You haunt me in my dreams
I’m calling out your name
I watch you fade away
Your love is not the same
I’ve figured out your style
To quickly drift apart
You held me for a while
Planned it from the start
All alone in love
I was in eleventh grade.
I distinctly remember one night—bleeding into morning. The pink of dawn was seeping through the edges of the deep-purple night sky, and I didn’t know where the hell I was, again. Somewhere on the Taconic Parkway, or maybe the Cross Bronx Expressway? Clutching the hard-plastic steering wheel of my mother’s rickety old Cutlass Supreme, I tried to stay focused on the road and not stress over the needle of the gas gauge that stayed twitching on E.
Every day was a struggle, with me trying to find my way home after work just to grab a few hours of sleep before I had to get to school. I’d recently graduated out of the Long Island music scene. My brother (who was also trying to make a name for himself in the music industry, as a manager or producer—I’m not sure what) had introduced me to a new crop of session musicians and studio engineers in the city—New York City. I began commuting to The City to do sessions at night and then would turn right back around and head to The Island to get to school the next morning. So began my first double life (kind of).
Very few of my peers at school knew what I was doing. They didn’t know I was driving alone on highways, getting lost at midnight, collapsing on my bed, then dragging myself to school. They didn’t know why I was late every day. I didn’t talk about it because I knew it would sound crazy—and most people didn’t have the ability to really believe as hard as I did. Besides, the kids I knew didn’t need to believe. They were getting new cars, Camaros and Mustangs, for their sixteenth birthdays. They had their paths mapped out and were well financed for generations to come. Most were certain they were going to go to college. They had a guaranteed life already planned out for them.
I remember that once, one of the most popular jocks in the school asked me what I was doing after graduation. I usually didn’t tell any of the kids around about my dreams, but in this case I did. I told him I was going to be a singer and songwriter. His response was, “Yeah, right; you’ll be working at HoJo’s in five years.” (HoJo’s was short for Howard Johnson’s, the chain of hotels and restaurants that was still widely popular then.) The degradation was totally intended.
As it turns out, in less than three years, in a simple black dress, with a head full of curls and a stomach full of, yes, butterflies, I walked through a packed stadium among the deafening buzz of tens of thousands of voices. A loud, clear voice cut through the cacophony: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Columbia recording artist Mariah Carey for the singing of ‘America the Beautiful.’” The piano track was recorded by Richard T. I held the little mic and sang that big song with everything I had. I hit a really high note on “sea to shining sea,” and the stadium erupted.
When I finished, the announcer said, “The Palace now has a queen, and the goose bumps will continue.” It was Game 1 of the NBA finals, between Detroit and Portland. I knew that the jock who condemned me to HoJo’s (no shade on anyone in service work, because I’ve been there), and everyone who had looked down on me, and millions of Americans were watching. None of the players, none of the fans knew who I was when I walked in, but they would remember me when I walked out. A victory.
Another very early high visibility big breakthrough moment: “Vision of Love” was number one on the R & B charts before it was in the top spot on the pop charts, and so my national television debut was on The Arsenio Hall Show. Arsenio was more than a host; he had more than a late night show; it was a cultural event, a true Black experience—or, rather, it was a mainstream entertainment show seen through a Black lens. Everyone watched it and talked about it everywhere. I will always be grateful and proud that it was on Arsenio’s stage that most of America got to see my face, know my name, and hear my song for the first time.
In my teens, living in a constant state of exhaustion and exhilaration became my new normal. But with every mile driven and each dawn met, I was more and more determined. My ambition grew to the level of devotion. And the hard-earned blessings were beginning to come down. My brother did manage to connect me with a reputable producer and writer named Gavin Christopher. Gavin had written big hits for Rufus (the band for which Chaka Khan sang lead) and produced songs for Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. We instantly clicked and began working together to produce one of my first professional demos. I also met his girlfriend, Clarissa, another singer, and we got along well. I liked them both, and I could feel the stirrings of a new life in the city appearing before me.
Making valuable connections in New York City was certainly crucial to my career, but getting out of my mother’s house was no longer just a desire, it was a necessity. When I was younger I had no control over our constant moves and my mother’s consistently poor choices in men. In my last year of high school she began dating a guy I despised. He was petty and manipulative. On Thanksgiving we all went out to dinner, and he actually insisted that I and my nephew Shawn (who was in middle school), Alison’s first son, pay for our portions of dinner. He divided up the
