Motherless Child

A MOTHERLESS CHILD is my story beginning as a two-month old baby boy in racially segregated 1942 Mississippi, whose mother died as the result of childbirth. Raised by an abusive Grandmother until the age of ten, when she chased me through the cornfield with a shotgun. After moving to Chicago, being bullied and street gang activity, I joined the Air Force by forging my birth certificate with the help of a community social worker in order to escape the streets. I returned to Chicago after four months with an honorable discharge and joined a traveling magazine crew selling periodicals to celebrities such as Chuck Berry and the Isley Brothers. I discovered my musical talent and pursued it to Hollywood and became romantically involved with the widow of a famed songwriter. My story details my involvement with Maurice White and the original group Earth, Wind & Fire, composing original music for a Cannes Film Festival award winning film and Lou Rawls. I wrote the facts about leaving the drug-infested Hollywood to work and reside abroad to return twenty-three years later and headline at the MGM-Mirage Resort for three years. In 2004, while en route to the Las Vegas airport, I suffered an automobile accident and died twice in one day. I am still active in the Entertainment industry as well as a motivational-inspirational speaker.