A Boy and His Soul

Colman Domingo

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781783190584
• eBook ISBN: 9781783195572
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Where do you get SOUL? From watching your parents sell the house you grew up in? From discovering the family secret about your crazy cousin? Or from the childhood records found in your parents' basement? From Stevie, Aretha, Marvin, Chaka, Barry, Gladys…and Colman. Propelled by the beat of classic soul, smooth R&B and disco, this is the soundtrack of a boy's coming of age in 70s and 80s Philadelphia. A Boy and His Soul was the recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award Best Solo Show, GLAAD Media Award Best Play On or Off Broadway and the ITBA Best Solo Show awards.

JAY sits on the corner of the stage thumbing through a heap of albums. Lots of Vinyl. Stevie Wonder’s “As”plays… then JAY takes the needle off of the record.

JAY: My parents were selling the house that I grew up in. 5212 Chancellor Street in West Philadelphia. The house that Mom bought for 15,000 dollars and made it our “bump and hustle” palace! The neighborhood that gave birth to Will Smith, Patti LaBelle, Wilt Chamberlain and Guy Blueford the first black astronaut! I was entering my mid thirties as a struggling artist in New York and struggling to stay on top of my parents affairs as they dealt with finances and aging. My parents were selling the only home that I ever knew and that was wearing me out!

My parents made the move “down south” after West Philly made its economic transition from loving educated working-class families to drug and thug central. Sad but one of the many black neighborhoods ravaged by Reaganomics to continue slavery under the guise of “ghetto!” But I digress.

My mom asked me to go to Philly to give the house a cleaning before the real estate broker went by. Years of neglect from renting the house out to a single mother with like two hundred kids, the house looked like a hot buttered mess! Water damage, mold, and paint chipped ceilings. Morning glories weren’t blooming in the backyard. The hardwood floors my stepfather sanded and refinished looked dull and tired. Ya’ll, my childhood home looked like a WORN OUT HO after fleet week!

I cleaned from the top floor to the basement. The basement was filled with all the left behind remnants of yesteryear: A filthy white artificial Christmas tree, the rusty E Z bake oven that my brother Rick made efficient use of by cooking my sister Averie’s doll heads in. A rotary phone with a cord that was stretched out for at least nine feet! My precious violin that had my nickname J.J., short for my middle name, Jason, engraved on the back. A cracked disco ball that was spinning at every famous, Clarence and Edie, New Year’s Eve “throwdown’s!” A stereo with an eight track player! In the far corner of the basement, stacks of dusty old crates. Left behind in the movin’ on up of the 1990s was the music that made our house a happy home. Filled with Soul!

(He puts a record on the stereo. It is “The Sound of Philadelphia”.)

This is the sound of a soul. Philly, New York, San Francisco and everywhere in-between! The sound of a backyard barbecue in the ghetto, the slick juicy sound of Don Cornelius, my nappy hair being picked out for Sunday school and watchful childhood eyes.

My Soul Music is my sanctuary, y’all…Soul Music is my life.

(He turns up the music…magically.)

This is the sound of my “Young America”. Double-Dutch and Penny Candy, Hot and Cold Butter Beans Come and Get your Supper! Corn Rows and Braids! Afros and Jheri Curls! Slow Drags and House Parties! Bass lines on a Rufus track! The roar of my Pop’s Pontiac Riviera and my brother Rick’s Kangol hat! This is the sound of my sister Averie’s ghetto girl strut!

(He enjoys the music.)

This is the sound of my heart, my feet, my eyes. The train as it moves up and down the east coast from dreams and the state of confusion to family and the state of confession. The quest to find beauty in this crazy ass world! The sound of my Mother’s love, the bass in my Pop’s throat, the sound of my loved one’s hands soothing the beast within, the sound of the weight that I will take the load that is to be carried! The heavens have sent angels with golden throats and Cadillacs. Diamond in the back, sunroof top diggin’ the scene with a gangster lean, Oooh Oooh!!!

This is the sound of RE RUN and SHIRLEY!
GOOD TIMES and fine ass THELMA!
SYLVESTER and DIANA! COOLEY HIGH
and UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT!

(He dances.)

I’m dancing for the sound that dances within me. In the name of the God Father, I thank you, I am your son, and I’ve got the Holy Ghost. I’ve got to give it up. I’ve got to…I’ve got to…I’ve got to get it on.

(Music fades out.)

Now that is the Sound of Philadelphia. M.other F.ather S.ister B.rother.

(The SWITCH song “THERE’LL NEVER BE A BETTER LOVE” pumps in.)

Philly Soul was the major player but the likes of Detroit, LA, and the other soul havens made their “Impressions!” Look at all this! Ahhh! … (He flips through the albums.)

Stevie Wonder

Marvin Gaye

Curtis Mayfield

Donny Hathaway

The Silvers with those big ass afros!

The Spinners

The Temptations

The Commodores

Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes

Gladys Night and the Pips…

LTD, Love Tenderness and Devotion…damn,

Can I get a Witness?

Luther Vandross

Barry White

Phyllis Hyman

Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan!

And Switch!

There’ll never be a better love.

(To an audience member.)

Are you even down with switch? Do you even know who switch is?

Let me tell you, there will never be a better love.

(He sings the proper opening lyrics of the song after the spoken word intro.)

There will never be a better love! Whooo!!! We listened to so much music in that house. How could they leave this music behind? A lot of the albums were warped and damaged but they still had glory on their grooves. That day in the basement the vinyl just hung in the air like ghosts. Dancing and cooing! Those ghosts were always there to shed some light in the darkness, put a smile on your face or put you in a sexy ass mood or to delve just a little deeper – to keep it real. You can’t help it, just from the intro you’re hooked –

(The ISLEY BROTHERS. “LIVING FOR THE LOVE OF YOU”.)

Awww shit. I just have to marinate on this for a minute. After almost burning down the backyard during a family barbecue, my uncle Jerome would be like,

UNCLE JEROME: Aw Yeah! That’s my song! Turn that up! Mmph! Hallelujah! Driftin’ on a memory…

JAY: Do you know this song? Do you? My family was all about this music. I was born into SOUL MUSIC. My Mom, Edie, came from a large and faithful family where not one but both of her parents were pastors of Baptist churches. The only time you heard secular music in my grandparent’s house was at big family gatherings where the visiting reverend, James Brown, took his cue. In my parent’s house, that is, my mom and stepfather’s, Soul Music was the Gospel. 2-4-7. (Sings.) Glad to be…here along with a lover unlike no other. My mom didn’t forget about spirituals on Sunday afternoons or a little Leontyne Price on Sunday evenings just to give us little chir’en a little culture (Leontyne Price singing Visi D’arte or something of the like creeps in.), although Leontyne would sing out for about 15 seconds before my stepfather Clarence would put his foot down and change the music to something that he believed was a bit blacker. (Leontyne cuts out – “Living for the Love of You” resumes).

Soul Music takes me to barbecues, block parties, family reunions, and car trips down south, where my mom packed deviled eggs sprinkled with paprika on top and fried chicken! Fried hard with lard! Soul Music takes me to those lazy summer nights taping your favorites off the radio after calling them in with a dedication to the girl you want to “go” with. (Mock young lover voice.) “Do I stand a Chance?”

Remember listening to 8 tracks and 45s? And cursing that someone broke the last yellow disc that goes in the middle so that you could play your jam on the component set. I used to love to watch the records drop one after the other.

In my family and many families like my own, Soul Music was a relative, that was loud as hell, always doing the “four corners” and always getting you up on your feet. It took me a while though. I was a rebel. I rebelled against Soul Music in my early years. I wanted to be like the high-class people like on Dynasty. You never saw Blake and Crystal Carrington doing the “tootsie roll” to a nasty Millie Jackson song. I was such a nerd growing up in the inner sanctums of West Philadelphia in the late 70s early 80s. Glasses, buck teeth, pimply skin, awful posture and a beloved relationship with the public library where I was free from the confines of inner city life to immerse myself in the Ancient Pyramids at Giza, or listen to the really sweet light-skinned librarian with the mushroom hairdo, read to me the latest Encyclopedia Brown mystery. My favorite. And when I wasn’t in the library, I was practising my precious violin, diligently, on the enclosed porch after school. My pop made the porch my rehearsal hall.

POP: Boy! If you ain’t gonna play something that I can sing along with and do the sho nuff sho nuff, put it out there on that enclosed porch. I just need to eat my chicken in peace. ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About this play with soul music
• Dedication
• Characters
• Musicplaylist
• Chapter