By Joan Bunting, September 26, 2013 — When I was young – six or seven years old – my sister Doris, who was ten or eleven years old, belonged to a children’s choir in our church. I think that’s when I began to appreciate music. At the time we were still in a foster home. When I was attending elementary school, I enjoyed assembly very much because we sang songs.
In my early teen years, I would turn the radio on and get real close to it so as to write down the words to the rhythm and blues, and later to rock and roll. The station I listened to was WDAS, with “Georgie Woods, the guy with the goods.” On Sunday mornings it was the same station. The host was Louise Williams.
When the music was on I would sing along, and when my foster mother attended choir rehearsal, I’d sing along with them.
My now-sister-in-law and her cousin and I had a little group, and we would sing the popular songs of rhythm and blues. We sang really well. One day we went to the 23rd Street Park. We were challenged to compete against another female group and we won.
One day my foster mother, Ms. Jackson, asked me did I want to join the church choir. I thought to myself, “I don’t want to sing with those old people.” To this day I wish she had made me join the choir. I always felt that, because I had that terrible thought, my voice left me. It hasn’t left me completely – but it’s not the same.
I still sing in my church choir and I can still harmonize. God has allowed me to be able to still sing His praises.