After you write and perform poetry for a while, you may eventually become restless and ask yourself What’s Next? Life is growth– artist most especially must move forward or die. But what do you move towards?

For some, its music since poetry is lyricism and rap is spoken word, blinged out and outfitted to music.

But what poetry and especially slam is closest to culturally is theater. Years ago a slam poet told me the perfect slam poem is a first person monologue. Was there ever something you didn’t realize was true until you heard it said aloud? That really clicked for me and it changed how I listened to and received slam poetry. Its a form (as much as a sonnet or a villianelle is a form) but its power comes from utilizing the elements of drama.

So it was nice to get me out of the house last night, in a light misting & humid rain to return to the Air Lounge for Mouth Off Wednesdays. Its open to any/everybody but primarily attracts a gorgeous & young african american crowd, all positive & vibrant. There’s a huge open dance floor with seating on padded benches around the L shaped wall. I grabbed a beer from the bar and geared up to listen.

What surprised me about a lot of the open mic was how several people did rhyming couplets. One dude was a kind of master of it, as he flashed back to childhood memories. Then there was the sexually explicit poetry making several of the women vocal and rock in their seats as if they were uprooting themselves. Though I didn’t realize he was doing a live infomercial until he got off stage and passed out flyers and tickets for his venue. Tix were passed down to me and I gazed at the Pleasanton address and 9pm start time. Considering I didn’t have a car the reading may as well been on mars. I passed it to the woman next to me.

The reason I’m writing this is because of the features. Two brothers, both slam veterans, both hosts of open mics who decided to try something different. What they did was weave their poems together into a conversation. First about fatherhood, about dealing with their lady friend’s respective baby daddies, about violence. Some of the poems I’ve heard before, but by weaving their voices together, trading off stanzas, their poems became new. The dynamic duo worked So Well Together it didn’t seem like an experiment as much as a rehearsal. I felt honored to see it.

Over the course of the night, I watched the audience. They listened to earlier performers respectfully, laughed at the stand up comic (who was good though I lost a lot of his words in the less than stellar sound system and his insistance on fellaciating the mic while speeding through his set ups & delivery) and as they kept drinking, gradually started leaking whispers. From where I sat it became hard to hear while people were trying to holla at one another. But I did learn something. The audience Wants to be fed, why they’re there in the first place. They’ll respectfully give you your opening seconds, but if you veer off into shyness, into cliche’s, or just wackness, their attention wanes. The advice I got years ago playing the now closed Chameleon in San Francisco still stands: start strong or you’ll lose them.

The features didn’t start strong so much as explode. The intensity and brilliance of their opening piece, how their voices wove into one another and how they built tension in their narrative, compelled you to listen and, quickly, shut down the entire room to where after their opening couple of minutes… if they just said Thank You & Goodnight, the audience would have been happy and have heard the best performance of the entire night. What they brought to the stage was theatricality. Not a sense of showy-ness, but rather constructing drama and holding attention. Their words were pleas, this wasn’t poetry where we as audience were being told something pretty, but rather they were men pleading their cases with a eloquent passion missing from what the room heard earlier in the open mic.

OK. Save the one elder, a brother who talked about going to New York and performing for residents of Riker’s Island. If you can and want to play Riker’s, you can play ANYWHERE.

What we ultimately were watching was exciting, because there was no telling what was going to happen next. I appreciate that (and maybe coincidentally???) just prior to their performance a woman from the open mic got up and sang a Psalm-style poetic prayer. It was a incredible way of grounding the space and the room in a way the performers didn’t realize.

There was more open mic’ers after the feature’s set– which was kinda unfair to the open mic’ers because… well, anything after that is anti-climactic, and the emotionally intensity stirred by their work is in and of itself to thrilling, it felt like the Whole Reason to be there that night. A half dozen women got up and left as they finished, and I followed them out. The rain had stopped and I walked down to the bus stop, after someone so drunk they made me think of how I walk when I’m drunk: rubberband legs flailing. Someone stumbling past me asking (with eyes afire) if there were any other stores open 24 hours except the magazine store. I barely answered and pushed on to the bus stop– which was fruitless. a 40 minute wait. I called a taxi and the brother who picked me up was from Afghanistan. He asked what I’d been doing that night and when I told him I was at a poetry reading he said when he was younger he read the work of Rumi in its original language(!) and name checked Hafiz. I didn’t expect that. And considering I’d already spent so much money that night (I could have bought a case of beer for what I paid for that one) left him a large tip. I told him: Anyone who mentions Rumi gets huge respect from me.

I’ve been spending the last month or so with Alan King’s inaugural poetry collection, Drift. A book I’d been waiting years for. I met Alan more than a decade ago at a writer’s workshop and fell in love with his voice. He brings a reporter’s precision to his construction of poetic imagery. If I dare divide poets into two classes, I offer he’s more observer than wordsmith.

Wordsmiths make Nothing sound gorgeous—they choose words with a diamond cutters precision. Observers don’t work as hard to sculpt stories visually. They instead take micro-stories, memories, observances and capture them with great eloquence. Wordsmiths take words, concepts, images and bend them metaphorically in new directions of meaning. Observers have no commitment to the beauty of language but rather the beauty of moments and the people inhabiting them. Drift shows us such moments with clarity, putting us in his shoes as he wanders through the landscape of his Washington DC hometown taking us on dates, to hang out at the barbershop, and to late night diners lit by the afterglow of lovers or exploding with the laughter of good friends. We hang with homies on porches & in backyard barbecues and even take a walk of shame polished to something just south of a love poem, as in Misty Friday Morning:

God descends upon us
when He angled the moon
through an apartment
window and found a woman
has made a ring
around my body

King’s poems are short, non-cluttered, lacking embroidery, yet always present and alive. The Dive is a gorgeous poem that begins:

In a white tiled kitchen
over a plastic dish of vinegar
my hands are divers
maneuvering past lemon slices

…then flows into a recollection of his Caribbean father as a young man, diving for tourists currency tossed off cruise ships, at an immesurable cost

…Dad lost
several friends overtaken
by the push and pull of water
overtaken by a kind of god
that chooses what’s kept and what gets away.

Its one of the books more powerful poems, along with Conundrum—a simple memory poem of a couple of young men in ‘fresh haircuts and fragrant whispers / of Egyptian musk” wondering if the proper haircut was the “answer to the riddles of women / the open says-a-me to a hidden door/ in the wall they might have erected/ for tresspassers.”

Storm, which he describes as an ‘animal of greed roaming / the streets unleashed and unmuzzled/ with its collar of spikes’ may be a poem of extreme weather, but as it lands becomes something a little more, implying that the storm in question may not be external, but the negotiation of desire:

Your halo’s a Kangol cocked
above vanilla bean locs. You wrap
your arms around my neck,
my nerves flash like lightning
above a caravan of wind
carrying the moist scent
of what’s to come.

When King gets personal, his poems truly come alive, placing the reader within his skin. Totem is short, yet so precise and honest:

As a kid
you couldn’t understand
what lived inside the blood
of most men, or how
a woman’s floral scent, …
stirred what slept so long inside you…

I was that kid, too–and as a man and reader find myself startled to have my memory and experiences validated and lyrically diagnosed by another. The beauty of King’s poetry here is how it identifies the relationships and desires that connect all of us.

In the poem Horn, he testifies “The only true Bible/might be your open arms”. Good Lord, I wished I’d written that. Yet King lyrically finds a way to allow the reader to live the sentiment through him. I won’t give up the spoiler in A Father’s Advice, but the poem happily lives up to its dynamic opening: “I’ve broken nearly / every Commandment/ sacred to my mother.” And its one of several of the collection’s best.

Drift is not all entirely aspects of the sensual world. Its poems never dive into social problems nor does it bother with any deep political pronouncements. Even with the racial implications behind Chagrin “when security escorts a woman / back to the register” and the poem’s surprise ending, King doesn’t present the moment in anger, just observation, and ends the poem with a solemn question instead of indignation.

Drift does takes time to play with personas– offering monologues from both Pinky & the Brain as well as Rocky’s former trainer Mickey who now apparently motivates writers. These were fun, even as I would have traded them to hear more from his parents who have such brief cameos or to learn how his voice might tackle darker or even more personal material.

If there’s any criticism to be had, its how some poems land so softly as to not have endings, but merely stop. Poems like The Meek begin strong yet fall asleep in its concluding stanzas. Invocation could’ve been an awesome ‘Old School Hip Hop Fridays’ kinda poem which King is fully equipped to handle, but in the end frustrates with its lacks movement and juice.

But Drift is a fun journey full of wise voices and sensuality. King is not a brooding artist, but a brilliant and down to earth brother who stands sober in the cipher, awake and engaged, eagerly consuming life with a vivid, unpretentious hunger. Can’t wait for what’s next

The school where I agreed to appear on a panel for adoption wasn’t far from my house. A short bus ride up hill. Then an equally long walk further up another hill, along a street that only runs weekday shuttles for students. I nearly missed the school, walking another block past it. There was a wooden gate, then a long staircase down into the schoolyard. The only sign was a hand drawn arrow on green paper.

I checked in at the front desk. I met a woman whose email address was more familiar to me than her face. As she gave me my folder, Susan, the woman who invited me, called my name from the other side of the room and we fell into a hug. She introduced me to another man who will also be on the panel, a Korean poet and teacher. He and I chatted for a while which helped awaken my sleeping brain, then pushed me towards the auditorium for Susan’s performance.

The auditorium was packed– several hundred people listening to the president of the organization give her keynote, which i was just in time to miss. I climbed the bleachers and settled in for Susan’s vivid performance of meeting her mother for the first time. She jumped around in time, portraying herself and her thoughts while she negotiates various moments; Hustling the system to find out her mother’s name. Nervousness standing outside her mom’s hotel room door. The meaning of the mini-play’s title.

It made me think of my own story, naturally. Not that she and i had much in common. When it came out that I was adopted, my birth mother came to me. I didn’t search for anyone. No closed records at an agency. It was nearly a kinship adoption (a new phrase to me) as both my mothers knew one another, they just kept the truth from me until I was an adult.

Her monologue wasn’t long and I ran from the auditorium soon as it was over, not understanding everyone just stood up and formed a line for lunch. I avoided the line and instead browsed the merchandise tables for books about family and identity and adoption for children of all ages. An introductory book on black girl’s hair made me smile. I wasn’t much in the mood for reading anything. Gazing sleepily at the covers was enough. An older woman approached me and started talking. I saw her earlier during the performance. She stood and tearily said Susan’s story was similar to hers. Now she stands with me chatting as in a cocktail party for the damaged and I suddenly felt illiterate and quiet. She nudges me to stand in line for lunch, which I do. As i go to the end of the line, I pass the only person I saw whom I knew. My ex-girlfriend’s sister, whom I’d forgotten adopted a daughter a few years ago. It was good to see her and I was surprised not to feel awkward or nervous. I didn’t realize, until it happened to me, when people separate you’re supposed to behave as if you’d never met in the first place. You return to being strangers. Isn’t that what happened with both my families? But it was nice, on this day and in this tiniest of passing moments with only fingertips for a handshake, to not be a stranger. To be welcomed and smiled at by someone. And someone of color.

The school was filled with people in all stages of adoption; thinking about it, having adopted children or having been adopted themselves. It felt strange to have this as part of my identity, to have to claim this in my life. And that my parents are dead, my identity and life seems fake. I think enviously of my friends, coworkers… who have families, cousins, living parents… as if they’d won the lottery.

I was invited to eat in a designated classroom where the panel members were gathered. A group of 15 of us sat in a huge circle. And of course had to go around the circle and introduce ourselves. All manner of stories. A woman my age, adopted two years after me. Doesn’t know her parents. A young woman in the midst of creating a community project around adoption and family. A black lesbian raised by a white family in the midwest. In the group, there were two queer women having both brought their supportive partners. One married woman who never knew her mother only breifly talked about what went through her mind as she gave birth to her first child. I’ve heard talk before about adoption and intimacy issues. My hands are empty. I won’t touch that here.

The panel was four of us talking about identity as adults who’d been adopted, two men and two women facing a room of 20. We shared our stories and answered a couple of questions from the moderator, but there wasn’t much from the audience. One man had no idea how to ask his question. He mentioned his multi-racial daughter and how she’s learning different languages. One woman said her daughter ‘feel black when around her father and white when she’s around her mother.’ I said, years before I even knew I was adopted, I felt outside of everything and everyone. Not an atheletic, not popular, smart but no genius. Not even a nerd, really. Just different in some intangible way. One man announced to us he was gay and felt much of our stories touched his experiences growing up.

Many of the families here were white who adopted multi or bi-racial children. My story was unique, even among those who’d been adopted. Here in this event of outsiders, I was even outside of them.

I remember wanting to be positive, saying “it wasn’t that I lost anything. No one took anything from me. If anything something was added to my identity. My family just extended into another family.”

The moderator stopped me. No, James. She said. Something was taken from you. Your sense of identity. Your sense of security.

Well, true, i said. And it was true. Even if you put a sugar sprinkle on shit, its still shit.

And we filled the hour with our stories about identity. I don’t know what was learned. Maybe that emotionally we’re all the same. We all want to be accepted for who we are, even if amongst those who claim to love us, we are different.

The hour closed. People left the room. The panelists hugged and took pictures and I walked out and left campus.

I thought I might be stressed afterwards. Thought I might feel raw and want to submerge myself in alcohol or something. But I didn’t. Instead I walked down to the supermarket, bought a half dozen containers of yogurt and went home.

I am contaminated with unfulfilled wishes. That I had relatives. That my parents or at least an uncle were still alive. That I had pictures from my childhood. That I could see or visit my old house. That i had a real brother instead of a good friend who allowed me to transfer all my familial feelings onto him. Lonesome isn’t a strong enough word for how I felt. Perhaps the truest word is cleave. I felt cleaved. Whole, yes. Wholly dissatisfied, yes. But cleaved. I wish I’d been left with something tangible. Instead of the intangible sense of being on the outside of everything.
…

Days later, at work, I’m in the copy room duplicating paper. An older Filipino dude stands there quietly. I turn, but he’s not watching me.

What’s going on, Sam?

Just remembering. He said. Back when i was in my twenties. In the Philippines. Sometimes you get so old, all you have left are your memories. And you can go back to them anytime. He smiled.

I logged off the copier. Yeah, I said. Memory is 24/7.

In honor of the leap year and general fatigue, I’m going to give the last word here to Eunice Kathleen Waymond– or as you know her, Nina Simone. She just had a birth-iversary and would have made 79 years old on the 21st. She was a preacher’s child born in North Carolina with five younger siblings. She wanted to be a pianist since childhood but was denied a scholarship because she was black. She started playing clubs in Philadelphia to finance her education and was coerced into singing as well. Her mom was horrorfied by the idea of her daughter playing in bars and clubs, so Eunice changed her name to Nina (“little one” in Spanish) Simone (Simone Signoret, a celebrated French movie star). ‘I Loves You Porgy’ was her first hit in 1958. She’s quoted as saying: “When I was studying… there weren’t any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist. Jazz is a white term to define black people. To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. My music is black classical music.” She ascended in 2003.

Black History is American History.

Many people in this country have been made handicapped from the weight of assumption and expectation placed onto their shoulders by others. We wrongly label others, simply by looking and creating baseless judgments. Ignorance and stereotypes are the most virulent pathogens of human communication. Its easy to become complacent and forget that in this country, few thought African Americans had a history older than slavery, or had a history worth examining and preserving. The struggle for rights of all diverse peoples is not ancient history, but it can be forgotten if elders and youth lose touch. Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., et al., have assumed worthy mythological status based on their tireless work, but their deaths were not ancient history.

An acquaintance once explained to me how in Africa, men would hug one another because, he said, this was how information was passed: mouth to ear, heart to heart. Each February, this is what I think of. A loving gesture. A passing on of stories as community around a digital campfire. A pouring out names of elders– for without their stories, there would be no us.

People become heroes not because of how they want history to regard them, but as response to what was occurring in their lives. We are purposefully born in order to create something of meaning in the communities that surround us. What can you change or create in this moment you’ve been provided, using the family, the church, the people around you? I take my world for granted and forget that, especially for black people, in every field there has been a First. One person who pioneered a trail without realizing no one in their community had ever taken that step before. The men and women profiled here over the last few years are people who were given unique circumstances and strengths (gifts) and used them to institute change for themselves and their community. Perhaps this month will inspire someone to veer off from the road that’s already existed and take a unique step forward, allowing the community that raised you to grow through you.

Traditionally, I like ending the month on two people, Mary Church Terrell and Carter Woodson, who instituted Black History Month. I hear your jokes about February being the shortest month, I had them too, but our jokes are demeaning clichés rooted in ignorance. You didn’t realize it was initially just a week in 1926 that corresponded to the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln? You didn’t realize Black History Month, mind you, has not ‘Always Been’ but rather was first celebrated in 1976? That’s not quite 40 years ago. But fair enough: if you move forward with enough intention, you’ll forget there is a path behind you and one person who initiated it.

But you know… Morgan Freeman is right—it feels counter-intuitive to rope off a single month to acknowledge black history. Truth told, in doing these annual posts, I rarely see others, be them black or white, spending the month in meditation on history, or the fact that without the work of a few people denied their rights and dignity there wouldn’t even be a Black History Month to ignore in the first place. Without Woodson or Terrell or Douglass or Ella Baker or the civil rights workers of the 60’s, its possible Morgan Freeman would be a real Times Square pimp, instead of beginning his illustrious movie career playing one and earning him such a nice seat at the Oscars. Maybe Black History month isn’t for Black People—perhaps its instead for us to teach other races. Maybe, when Freeman asked Wallace if he wanted a Jewish history month, it was time for them both to exchange stories about their respective ancestors. Maybe my Filipino potna was right in demanding some history and stories from me. He knew before I did, that Black History is American History. Here’s to being acknowledged and thanked. Here’s to your children living free in the world, empowered, leading and never ignored or forgotten.

Human Rights Activist and leader Ella Josephine Baker born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1903. Baker was a central participant in the civil rights era and the electrical pulse running the length of its spine. She was teacher and mentor to young people, an organizer both influential and tireless in her commitment to social justice. Her grandmother was a slave, once punished for refusing an arranged marriage. Her grandmother’s stories and life fueled Baker’s spirit and activism. She attended Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina and boldly challenged unfair school policies. She moved to New York after graduation, remaining entrenched in social movements, protests and activism. By 1940, she joined the NAACP as secretary and was eventually named Director of Branches, became its highest ranking woman. She helped organize and run the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 and by the 60’s became one of the adult advisors of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

She was mentor, advisor, ego-less heroine of the civil rights movement, a woman dedicated to mobilizing people to fight for the rights of all.

Those who knew Baker best knew nothing of her private life or that she’d been married more than 20 years. She had no time to document her life with her own writings or memoirs. The details of her life off stage, I’ll leave alone. Going over her accomplishments and work, it seemed much of her life was about activism, about fighting for rights and fairness for all people. She said “We are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind.”

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is based out of Oakland, Ca. More information regarding her life and how you can join one of their campaigns for change can be found there.

As I come to the end, here then is a list of stray items, links, clips that came up over the last month that kinda peaked my interest yet not enough for me to spend a day writing about.

1) Only a this month did I learn of Sahji, the 1940′s most popular exotic dancer. The gorgeous Madeline Jackson appeared in only one movie, was married to a musician, but otherwise her life is lost to history. Maybe I’ll try to turn up more next year…

2) An audiotape of a 1961 speech by Malcolm X has surfaced at Brown University in Providence, RI.

3) 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. Its my fantasy BHM profile article I’d love to write, though I’m scared. To this day it remains a horrorfying cultural sore spot because of its senselessness and the deaths of several adults and children. Its a historical marker of police brutality against people of color made more complex because the city boasted a black mayor at the time. A full history of the event can be found here.

4) The Root counted down 20 Black Innovators in Technology

5) Ice Cube deserves more respect and admiration for the incredible trajectory of his career. And he’s still a young man– it’ll be amazing to see what happens as he ages in the game. I was close to profiling him this month but realized I couldn’t write anything better than this post, written in response to some cat on line who crunched numbers and analyzed lyrics to determine exactly when Cube’s Good Day actually happened. (Spoiler: 01/20/92)

6) I’ve been thumbing through the Flikr photo stream of vieilles annonces and found the series of photos Gordon Parks took of Emma Watson. You know, the woman featured in his celebrated American Gothic pic?

7) I was very close to profiling Black Hockey Player Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames. Two roadblocks stopped me. First, I know nothing about sports and can’t write intelligently about it. I tried. One year I modestly covered football player Myron Rolle at a friends suggestion– and I’ve already forgotten whatever it was I learned. Maybe some year I’ll seriously cover Ali, Tyson, Chamberlin, Abdul-Jabar… Second– his mom’s from Oregon, his dad Nigeria, and technically he’s born Canadian. Fail. I mean, it would make better sense to first write about Nelson Mandela, you know? But that he’s black, plays hockey and is good at it got my attention momentarily at least…

The first note of music I’d heard from Mary Lou Williams was the 1971 instrumental ‘Credo‘. Its delicious– a jazz/funk gumbo unlike anything I’d previously heard.

The track sent me on a hunt because I hadn’t heard of her before. Then I discovered Praise The Lord which is a sanctified monster that just about blew my mind. Is this gospel? Funk? R&B jam? All the above. Its a song/sermon with so much energy built into that when I first heard it, (in bed on a lazy Saturday) it forced me to Get Up & Move. All of my years in church and listening to gospel, NOTHING like this had ever passed my way. Its a perfect blend of elements I didn’t think could go together: its spiritual, danceable, funky–a thunderous, stunning achievement. Though to mention her name, a lot of people are like: Was she in the Olympics?

Mary Lou Williams was born in Atlanta in 1910 as one of ten half-brothers and sisters. She never met her father and taught herself to play piano while sitting on various laps in order to reach the keyboard. She had her first public performance when she was six. Thanks to her stepfather, she began to earn money playing at rent parties and chit’lin struts to help support her family. According to her own recollection, when she was about 15, Louis Armstrong came into a venue where she was playing at 3 in the morning and afterwards picked her up and kissed her.

Mary Lou had an enormous career and impact, in some way touching every known jazz musician from the early part of the 20th century until her passing in 1980. Over her lifetime she either influenced, wrote or arranged music for, was friends with or a teacher to: Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Tommy Dorsey, Art Blakely, Harold ‘Shorty’ Baker and Dizzy Gillespie. But what was most interesting to me was her period of transition during the 50′s, 60′s.

Since she was a child, Mary Lou been performing on stage, practically nonstop. Come 1953, she had a spiritual crisis. Legend has it, she’d been playing in a nightclub in Paris, the Boeuf sur le Toit. Mid performance, she looked around the room at her audience. Deeply, truly LOOKED. She was apparently disturbed by the ‘soulless spirit’ associated with jazz music. Think about it: some of the most honored musicians in jazz at the time were drug addicts. Who can say how that reflected in the audience attending their concerts? She’d been witness to the deaths of many close friends and talented musicians. She considered it sinful; the enviornment, the clubs, the audiences… So one night, mid performance should you believe it, she left the stage and vanished for three years. She began looking into a spiritual conversion, settling into Roman Catholicism. She had no interest in returning to performing music, and instead focused on rehabilitating addicted musicians, sometimes housing them in her apartment. A lack of money, hounding by the IRS, and growing efforts of doing rehab for artists began taking a financial toll on her and, with help from Dizzy Gillespie returned onstage at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957. Father Peter O’Brien became her manager in the 60′s and Mary Lou went back to playing music. She founded her own record label, publishing companies, established the Pittsburgh Jazz Festival and appeared on television. Naturally, her work had grown more sacred, spiritual. Get your paws on 1963′s Black Christ of the Andes or Mary Lou’s Mass. Both are stunning in their beauty and the musical surprises they offer. “I am praying through my fingers when I play,” says a quote of hers off Wikipedia. “I get that good soul sound and I try to touch people’s spirits.” She touched mine. How sorry I am to’ve discovered her long after my mom’s death in the early 90′s. She would have been incredibly surprised and quite moved by her work. You can know jazz and spirituals and funk, but the fusion Mary Lou created is unique and beautiful. “I did it, didn’t I?” She said near the end of her life in 1981. Yes, Lord. Yes.

Willie Mae Thornton was one of seven children. She was born December 11, 1926 in Montgomery, Alabama. Her father was a minister and she sang in the church choir. Around 1940, her mother died. Forced then into the work force at fourteen, she found a job cleaning floors at a saloon. One night. the main singer at the club spontaneously quit, and Thornton substituted for her and was well received. Confidence after that had her sign up for a talent show and she won first place. In the audience for that show was Atlanta music promoter Sammy Green who promptly signed her to his touring revue. By 1948 she left the tour and settled in Houston, Texas where she began developing herself as a singer and a drummer, meeting and recording with legendary blues musicians. She met bandleader Johnny Otis (who died earlier this year) in the early 50’s and began touring and recording with him and his blues caravan. It was Otis who approached the songwriting team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller to write a song for Thornton and they came up with Houng Dog. Thornton told an interviewer in Rolling Stone: “They were just a couple of kids, and they had this song written on the back of a paper bag.” Thornton recorded it August 13, 1952. It was Billboard’s Number One for seven weeks. The track made her a star.
She moved to Los Angeles in the early 60’s and found more success with a track Ball and Chain. Thornton was always well loved as a performer and toured several blues and folk festivals for years, straight through the 80’s.
Thornton remained a dynamic performer as a singer, drummer and lifelong harmonica player. In her later years, she put on some well regarded shows in San Francisco 1979 and at the Newport Jazz Fest, 1980. She endured a major car accident in 1981 and performed afterwards in Pasadena though she was unable to walk or stand. Thornton remained a heavy drinker for years and while living in a boarding house in Los Angeles 1984, she passed from a heart attack and cirrhosis of the liver.

So that leaves us with the tale of the Elegant Thief. It was three years after Thornton recorded Hound Dog that this cat Elvis recorded it sending his career into orbit. And Lo– somewhere in heaven white girls are still screaming. But you know– Elvis didn’t get it from Thornton. Cover versions began showing up a week after she recorded it. Elvis first heard it in Vegas from a group Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who did it in their act as a joke song. And his first public performance of it was on this fancy new household appliance, Television, and on the single most popular show of the day, The Milton Bearle Show. Meanwhile, the songs composers didn’t do so bad either. But could you dare listen to both versions back to back? Elvis gyrates his way through it. Thornton owns it. Vocally, emotionally. The song lands on the ear differently under her guidance rather than Presley’s. Thornton received one check for $500 for it. She told Rolling Stone: “Everybody living in a house but me. I’m just livin.”

(SPOILER: Oh, she’s off ice and is a doctor now. As it was always intended. Her words: “For as long as I can really remember, I wanted to be a doctor. Even as a little girl, I would be questioned about what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would say “doctor.” I would make my mom buy me the toy doctor kit.”) Unless you’re asking Who is Debi Thomas? My bad—she was an Olympic figure skater and the first African American woman to win a bronze medal during the 1987 Winter Olympics. In 1986 alone she won first place in the World Figure Skating Championships in Switzerland AND the U.S Championships where she was the first African American to be so honored. She took skating lessons from a early age natch and began competitive training at age 10. By age 12 she won a silver medal in the national novice finals.

Debra Janine Thomas was born March 25, 1967 in Poughkeepsie, New York. She eventually went to school at Stanford while still training in figure skating. As mentioned, she owned the ice in 86 and even with Achilles tendonitis still took second place in the US Nationals in 1987. She lost that trial to Katarina Witt but the two would be rematched when they both qualified for the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988. Thomas came in third that year and still made history as the first African American woman to place in the Winter games.

She retired from ice at 21 and went on to get an engineering degree from Stanford then attended medical school at Northwestern. Where does she live? On line I saw at least three states attributed to her. I can only leave you with this: The good doctor is alive and well and on her second husband and their only son.