Church Boy

by Kirk Franklin

  The kids I had been hanging out with at the Professional Youth Conservatory had all disappeared from my life by this time. They had been a lot of fun, and we had been friends while I was still at school. But I never saw any of them again after I left.

  Finally, in December 1988, I landed a job selling pianos at the mall. It was during the holidays, and the store was pushing pianos and organs for Christmas. So they hired me as a combination demonstrator and salesman. I was supposed to play the pianos and show people how much fun it would be to own one.

  That was the easy part. I could get them interested in buying one, but, unfortunately, I was never able to take the next step and make the sale.

  I was having so much fun playing the pianos and entertaining people that I wasn’t doing much selling. Shoppers walking through the mall would hear the music and come over to where I was jamming, and before long there would be a crowd of forty or fifty people around me. But nobody was buying!

  Naturally, I was disappointed. I was getting a small hourly wage; the only way I could make any real money was with the commissions I would earn from making a sale. But I wasn’t making any! I was beginning to think I would never be able to hold a regular job like other people. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for it. If that were the case, then I needed to find some way of making a living in music.

  Just as I was thinking I had nowhere left to turn, a gentleman came over to talk to me. I was sitting there at the piano, probably playing some sort of gospel tune, and he said he liked what I was doing. He introduced himself and told me his name was Roy West and he was the senior minister at Greater Stranger’s Rest Baptist Church in West Fort Worth.

  Suddenly I remembered that I had met him several months earlier when I had played there with the Humble Hearts. So we got into a conversation, and he asked me what I was doing these days. I said I was trying to make a living selling pianos, but so far the only money I was making was as music minister at Immanuel Baptist Church.

  At that point, he asked if I’d be interested in coming over to lead the music at his church. I knew that Stranger’s Rest was an outstanding church with a very impressive music program. I didn’t have to think very long about my decision.

  This seemed like just the opportunity I had been praying for. How could I refuse? I was feeling like a failure at selling pianos, I had all kinds of financial obligations to meet, and I was desperate to start making some money so I could get my life back on track. So I said yes, and that would prove to be a very important step for me.

  Stranger’s Rest was the church where I was finally able to step out and get my feet wet in the music scene on a bigger scale than I had ever done before. Even though it was located in an area called Como, which was far from where I lived, it was a very popular church and had a well-trained choir that already knew how to sing.

  When I left Immanuel, I had to give back the car they had provided for me. I was going to need some wheels of my own, so I went out and bought myself a little Volkswagen bug. It wasn’t exactly the image I wanted to project, but at least it was transportation.

  I had turned eighteen by the time I started the new job, and I was beginning to get a feel for who I was and what sort of music I wanted to do. It was a good time, and I was beginning to think that maybe there would be an opportunity to take it to another level if I could just keep working at it.

  I had been around music all my life, and I had been doing it so long that I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. But this was the first time that I thought, Maybe I can actually make a living at this, and do it, serving God.

  A TURNING POINT

  At Stranger’s Rest, I had the chance to meet a lot more people in the music scene. The pastor’s cousin in Houston had a well-known minister of music named Michael McKay. He was a popular gospel artist, somebody I really admired. As soon as I met him, I knew this was somebody I wanted to be like. That had never happened before.

  I had never known even one person of whom I could say, Yeah, that’s what I want to be like. But McKay was different. His hobby was body-building. He was muscular and good looking, he knew how to dress, and he had a style all his own. He just had the look. When I saw him I thought, That’s it! I want to be like that.

  Stranger’s Rest already had a drummer, and that’s the first time that had happened. Most of the churches I had been with didn’t have regular bands. I could always bring in drums and supporting instruments when we needed them for programs, musicals, Christmas specials, and things like that. But these guys already had a regular drummer and a bass player too.

  But what really made the new position unique was that this was also the first time I didn’t have to be at the piano or organ the whole time. I could get up, take the microphone, and lead the music from the platform. That gave me the freedom to direct, to put something together and orchestrate the worship environment, a lot like I do now with the Family. So I started working on how I could make the music a special part of the service.

  This was a prominent Baptist church, and in the beginning a lot of people thought I was a little too wild. Maybe I was, at first. But I could see where I wanted it to go. I was still trying to establish who I was—trying to look like, act like, even sing like V. Michael McKay—but I wasn’t there yet. So I had to work a little harder to find a style of my own in the right format for these people.

  McKay was charismatic, and he was older than I was— around thirty or so at the time. So I looked up to him, and I really looked up to the pastor too. It was obvious that Roy West had a special anointing. And besides that, he was cool. A lot of young people came to this church because of his powerful preaching and his personal style.

  On May 7, 1989, my son Kerrion was born. I took his mother to the hospital then went straight back to the church because V. Michael McKay was doing a concert that night. I was so interested in getting into music by this time that even the birth of my son came second to a gospel concert. I think my priorities would be different now, but that’s how desperate I was to get something going.

  I wanted to do music for a living. I had thought about it a lot, and by this time there was a hunger growing inside me. Nothing fell from heaven and hit me on the head. Nobody walked up and offered me a contract. It just happened. When I went to this church, I developed a hunger to write and minister professionally. Stranger’s Rest was a turning point for my musical career.

  Before long I was working in two churches at the same time. On Sundays I was music minister at Stranger’s Rest, and on Saturdays I was doing the same thing at Grace Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church. I was doing double duty, but I really enjoyed it and needed the work. As it turned out, this second job was how I met the man who would eventually become my business manager, Gerald Wright.

  If anything, Adventist churches are even more reserved and traditional than Baptist churches, but I didn’t let that stop me! My musical style was a little wild for them at first, but they liked it. The choir started growing, so they didn’t complain too loudly. Gerald was the choir director at this church, and he really liked what I was doing, so that helped.

  It was no secret that I had fathered a child out of wedlock, so I didn’t have to go through all kinds of explanations and excuses. Both these churches were big enough that, even after the baby was born, they could deal with it.

  I was eighteen with a child born out of wedlock, and I was working through those issues myself and dealing with the spiritual consequences. But nobody at either Stranger’s Rest or Grace Temple threw it in my face. It was as if they were giving me another chance to get myself on track and to be the man I should be—and could be, with God’s help.

  At the same time, Stranger’s Rest was getting better known for our music, and new people were coming to the church because they had heard what was happening there. We were developing a really good sound, and one day I mentioned to Pastor West that I’d like to produce an album of our music. He said he thought that was a good idea, and he advanced me enough money on my paycheck t
o put something together.

  The first thing I did was call V. Michael McKay and another guy who understood the production side. I asked if they’d like to come up and help me. They said yes, so we produced my first recording in the sanctuary at Stranger’s Rest. That was in 1989, and in those days the “in” thing was to do recordings of gospel music with a live audience. So that’s what we did.

  I tried to do the album on my own. I didn’t really have the skills for it since it was my first effort at something like that. V. Michael McKay helped me with the recording as much as he could, but I don’t think it was meant for him to be very involved. I just did the best I could with my limited knowledge. We made the recording, and I thought we did a good job.

  I had used all of my own songs on the recording, including “Psalm 51,” “Every Day with Jesus,” and one or two others that I had written over the last couple of years. But it didn’t go any further than that. I wanted something on tape to show what we could do, and I hoped that maybe something would come of it. But I didn’t know how to take the next step, finding a record producer. So, for the time being, all I had to show for my work was that tape.

  WALKING THE WALK

  God was allowing me to develop a little bit of a name for myself, getting a little popularity and getting a little juice rolling. I was still struggling with income, because any fame I’d had up to that point was purely by association. To help conserve my resources, I moved in with Gerald Wright and started looking for a day job.

  I looked a long time but never found anything that suited my skills, so I finally took a job, through a temporary service, unloading trucks.

  I wasn’t especially strong or physical. I had never been much of an athlete, and I certainly wasn’t very big. By the end of the first day I thought I was going to die. By the end of the second day, I wished I could. I managed to stay on the job exactly one week until I collapsed, totally exhausted. I decided that was no kind of work for a piano player!

  Fortunately, a few music jobs started coming my way after that, and before long I got a call from my old teacher from O. D. Wyatt High School, Jewell Kelly, asking if I’d like to do some work with the Dallas/Fort Worth Mass Choir. She was director of the Fort Worth Mass Choir and was very involved in the whole gospel music scene at that time. The choir was put together by Milton Biggham.

  Once again, it was an easy decision. I said I’d love to do it, and a couple of weeks later we started into preparations. On the last night of the conference, in June 1990, we did a recording that included my song “Every Day with Jesus.”

  Up to that point, Dallas had always been the big show for gospel workshops; Fort Worth was somewhere down in the fine print. I wasn’t getting any attention at home. But once I started going over to work with the D/FW Mass Choir, I started getting to know some of the movers and shakers in the gospel community, and my name was getting around.

  I thought maybe the tape I had recorded at Stranger’s Rest could be a door opener for me. Even though I felt the recording was a failure at the time and even though I was disappointed that nothing ever came of it, I thought it still might be of some use in showing people what I could do. So I made sure I always had a copy with me.

  Jewell Kelly was the director of the Fort Worth choir, and the director of the Dallas choir was a guy named Bubba. Jewell was a good friend, and she wanted to give me a shot with some of my songs. But she felt she had to give all the other songwriters equal time. So I didn’t get as much opportunity to perform my stuff as I would have liked when Jewell was directing. But it was good exposure. I was becoming better known, and I think they realized that the songs that God gave me were pretty good.

  Unfortunately, the guy in Dallas was unscrupulous, and he didn’t bother about little things like copyrights or even saying thank you when he used somebody else’s material. He took my song “Joy” and included it on a mass-choir album that he recorded in North Carolina later that year. He even listed himself as the author on the album cover.

  He didn’t give me any recognition or any money, and my name was never mentioned anywhere on the album. I’m not sure what I would have done if he had made any money out of it. Fortunately, the album didn’t sell enough copies to worry about, and that was pretty much the end of it.

  From that point on, it seemed like steppingstones had been laid in my path. It wasn’t quite as clear to me when I was going through it, but looking back on it now I can see how God had orchestrated every step of the way. First, I was invited to participate in gospel workshops and mass-choir events in Fort Worth. That led, in turn, to an invitation to lead the D/FW Mass Choir, and that was a big break for me.

  For a Fort Worth boy to be invited to lead the D/FW Mass Choir was very special. I was a little nervous at first, but it was a great opportunity. I really enjoyed it. The best part was that I would have a chance to meet Milton Biggham, who was the big deal in gospel music. He had been invited to Dallas to hold a series of workshops and to oversee the taping of the “conference album” we would be recording live during the concert on the last night of the rehearsal.

  As I was getting ready to go over to Dallas, I realized that if I could just get Milton Biggham to take a look at my work, maybe he could give my ministry a boost. I didn’t have very much to show, but just in case I could get a minute with him, I stuck my extra copy of the Stranger’s Rest tape in my bag. I could at least do that. And sure enough, one afternoon I spotted Mr. Biggham coming down the hall.

  As soon as I saw him coming, I went over and said, “Mr. Biggham, I’m Kirk Franklin. I’m the minister of music at Stranger’s Rest Church in Fort Worth, and I wonder if you’d be willing to listen to a tape of some songs we recorded.”

  He told me he was in a hurry at the moment, but he took the tape and said he’d listen to it whenever he had an extra minute. Knowing how busy he was and knowing that most people don’t really keep their promises, I doubted that he would actually do it. But when I saw him the next morning he called out to me from across the room.

  He motioned for me to come over, and as I got closer, he said, “Boy, I listened to your tape. You’re pretty good. And you play the piano, don’t you?”

  I said, “Yes sir, I sure do.”

  He said my songs were good, but he really liked my piano playing. He was going to need somebody to play for him, and he wanted to know if I had a number I could do with the whole choir.

  “Yes sir!” I said. “Did you listen to the song ‘Every Day with Jesus’ on my tape?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s a good song. I like it just fine.

  Can you do that with the mass choir?”

  “Sure,” I said without hesitation. “I sure can, Mr. Biggham.”

  “All right, then. I want you to do it in rehearsal, and if it sounds good we’ll do it on the tape Friday night.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. They were going to record my song on the conference album for the D/FW Mass Choir! But he didn’t stop there. Milton also said he could see that I was a good music leader and he would like for me to help out by directing the choir and leading some of the rehearsals during the week.

  My heart was racing. I was thrilled. Not only would I be doing something I loved but Milton Biggham was “the man” in gospel music, and I knew that the recognition I would get by hanging around with him could only help.

  After that, I was a little better known. But when I got back home to Fort Worth, I was feeling let down. I had had a chance to meet some important people and lead the mass choir, and I even had one of my songs recorded. But I was convinced that was about as far as it would go. I assumed everything would just settle back into a normal routine, and I would just pick up my duties at the church as if nothing had happened.

  Even though I didn’t have a lot to show for my efforts, I now believe that was the time my professional career really began. I was becoming better known all over the metroplex as a pianist, and before long I was getting invitations to take part in gospel workshops in
Fort Worth, Dallas, and other places all over the country. I started to think that this stuff might actually go somewhere after all.

  INDECENT EXPOSURE

  The most important gospel music organization in the country is the Gospel Music Workshop of America, or GMWA. The association was started by the late Rev. James Cleveland, one of the first gospel artists to have a hit song make the national pop charts. Over the years the GMWA has become an important voice for African Americans and a major institution in the gospel music community.

  The GMWA holds a national convention each year in different cities around the country. And the person who guided the GMWA Choir throughout the eighties and early nineties was Milton Biggham.

  One day Milton called and said he wanted me to direct “Every Day with Jesus” at the mass choir in Washington, D.C. So in August 1990 I got on a plane and flew to the nation’s capital.

  I couldn’t believe it. There I was, a twenty-year-old kid from Fort Worth, Texas, flying off to Washington, D.C, and mixing with all those bigwigs. I got there on Monday morning, and they had me on the program the first day. They set us up for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday rehearsals plus a Thursday review and a final run-through.

  On Friday we would be giving a concert for an audience of more than twenty thousand people, and that’s when we would make the live recording for that event. That’s how they’re able to do an entire album in one week.

  I was still an outsider—just a wannabe—but all of a sudden I was hanging out with Milton Biggham, and that gave me some name recognition. He gave me the juice.

  Milton had introduced me, and since he was the main man, I was invited to what most people considered to be the single most important gospel workshop in the country. I was participating in week-long workshops, helping to rehearse the choir each day, then taking part in the live recording on Friday night. I had seen it done many times, but this time I was right in the big middle of it all.