Without my parents’ knowledge, I helped to start a rock ’n’ roll singing group of six guys called The Jokers. We would practice on the walk home from Hayes Junior High or when we got to my friend Hiawatha’s house. His parents didn’t mind our singing at all. Our group only lasted three years, but it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. I became more aware of the songs of Ray Charles, Frankie Lymon, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Coasters, Sam Cooke, and many others.
Hiawatha was dark, handsome, and six feet tall even in junior high. I felt he had a sweet baritone voice and even sweeter lips. I could have sung with him forever. He had a good sense of rhythm, as we used to make up routines like The Temptations or Gladys Knight & The Pips. We’d move the furniture around his room so we could master the routines easier, and we’d sit in his room and listen for hours while his mother cleaned the house or cooked dinner. His daddy was a bus driver, and sometimes I’d run into him when I rode the Elm Street bus.
All of us guys would imitate the records. We’d put on a record and pretend we had microphones, or tie our heads up in do-rags, and move around like the Edsels or The Coasters or Little Anthony and The Imperials. I used to pretend that I was the lead singer. I wasn’t surprised that I could do it.
Sometimes it was just Hiawatha and me, and I’d put on Dinah Washington or Etta James and sing just like them. Hiawatha loved it when I acted like Dinah Washington or Ruth Brown. He’d laugh real nice and say, “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” and then he’d smile some more and say, “Do it again!” And I would.
Hiawatha was an only child, and his parents doted on him. They were always telling him that he was special, “even though he was black.” I used to listen to the way they talked to him and silently wished that my mother and stepfather would talk to me the same way. After a while, I realized that even though he was a really good singer, he was not very bright in school. In fact, he was worse academically than my brother, so I often helped him with his homework. He had terrible handwriting; I helped him with that. In a short time, his grades improved, and he began to enjoy studying. Partly because of that, his parents welcomed me into their home often.
In Hiawatha’s room, as we sat or lay close on the bed, I’d imitate Ray Charles and Frankie Lymon. He’d sing lead on The Drifters’ songs or on The Coasters’ songs. We harmonized easily. He had a rich, low voice already, and I still sang high.
During those times, I realized that while I was singing like Dinah Washington or Ruth Brown, I was feeling very easy and “natural,” like my mother or any woman. I didn’t pretend I liked any girls, and I didn’t want to hug or kiss any girls. I imagined myself walking “down the aisle of love” in my wedding dress, like my cousin, Johnny Mae. I was feeling really happy. When I sang then, I knew that my songs had feelings and not just pretend emotions. I was, for those few sweet moments, Mary Wells with her two lovers, like The Marvelettes, asking Mr. Postman for “a letter for me.” Those were the kind of songs I could sing when I was walking home by myself or in my room with the door closed and nobody told me to act “regular” or not to act “like a girl!”
When Dinah Washington and Brook Benton came out with their famous duets, like “Baby, You’ve Got What It Takes,” and “A Rockin’ Good Way,” I, of course, sang Dinah’s part and Hiawatha sang Brook’s part. It seemed as natural as anything to me. I knew right away that all of this was very different from church. Singing with Hiawatha made me feel sexy, and I sometimes looked longingly at him and wondered what if we could hold each other like Brook and Dinah did? What if we could kiss sometime like in the movies? But nothing ever happened, even when I slept over and we were in the same bed. He was warm and comforting next to me, but he always turned his back to me and went to sleep.
More and more, I became aware that this music and the closeness of my buddy was sexy. Rock ’n’ roll was sexy. At first, I thought everyone felt the way I did. One day while singing and feeling sexy, I pulled him close to me and rubbed our crotches together. I pretended that we were grinding. I’d seen other guys do this with girls during the slow dances at socials. But Hiawatha let me know that grinding was really reserved only for “chicks.” There were certain things we fellas could discuss, but we really wanted to get the girls alone to grind and do the rest. I didn’t know what “the rest” was, but he talked about it so matter-of-factly that I pretended I did. I wanted to continue to be able to be close to him.
Hiawatha seemed to say all the right things about what men felt and what I was supposed to be happily learning to do. I just couldn’t tell him that I was far more interested in him than any of my girl friends. I never wanted to call girls up and whisper to them on the phone or hang out with them and sing. I much preferred the two of us alone. But he was constantly reminding me that our singing was to attract the girls. He said that women would love us for being able to sing and look cool. He also said it would make me popular with the boys because they would be jealous of the way the girls felt about us. I thought about that for a long time.
“Singing can do all that?” I asked.
“Sure, man,” he answered confidently. “You can have a different girl every night.”
He silenced me with his enthusiasm. I couldn’t possibly explain to him how little his proposal interested me. Never could I imagine spending the night with many different women. I’d be satisfied with one handsome guy like him. He was tall and dark and moved with a confidence that I found very attractive. I didn’t need any women in my life as long as I could hang out with him every night. I kept singing, but it was clear to me that we were singing for very different reasons.
BY THE TIME I WAS SIXTEEN, I HAD LEARNED TO TAMP down my feelings for the same sex, but I was still making discoveries of a different nature: a whole new fascinating, musical world I’d never even known existed. I loved pop music, but for a long time, I didn’t tell my mother or any church members because I felt that they would scold me and object. One day, some of the parents of my fellow singers went to my mother and begged her to permit me to sing pop music publicly with The Jokers. They were obviously persuasive because she didn’t explode or try to punish me. I was greatly relieved when she finally agreed.
During that time, I started to fully appreciate everything from Motown to gospel to traditional spirituals and hymns. All of us in The Jokers were black: we were the Motown crowd, and I sang the high parts, of course. The Jokers played a couple gigs out together, and sometimes we would even make five dollars per person, per gig. But it was mostly just some of my buddies hanging out and having fun. We even bought red matching outfits to sing together in! But I had to leave my clothes at Hiawatha’s house because I didn’t want my family to know I bought them, and I certainly didn’t want them to see me in them. I knew they would tease me mercilessly.
Additionally, I gradually let it be known to the church ladies that I was interested in singing secular classical music, and not just fundamentalist Christian music. Ironically, these same grand old church ladies stepped in to help me out on other occasions. They even gently urged my mother to let me go to Stambaugh Auditorium to hear a recital by the famed mezzo-soprano Betty Allen, who was from the Youngstown area. She sang exquisitely, and my fate was sealed.
Betty sang loudly, without a microphone. I could hear her voice everywhere—in front of me and in back of me. I knew that my voice, even when I sang like a woman, sounded nothing like that. But the vibrations through my body thrilled me. You could have exploded dynamite in that seat, and I would not have moved for the rest of the concert. I didn’t even venture out of the auditorium during intermission. I decided that one day I was going to sing at Stambaugh Auditorium, and I wouldn’t use a microphone either.
After the concert, I was lucky enough to get a backstage introduction by Mrs. Gamble, one of the sorority ladies.
In every way, Betty Allen was bigger