Ed Wolfrum (1945-2021) - Funeral Mass and My Remembrances

Ed Wolfrum 1945–2021

Today I was happy to attend the funeral Mass for Ed Wolfrum, my friend, audio crew member, and sponsor for my entering the Catholic Church. He went quickly, over a week's time, due to an inoperative heart aneurysm. He passed peacefully on November 1, 2021—All Saints Day. It was an appropriate day for Ed.  A link to the Mass on YouTube Live is at the bottom of this post, along with a few comments of that moment.

I was an Evangelical-Protestant Christian when I met Ed in the 1970s. (He was always a Latin Catholic, who attended Assumption Grotto in Detroit.) I was a producer-director type at Ford WHQ at the time, and needed a very good freelance audio engineer for my on-location productions. Ed's name came up in my queries around town. I went to his very modest bungalow in Royal Oak, MI. Upon entering his quaint living room, still decorated as if it was the late 1950s, and before I even sat down to question him, he said to me, "Let's talk for a few minutes. If I like you, I'll be your sound engineer for this film of yours. If not. You can leave." 

That was Ed. I loved it. You always knew where you stood with him. Over the years I hired him many times to do sound for my productions. We have a saying on the set, "Waiting on sound," That's because the last thing ready before a take is the sound. Why? Because there's too much noise getting ready for the sound engineer to hear if the sound is good or bad. When everybody settles down, including the talent, it's only then that the sound guy can listen to see if the background noise is low enough, and that the audio equipment is working. You can only hope there's not an open or short in a mic cable, because you can't move forward until "Sound is rolling." 

One time, while I was still Protestant (and he knew from our first meeting that I was a practicing Christian, and I knew he was a devout Latin rite Catholic) he hired me (turn about is fair play) to record a promotional video for a television commercial for a Catholic Conference. The person we were to record on camera was the late Fr. John Hardon, S. J., now Servant of God. I would meet Fr. Hardon on many later occasions as did Pam, my wife once we became Catholic. But on this first meeting [Fr. Hardon was short compared to my towering 6'4" (at the time)] he looked up at me and said without much of an introduction or preface, "Who's your patron saint?" 

Ed arranged another meeting Fr. John Hardon
after I became Catholic

"I don't have a patron saint. I'm Protestant," I said.

"Doesn't matter," said he, "you need a patron saint." Whereupon Fr. Hardon turned to Ed and said, "Get him a patron saint. He's going to need one when he becomes Catholic."

I smiled at the time. But it was prophetic. I did become Catholic, and I asked Ed to be my sponsor. Ed came to many of our RCIA meetings where for 6 months I learned about the Catholic faith.  The once-a-week classes on Thursday evenings were held in a classroom with tables in a rectangle. Sixty or so attended, mostly by young people wanting to marry someone who was not Catholic. Fr. James Cronk (St. James Catholic Church in Novi, MI) taught the 2.5 hr class. I tell this story a lot better in my Growing Up Christian memoir.  But the short of it is that when Pam became concerned that I was attending a Catholic membership class, she started to attend to argue with the priest who she was convinced didn't know the Bible very well. Because, after all, Catholics are Biblically illiterate. Right? Well, she argued with Fr. Cronk. But he seemed to always have an answer. She sat on my left. On my right was Ed Wolfrum. Now, usually a sponsor (as Ed was to me) comes to answer MY questions which the teacher doesn't have time to parry. But I found out after a couple sessions that Ed was coming because he didn't think Fr. Cronk was Latin enough. So, Ed, too, argued with Fr. Cronk. Honestly, I rarely opened my mouth. Pam and Ed were doing such a smash up job, it was entertaining. Ed would say to Fr. Cronk, "That's not right because what Fr. Hardon says is...blah, blah, blah." Whereupon, Fr. Cronk retorted, "Who the hell is Fr. Hardon?" One time Pam and Ed got into it at the same time. Fr. Cronk stopped both and said, "Okay, next week, none of you can sit together."  (and we all laughed.)  So, Ed was there at my confirmation and provisional baptism.  I had been baptized three times before, and now was the fourth time. In every situation the reason was simple, I had no idea, and neither did the priests know, if my previous baptisms were valid, such was the record keeping of Evangelicalism. But that's another story.  Pictures of my baptism and Ed HERE..

Ed Wolfrum at the mixing console. Not sure where
this is. Could be Motown or United Sound.

There is much I could write about Ed. He was a genius at audio and acoustic engineering. I had first hand experience many times with him, on the set, on location, and in his tiny little studio in the attic of his bungalow where he had recorded orchestra tracks with live instruments (multi-tracked) for motion pictures. My last time in his cramped "master control" he doctored and improved some poorly recorded dialogue tracks for a motion picture I had produced and edited. As usual the theater audience heard every word clearly.

Ed's fame in the audio industry (as he tells it) is that he was the "token white" engineer at MoTown Records in the early 1960s. I've seen a photo of Ed at the Motown console with the Supremes standing behind him.  The picture above is of him mixing a record, but I think this is at Detroit's United Sound. Ed was one of the geniuses behind the Motown sound of hundreds of albums back then. It took years for other studios to figure out what they were doing not only in the Direct Input recording technology (below), but also in the deep groves of the master. 

Back then recording studios could not go out and buy a mixing console. The engineers had to build them from scratch. Ed did this several times. Perhaps his most memorable contribution to the industry was something very small....his Wolf Box. He invented this device when he was in high school, but later it swept the industry. It was a simple device, with a very rare transformer inside, that allowed instruments like electric guitars to connect directly to the studio's recording equipment rather than placing a microphone in front of a guitar amplifier's speaker.  Here's a video of Ed explaining this then revolutionary device. It was recorded in his cramped little attic studio in Royal Oak. 

Today, at Ed's Funeral Mass, Fr. Paul Czarnota celebrated and delivered the homily and some remembrances of Ed. I was surprised how a priest knew so much about Ed, the Wolf Box, and his career. I had a very hard time hearing the words. My hearing has degraded in recent years and St. Mary's Royal Oak (where Ed grew up) was very resonant, with all marble walls front and back. But they live-streamed the Mass, and had the audio hooked up right. So you can hear the homily and Fr. Paul's memories of Ed.  Fr. Paul includes a condolences message from Steve Wonder who sent his respects, calling Ed a good friend and man of faith.  Below is the YouTube link.  But they started the uplink too soon, so there is 40 minutes of "nothing" at the head. The Mass begins at 39:35. The homily begins at 56:00, but the comments about Ed, which are worthwhile begins at 1:02:30. 

After the Mass, while visiting with friends in the lobby, Fr. Paul came up to me and asked, "Are you Dr. Stan Williams?"  He looked familiar to me but I couldn't place him. He was with a younger man. Fr. Paul said, "My brother and I were Ed's audio assistants on two documentary shoots of yours about Deacon Alex Jones' journey into the Church. I was in seminary at the time." (Ed was a seminary student also but never followed though with ordination. Audio was his first love.) Suddenly I remembered. Ed was like that. You invited him to come work on a shoot, and he would bring additional help for free. Fr. Paul and his brother (I think Chris was the younger man's name) said they still talk about those shoots in Alex's Maranatha Church and in Alex's apartment where we staged an argument between Alex and his wife Donna about Mary. Below you can watch the excerpts from the Alex Jones documentary (that was never fully produced for lack of funds). Access to the full Alex Jones documentaries on Vimeo, that we did produce, are HERE.

The stories about Ed are wonderful, but voluminous. He was a genius, and all geniuses are eccentric. Ed's eccentricities were good. 

Ed is survived by his wonderful and graceful wife Susan, who made her career in graphic arts. Their company was Audio/Graphics  (Ed/Sue).