He was born one of five children in a small coal-mining town in Centerville, Iowa in a house that was, by his account, 27 feet by 25 feet, with no running water or electricity. Simon Estes' journey from that small midwestern house to leading roles in the greatest opera houses in the world—including America’s largest, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City—is an overcoming and faith story for the ages. If his story was turned into a movie, no one would believe it—it’s that improbable.
I don't think he ever brought home a check more than $18 and worked 12 hours a day. And whoever worked in the mine died between 50 and 60 years of age with black lung.” The hard work, health hazards and poverty came with the mining territory, but so too did grinding racial discrimination. Though Iowa was not below the Mason-Dixie Line, it might as well have been.
Most of the restaurants, we couldn't eat in them.” But one indignity stood out among the rest. But our parents taught us never to hate white people, but just pray for them.” Estes recalled with fondness his childhood church services. It was his mother who introduced Estes to music: She played piano and directed the church choir.
"God gave it to her and she gave it to me.” It was there that Estes performed his first solo as a boy soprano. Estes sang in his high-school choir, and his voice grew deeper. He kept singing at the University of Iowa, becoming the first Black man to perform with a campus pop choral group.
But Estes wanted to join the most prestigious singing group on campus—the school’s choir. But the same director encouraged Estes to visit with a new music teacher on campus, a Greek American named Charles Kellis. We only had choral music.
I had no exposure until he played some recordings of opera singers,” Estes recalled. After I heard it, I said ‘I really like that stuff. I just called it stuff.’” “I loved it the moment I heard it,” Estes said.
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