Newell’s Spoken Word inspires all denominations

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    By ERIC D. SNIDER

    Millions of people the world over know him as the voice of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the announcer for general conference, but Lloyd D. Newell, the man behind the famous voice, doesn’t seek out fame.

    “I don’t want to bring honor and glory to me,” he told The Daily Universe recently, mentioning that he rarely grants media interviews. “The broadcast is what’s important.”

    “The broadcast” is the 68-year-old “Music and the Spoken Word,” a 30-minute radio and television program featuring the music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The show is the longest-running network broadcast in the world and is heard or seen on several hundred TV and radio stations.

    This means that Newell’s face, and particularly his voice, are well-known, but the modest 40-year-old balks at the idea of being a celebrity. “It’s a church calling,” he said, pointing out he doesn’t get paid for his work.

    Newell downplays his notoriety. “In building the kingdom, whatever calling you have, you put in hours and hours,” he said. “The Tabernacle Choir, they put in a lot of time. Talk about people who are committed and dedicated.”

    Newell said he is lucky to be involved with the historic choir. “I do my sincere best to bring honor and dignity to the broadcast, because every Sunday I’m there; I realize what went before, the shoes that have stood where I’m standing,” he said. “Believe me, it gives me an overwhelming feeling of humility and gratitude.”

    Newell said his association with the choir has increased his admiration for it. “People come from all over the world to see our choir,” he said. “People have said to me, ‘We have saved up our money (and traveled to Utah) because the dream of our life is to be in this tabernacle and hear this choir sing.’ And these are non-LDS people.”

    He gets many letters from fans of “Music and the Spoken Word” who said they have been touched or uplifted by the program, making it very different from television news, which is where he began after graduating from the BYU Communications Department in the early ’80s.

    “The letters I get would make you cry,” he said. “One lady recently said it’s the only bright spot in her day. The choir can open doors and soften hearts in a way that I don’t know if anything else can.”

    But of course “Music and the Spoken Word” is more than just the choir. With his deep, authoritative, yet calm and gentle voice, Newell said he delivers a three-minute message every week, always striving to inspire and uplift and touch people’s hearts.

    “The messages are not LDS messages,” he said. “They’re non-denominational. They’re more for good will and inspiration.”

    Since being called to his position in the fall of 1990, Newell has delivered approximately 340 “Spoken Word” messages — about 10 percent of the 3,530 given since the program began. Some of his messages have been compiled into a book titled “May Peace be with You.”

    While Newell used to write the messages himself, there is now a pool of about five writers who alternate weeks.

    After graduating from BYU, Newell, an Orem native, landed a job as an anchorman for a television station in Erie, Pa. He said he came back to Utah for what he thought would be a short time, but he changed plans after getting involved with a friend’s new consulting firm. He worked there full-time and flew to Atlanta every weekend to be an anchor CNN’s Headline News.

    Newell said those were hectic years for him, as he spoke up to 150 times a year for various businesses around the world. In the late ’80s, he estimated he was flying about 200,000 miles a year.

    “I just hated it,” he said.

    His seminars focused on leadership, communication and human relations — subjects that would later become the focus of his book “The Divine Connection.”

    “I compared and contrasted self-esteem and self-worth,” he said. “I say self-esteem is more externally based. Self-worth is where we ought to be. Understanding the link between us and God, that’s self-worth. It’s an inherent endowment, because of the Atonement, because of your birth, because you’re a child of God.”

    But when speaking to companies, Newell said he couldn’t introduce this spiritual aspect, much to his consternation.

    “I’d speak to companies and talk a little about self-esteem, and it was always frustrating because I’d feel like we weren’t really getting into the important elements,” he said. He said this desire to more fully express himself gave rise to “The Divine Connection.”

    Newell is married with three young children, all of whom watch “daddy’s show” every Sunday. “My daughter has the whole ‘again we leave you’ thing memorized,” he said.

    He described himself as “self-employed,” making his living doing voice-over work, speaking to companies and teaching part-time at BYU. In addition, he is earning a Ph.D. at BYU in family science human development.

    Newell is frequently given credit for voice-overs he didn’t do. “Someone the other day was convinced that I was the voice of the Atlanta airport,” he said. “You know, ‘Welcome to the Atlanta airport. Please go to concourse….'”

    A student asked him recently if his was the voice on BYU’s telephone registration system.

    Other times, people really have heard his voice — they just can’t remember where. People have accused him of being a newscaster, a weatherman or even “the guy who does the RC Willey commercials.”

    “I really don’t think about being recognized,” he said. “It always catches me off-guard.”

    He said sometimes students want to record him saying, “This is the 167th annual general conference…” to play for their friends.

    And while Newell has a good sense of humor about things — he said he watched “Saturday Night Live” and David Letterman regularly during his bachelor days, and he was drawn into a serious discussion with this reporter over the Leno vs. Letterman issue — he also takes his calling very seriously.

    “Sometimes I get choked up about it,” he said. “Getting paid would diminish from it. It’s a labor of love, a calling that you take seriously. It’s been the greatest honor and blessing of my life.”

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