"Eccentric Soul: Young Disciples" CD cover

When Allan Merry started working as a director for the South End Center in East St. Louis 30 years ago, his goal was simple: He wanted to help youth at the center do things they’d never done before, such as play ping-pong or take field trips.

What he ended up doing was changing many of those teen lives musically with a long-forgotten movement that’s newly resurrected.

Merry introduced more than 50 young people to music - singing, playing instruments and performing - under the banner of the Young Disciples, made up of a number of Memphis soul-style groups, duos, trios and solo acts who were members of the center.

Twenty-one long-buried Young Disciples recordings have been dug up for a new CD, “Eccentric Soul: The Young Disciples,” in stores this week. Acts including Sharon Clark & the Product of Time, Debonettes, Georgettes, LeVel Moore, DeDe Turner Happening and Bobby McNutt are on the CD.

The project, released by the Numero Group, is the latest in the company’s “Eccentric Soul” series of rare soul gems from across the country.

Merry, 68, a former saxophonist for Ray Charles, is happy to see the Disciples’ accomplishments recognized. He didn’t think it was possible.

“I hadn’t paid much attention to it over the years,” he said. “I thought it was just a time in my life.”

Merry, a band teacher at Ralph J. Bunche International Studies Middle School in St. Louis, says the Young Disciples movement started not long after his arrival at the South End Center. He took his horn out one day to practice, and a boy asked for some instruction. He came back the next day with a friend.

“I showed them some licks, and the next day they came back with even more kids, then more and more,” Merry said.

The kids, ages 13 to 20, were raw but eager, and Merry began teaching them R&B, jazz, big band and more, while also offering discipline and approval.

Wondering what to do with all the burgeoning talent around him, Merry put on a Halloween show. More than 800 people came to it. He was onto something.

“They got to a point where they were really good and would play for money,” he said.

The Young Disciples were booked weekly and would play on bills with big names such as Isaac Hayes, the Spinners, Nina Simone and Lou Rawls.

The music sometimes was heard outside St. Louis. Clark’s “I’m Not Afraid of Love” was a hit in Memphis, Tenn.

The songs on “The Young Disciples” represent the group’s total recording output

Some of the members of the Young Disciples, which lasted about a decade, went on to perform with B.B. King, Albert King and Oliver Sain.

Gus Thornton, now with Kim Massie’s band, was one of the first Young Disciples. Marsha Evans is another former Young Disciple.

Merry said, “These were kids who really wanted to do something. This was a lifesaver for children who came from nowhere and had nothing else.”