My earliest memory of music was when I was about five years old. My parents used to sing at weddings and they would take us along. Their big wedding song was Natalie Cole’s “Inseparable.” They used to sing it and it sounded so good to me. All kinds of feelings would wash over me when I heard them singin’ that song. I would watch them and I could actually feel the love that song was tryin’ to express. It made me think that being married was a great thing.
Rico and I would imitate them in the bathroom at home. We would imitate all the facial expressions and hand gestures. We would stand up on the toilet and make sure our facial expressions made us look like our parents. My brother used to practice putting his hand underneath my chin, just like my father used to do to my mother.
One day, my parents heard us imitating them and came to see our bathroom show. They were impressed, and the next time they sang at a wedding, my father introduced Rico and me as the “couple” who was going to perform “Inseparable.” We were shocked that my father did that, but we had practiced it so much in the bathroom, we just knew we could do it. I remember walking to the microphone. I was nervous at first. Remember, I was just five. I looked over at Rico, and he smiled at me and made me feel better. The first note that I hit made the bathroom scene come to life for me and I was no longer nervous. The further along in the song we got, the more I could feel the audience’s reaction.
People were amazed at how good we sounded. My father got so many compliments that he decided to put the family together and form a group. We were called the Barrino Family. We toured the Carolinas and other cities in the South, blessing church services, revivals, and concert halls with our sweet harmonies and moving lyrics. The Barrino Family was famous for the little five-year-old girl with a grown woman’s voice. That was me—’Tasia. People used to tell my parents they couldn’t believe that such a big voice was comin’ out of such a little girl! I sometimes think all of my mother’s dreams for her musical career were rolled up into my big voice. A voice that was given to me by God.
In the band, my dad played bass and directed us kids, and my mom wrote the songs and gave us the key to sing in. I was the one who wanted to sing all the time. I never complained. I was too young to understand all of the details of being on the road and needing money to sustain us. All I knew was that I was a singer and that meant everything to me—even when I was five. Singing was the only place I ever wanted to be. Rico also loved singing, but Tiny had another idea about being on stage. Tiny always wanted to be “cool,” and he felt that he couldn’t go to school and be cool the next day with a reputation of being in his family’s gospel group.
My father was a perfectionist and struggled with creating a band with three kids as the key members. His perfectionism was hard for us to deal with, and he was equally frustrated by our childish imperfection. We would practice the songs every day until they were just right. He would make us stay up until one and two in the morning, until the song was just how he wanted it to be. He was equally hard on all of us if we weren’t perfectly clean and neat or if one hair was out of place. And when he came home, if the house wasn’t spotless, I would get into big trouble. My father needed everything to be perfect: the music, the house, and his appearance. It used to take my father three hours to get dressed. I remember him being so clean-cut and well dressed. I still love to see a well-dressed man. All of my father’s unfulfilled childhood dreams seemed to have been haunting him and making him mean. When we would perform, Rico and I did everything we could to do our best—if for no other reason than just so we didn’t disappoint Daddy. I always remember that look on his face when he was happy. His face shined with pride and ownership.
Whenever we would have a bad performance, I remember my father fussin’. He would say angrily, “You need to do better. Remember your notes!” Tiny was always in trouble. But Tiny never cared about my father’s reaction, so he would come to the stage with a hairbrush and start brushing his hair on stage in the middle of a song. Rico and I were always too scared to do anything like that. I will never forget when Tiny took that brush out and started brushin’ one
