Len Bassham, whose legal first name is ‘Warlen,’ was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1940. He was named by his dad, who took the first half of Warren, his own name, plus the last half of Helen, his wife’s name, to form Warlen. As far as Len knows, he’s the only person named Warlen in the entire world. (If you know of someone else, be sure to let us know on the Contact Page!)
A fairly recent picture is at the bottom of this page.
When he was four years old, his Uncle Bryan (his dad’s youngest brother, then fourteen years of age) gave him the nickname ‘Len,’ and it stuck. As mentioned before, Len’s Dad’s name was Warren, and everybody assumed that Warlen was a typo and that Len was really Warren, Jr., so the nickname helped clear up the confusion. All through school, including college, he was ‘Len,’ and even his official transcripts (until he went to Juilliard) are in that name!
Having started music lessons at age 5 at the LaMont School of Music (then an independent school but now part of the University of Denver), Len then began studying piano and organ with his maternal grandmother. He continued those instruments through high school and college, and after graduating from Pacific Union College in the summer of 1961, attended The Juilliard School in New York City. His choral composition When Lilacs Last won first prize in the National Young Composers’ Contest in 1965. (Professionally printed copies of the piece, which has never been performed in public, will soon be available in our online store, along with several other of his compositions.)
Len has been married twice, and has a daughter and a son from his first marriage. He is a widower, having lost his second wife, Carol, in 2006. His only grandchildren are by informal ‘adoption.’ (One of them took the attached photo, below.)
He has lived in six different states, including Arkansas, where he presently resides. (His father was born in Arkansas, but Len unfortunately never visited the state until after his dad had passed away.)
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In addition to being a composer, Len is also a prose writer and sometime poet. To see a sample of his writing, go to https://medium.com/@legendkeeper21– there you will see a list of his over 200 prose posts. Most of them have FriendLinks so you can read them for free even if you are just a visitor to the site.