Trippin´ Out
Brandon Joyner
I have had the opportunity to sing with different groups from an early age. My parents both played the piano when they were younger, but got away from it as adults raising five boys. There was little time and money to give for music lessons or a piano so my involvement with music was limited to the new youth choir at Citadel Square Baptist Church.
I was about ten when John Hutto came to our church. I had some previous exposure to music lessons in school but only once a week when the teacher came to our school. She was shared with the other schools in our district. Once a year we had a variety show to display our talents and I got my first chance to be showcased in a round of square dancing. I forgot the steps and since then I have had a reluctance to be involved with dancing of any sort. I´m sure that impacted my social life significantly.
Vocal music is, has been, and will always be the glue in my life that provides me interaction with others.
I connected with my very first community theater production in the late ´80s. I had no idea what I was going to be involved with, but I was convinced I could do what I had seen so many others do. I was in for a big shock. I not only didn´t get the singing part I wanted; I was expected to dance in the role that I was assigned. Yes, I could have left that night without a part in the play, but that would have been failure to me. Long story short, the choreographer managed to get the director to minimize my dance moves to a bare minimum. I wasn´t going to be billed as a song and dance man for that show.
Over the course of the next few years, I had the chance to appear in ¨Hello Dolly¨ with Robert Ivey as the director/choreographer and ¨Blood Brothers¨ with Linda Walker as the choreographer. I view both of these shows as lifetime memories simply to have had any part in them. I know that both these notable professionals were stressed to the limit while trying to chronic left foot syndrome. That notwithstanding, they let me stay in the show and dance through my scenes with far less movement than they had intended.
Again, stardom or the chance to play Vegas had slipped off the stage.
I guess at this time in my life I have to be satisfied with being an ordinary guy who will just shuffle across the boards and sing for my supper instead of tripping over the lights.
Fantastic.
~ David Joyner