Photo by Patricia O’Blenes Spencer Bell’s father and younger brother, Bill and Brady, sit near a guitar that Spencer once owned and played.

Music refuses
to die at cancer
charity concert

By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer

From beginning to end, Spencer Bell poured his life into music.

He listened to 1970s tunes on his parents’ old jukebox before he could eat solid food. By the time he was 4, he was writing little songs at the piano while his mother, Cathy, wrote down the music.

“He constantly listened to music with his father,” she said. “He can sing all the Jim Croce.”

Spencer spent much of his teen years playing the guitar, writing song lyrics and having the dreams of a musical artist. But when adrenal cancer suddenly killed him last year at age 20, his family and friends turned to music to bring healing for others.

Guitars will unite to fight cancer at a charity concert and silent auction called “A One in a Million Night.” The event will be held at the Royal Oak Music Theatre on Sept. 7, and all proceeds will go to the University of Michigan Adrenal Cancer Clinic.

Cathy Bell of Bloomfield Township said that while it’s horrendous to lose a son like Spencer, the process of organizing the fundraiser was like therapy to her.

“It just makes me feel like I’m honoring him, like there’s some kind of legacy in the loss,” she said.

The fundraiser promises plenty of music. The headliner is local band The Howling Diablos. Other featured bands include Double Scale and The Stevedores, the group that Spencer played in.

Ben Johnson, drummer and vocalist for The Stevedores, called Spencer a “musical guru” who made everything look easy.

Johnson, 23, said the two first met as teenagers at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. That was where Spencer decided to become a musician instead of an actor.

“He was just in his dorm room one day, and he realized that he can sing, and he had been working out some chords on the ukulele,” Johnson said.

“He was performing these songs at the coffee houses, and he’d bring down the house every time. He had that innate stage presence. The lyrics were funny and clever. The songs were poppy but kind of catchy. … He was a cool guy.”

Spencer’s life abruptly came to an end last autumn while he was living with The Stevedores in a Madison, Wis., house.

When Spencer’s younger brother Brady visited Madison for the Thanksgiving holiday, he noticed something was wrong. Spencer had been really ill for a week, and he was short of breath and in extreme pain. So the two went to the hospital on Thanksgiving morning.

Doctors had horrific news: Spencer had a large cancerous tumor in his abdomen. His parents rushed to Wisconsin to be by his side, but the outlook was grim. Doctors diagnosed him with adrenal cancer and said the disease had already spread to his other organs. He died fewer than two weeks later in the hospital.

Although an autopsy was never performed, doctors guessed that he’d had the cancer for three to five years. “He was asymptomatic that entire time,” Cathy said. “It’s so lethal because you have absolutely no idea it’s growing.”

Spencer’s parents described him as an extremely creative person who loved to work and write. The father, Bill Bell, said his son left behind more than 100 completed songs and thousands of pages of journal writing. He also said Spencer was working on several of his own albums, and The Stevedores released an album four days after he died.

Bill explained that his son’s writing skills amplified his rock ‘n’ roll musicianship. “His voice was good, very good,” he said. “But he had a way with words and lyrics that made a lot of those songs really cool.”

To honor their son, the Bells gave their fundraiser a music theme and started working on the plans right away. “We turned our attention to something positive even before we came back to Michigan,” Cathy said.

The Bells decided to donate to the University of Michigan because they said it has one of the top adrenal cancer research centers in the world. The university is holding an international symposium on the disease this spring.

Because adrenal cancer only affects about one out of a million people, the rarity has discouraged researchers from updating treatments, Cathy said. That’s why she hopes that Spencer’s life can put a face on the issue and help spread awareness and hope.

“We feel we’re going to do something,” she said. “It’s such a shock and such a loss … that you feel like you need to turn and do something positive with your grief.”

“A One in a Million Night” will begin at 7 p.m. on Sept. 7 at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. Tickets are $20. For more information, visit www.spencerbellmemorial.com.