as leader of Weed's Imperial Orchestra. His band, which celebrated its heyday in the 1940s and '50s, spread the music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Paul Whiteman across northern Vermont from 1928 until this summer.

Fans of the bandleader and saxophonist had an opportunity to watch Weed on Aug. 17, when his orchestra swung the night away at the Grand Isle Lake House. It was a sold-out benefit event to raise money for the Preservation Trust of Vermont.

Weed was too weak to play his sax that night -- a bladder infection had taken its toll -- but couples got to see him take his place on the stage in the middle of his nine-piece band.

"He loved his music," Derby said of her step-father, who was born in 1901 to a musical family in Franklin County. Derby recalled a story in which Weed and his band were coming home from a gig. They were crammed in an old car that became stuck in the mud. They solicited help from a farmer who failed to pull them out of the muck.

"It was spring, mud season," Derby said. "They had to sleep in a barn. They said they thought they would freeze to death. He was the old school of the show was going to go on no matter what."

Contact Jill Fahy at 660-1898 or jfahy@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com