"Imagine yourself a store manager for a St. Louis clothing store by day and a singer in a local band by night. That was me for a while. But then in 1987, I moved with my husband/bandmate to Los Angeles to gain more notoriety.
Fast forward, I end u...
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You ever experience that moment when all of a sudden you hear the clock ticking? That same clock that's been sitting there all day but in that moment, its ticking comes to life? I finally noticed the tick-tock of Darryl Phinnessee's clock after hours of sitting on his sofa at one something in the morning. We had such a crazy day.
Rewinding a little, this all started when Darryl auditioned his vocals to go on tour with Michael Jackson. This was a while ago and they kept him on standby, waiting for a callback. In the meantime, he was offered a two-year contract on Dolly Parton's new show but he really wanted to tour. So he waited on that call and he got it, but it was a no. Michael wanted to hire a group that sang together all different genres of music, but Darryl quickly convinced them to give him a second audition with "his band". They said cool. But Darryl didn't really have a band. So he called me: his musical friend, and also a guy named Kevin Dorsey and another named Dorian Holley.
We all met at Darryl's house and rehearsed for about four hours. Then went out and bought some of Michael's records, learned them, and was on our way to our audition at 6.
Michael wasn't there, just a guy and a camera. His name was Nelson Hayes. He was one of the production coordinators for the show. When he asked us to introduce ourselves to the camera, we forgot to come up with a name. So over Darryl's stumbling, I blurted out, "Harm-honey."
"Harmony?" Nelson asked.
"Like honey and harmony." The guys looked displeased through their plastic smiles but it was the best I could do. I just wanted to sing.
For Nelson's camera, we sang our acapella followed by Michael's songs and then that was it. In less than 30 minutes, we were on our way out and all headed to Darryl's house afterwards.
While hanging, Dorian and Kevin drifted off to sleep on the couch which left me and Darryl to entertain one another. And that didn't last long. We were beat but too anxious to sleep.
So there I was, just sitting on the couch, staring at the wall, thinking and listening to the clock ticking...wondering if my life would be changed by time I walked out of this house...or would it just be tired bones and a belly of disappointment coming home with me.
The ringing of the phone made the tick-tock disappear. Darryl ran to the kitchen to answer.
I knew we got the gig when I heard him repeating "thank you". I ran to the kitchen to join him in celebration and he gave me the biggest hug. We made it, baby!
We woke up the others and let them know the good news, well great news I should say. It didn't really set in with us right away. We were all so amped that we were about to be out on the road and it took Darryl to remind us who we would be roading with. It was crazy because we all were just doing Darryl a favor. We literally got that call from him less than 24 hours ago. It all happened so fast. I couldn't believe Michael Jackson really chose us.
