Over the past twenty-five years, retired church music professor and composer C. L. Bass has produced an abundance of musical resources for YouthCUE Festivals held throughout the United States and Canada. In the first of this two-part interview, Dr. Bass speaks about his primary years of musical discovery and how important personal relationships were to his early musical growth. A music educator par excellence, the informal conversation with C. L. provides powerful insights for us student choir directors as well as the teenagers we direct.