I used to occasionally go to a hole-in-the-wall piano bar in the West Village called Rose’s Turn. Singers of all stripes — and with a wide range of quality of "pipes" — would offer up their best renditions of "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Cry Me a River" and everything in between. One night I was treated to the vocal stylings (really, the vocal kick-assings) of someone named Terri White. She had a worldly-wise, hardscrabble edge that you just can’t get at an average open mic night, and she had a mean way with a tambourine. She knew how to make her audience soak up her joy and reflect it right back to her, magnifying and multiplying it until the whole room was one giant elated crescendo.
Unfortunately, Rose’s Turn closed a couple of years ago, and I didn’t really think about Terri White again. That is, until this week, when an article about her appeared in The New York Times.
Not just an article: a fairy tale come true.
As it turns out, Terri’s sadder-but-wiser aura was no act: she’s hit rock bottom and then some. Last year at this time, she was homeless, and now? Well, now she’s wowing the crowd in Finian’s Rainbow on Broadway and making plans for a commitment ceremony. Good times and bum times — she’s seen them all, and my dear, she’s still here.
I could say more, but it’s best to refer you to the article again (and the video that accompanies it — you have to hear Terri sing!). It’s not just a great story; it’s a very well-written story. If Terri’s tale is a testament to both human will and human kindness, then the writing of it is a shining example of both careful reporting and caring about your subject.
The daughter of traveling performers, Ms. White has been performing in musicals since she was 8, and the language of the medium infects her life narrative.
That’s just plain good. What’s more, the lesbian "angle" is both incidental and integral to the article. That’s probably the best way to handle anything gay, and it’s not easy to achieve. (And bonus: we’re talking about lesbians of a certain age! That’s, like, the polka-dot unicorn of feature topics.)
Best wishes to you, Terri. Maybe it was Rose’s Turn once, but it’s your turn now. And thank you, Susan Dominus of the NYT, for reminding us all to keep on keeping on, preferably with a song on our lips and a tambourine at our hips. There’s gold at the end of that rainbow — even a cynic like me can see it shimmering.
I agree–it was a great article. FYI, Terri White’s new spouse, Donna Barnett, is the mother of Brett Berk, author of The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting, among other things. He did a very funny piece for the Advocate about his mom trying to “out-gay” him.
Oh, cool. Thanks for passing that along, Dana!
I was very touched by this article – how cool is it that you heard her in a venue like that? Well, obviously, so cool that it inspired this great blog post!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Brett Berk, scribegrrrl. scribegrrrl said: I could have called this blog post "Best Non-Lesbian Lesbian Article Ever": http://bit.ly/3zHHm2 [...]
Very cool…and not only lesbians of a certain age, but also of color…that’s a STRIPED POLKA DOTTED UNICORN…heh!
After watching the video of her singing, I can imagine the treat you had that night in the piano bar. I once had a similar experience in a fado club in Lisbon. There is fado and there is fado. When you hear talent, you know it.