the blues is living below my floor
by kelle olwyler

There are always things to be grateful for, and one of mine is the good decision my husband Max and I made in renting our apartment—normally reserved for a single tenant—to a young couple recently arrived from France.
Joshua and Aurelie Singleton quietly moved in, and it wasn’t until a month later that I discovered I had a hot blues singer living below my living room floor.

I liked him from the start. He’s pure politeness with a hint of mischief dancing at the edges of his eyes. Max and I are older than Josh’s parents, and he insisted we let him know when it came time for lifting heavy objects and getting home safely in driving rain. You’ve got to love someone who goes out of his way to notice and to want to help.

After Josh had been in the apartment a short while, he let on he was into music, “a blues singer, and I play the blues harp.” It wasn’t until a road trip to Little Rock, somewhere between Memphis and Carlyle, that Max slipped a CD into the player and someone I’d never heard before was belting out sexy, deep, gravely blues from our auto speakers. “Who the heck is that?!?” I asked Max. Max looked at me, smiled, and said, “That’s your tenant, Sweetheart.” No way! Oh, yeah, it WAS Joshua. This quiet, slender young man was carrying a musical, soulful voice inside him that just aches to be let loose in the world. My curiosity was endless, and he was willing to step out of his shyness to little by little let me hear his story.

Joshua Singleton, from Jackson, Tennessee, was born into a world of music. His mother, Diane Singleton, a long-standing singer/songwriter, began her musical career in the 1950’s at 4 years old, singing with Little David Wilkins, famous in the 50’s country genre. Through high school, Diane had her own impressive career singing with big names like Dolly Parton and Barbara Mandell (just to name a few!). She fell in love with a preacher and married, leaving her singing career behind to become a full time wife and mother. But she didn’t leave behind her songwriting or her love of music, and she instilled that same love in her two boys, Joshua and his younger brother Jonathan. “My mother gave me my first set of drums on Christmas day when I was 4,” Josh reflected at our dining-room table. “We had an old REALISTIC brand record/8-track player then. I put on an Elvis Presley album—the one with Burning Love —as loud as I could, and began banging away. I banged to that record over and over again!” By the end of the day, he was in the groove. Not many mothers would be brave enough to give a 4-year-old a set of drums as his first instrument. But it was obviously a good decision, because he really did have rhythm in his young bones from that day forward.

Music and family have been the mainstays of Joshua’s life. “My father was a preacher and we moved around a lot. I learned to depend on my family first, to be close to them and trust them.” His mother’s side of the family was the musical side. “My great grandfather gave me my first harp (harmonica). He made bluegrass, gospel and melodies sound so good on the French harp. And while he played, my great grandmother always danced.”

Both boys followed in the footsteps of their mother’s side of the family and took a musical path. And from the time Joshua first banged on that drum so many years ago, he’s been tied to some musical endeavor or another. He sang in church and played drums in garage bands, school bands, and rock-and-roll bands. It was a rock-and-roll band he drummed for at 16 years old that inadvertently sent his musical career in a new direction. “The lead singer was so horrible, the band let him go; we brought in another drummer, and I took over the job of singing.” And that was a good move, because the world would be missing out if it couldn’t have Josh’s throaty singing. So now he had drums, harp, a developing blues voice, and already lots of experience in his musical grab bag.

He attended a college in Mississippi on a music scholarship. Every class, every day, revolved around music—he was part of the college’s’ “country” band, learned 40 songs per semester, played high schools and fairs for credit (how cool is that?!?). He added guitar to his repertoire of instruments, and after an intense, close-to-burnout time, escaped to New Mexico to play in a touring band. He got to know the Midwest from the smoky stages of clubs and bars and on-the-road moments before he took a turn toward Florida and a calmer life at a varsity show. That was another good thing, because it was there he met his wife, Aurelie, who was doing a school internship at the varsity fair. “I met Aurelie in a bowling alley. I’d seen her; I had my eye on her. I knew from the very beginning she was the one, but I had to work hard at getting her to realize it!” Once the summer was over and Aurelie returned home to France, Joshua followed her one long month later.

The interesting thing about Joshua is that wherever he goes, he seems to find musicians and bands who want his voice in their band. Once in Poitiers, France (Aurelie’s home town), with Aurelie as interpreter, Joshua was able to learn from local music stores who the best musicians were. He looked those people up, and the next thing he knew, he was back in the music business, singing blues to appreciative French audiences. As Aurelie continued to get internships in the US, they bounced back and forth between the two countries, each time, Joshua easily finding a band to form or join.

He’s innovative for sure, and his musical angel hooks him up wherever he goes, and in unexpected ways. “I’ve played ‘southern-fried’ funk, rhythm and blues, rock-and-roll, country, and swing.” He was with The Smoking Jackets, a rhythm and blues band he started, when he heard of a club looking for a swing band. Joshua took their blues repertoire, “added about 50 beats per minute,” until it constituted swing, and got the job. That swing became a regular Wednesday night gig where, for the last hour of the show, he could play whatever he wanted . . . like the blues! That’s where Joshua’s gravely voice began making a name for itself in the Southeast. “Next thing you know, we’re opening for some pretty big band like North Mississippi Allstars, and artists like Carey Bell and Magic Slim.”

When Aurelie’s internship took them to Sweden, while at the beach one day, Josh heard live music floating on the ocean breezes of the small village they were in. He followed the music to a warehouse, stepped through the door and came face to face with a blues band that knew how to play! “I’m a singer,” Joshua said. “Will you let me sing a song?” That’s where he spent the afternoon. Next day, they contacted him and asked if he’d join their band on a permanent basis. Joshua was back in business . . . again. The band often played in Stockholm and at various festivals. He was getting a good geography lesson, while having the time of his life.

With marriage on the horizon and going through the drawn out process of getting Aurelie’s resident card, Josh responded to an ad for a singer for a band in St. John, Virgin Islands. They moved to St. John for 3 months and Josh played most nights. “We only left because we had two weddings planned: one in Tennessee and one in France, and the dates were immovable.” With weddings over, they arrived back in Tennessee with their future a blank slate. And Asheville called.

“Music, Aurelie and family are everything to me,” says Joshua when he thinks of what matters to him about life. “I’m very close to my father. I know that no matter where I am, if I called my father and asked him to come, NOW, he would be here without any kind of hesitation. And I would be there for him in the same way.” His mother’s father was his idol. “He was intelligent, led a simple life, and was a happy man. I hope to be those three things some day.” Joshua thinks he’s closer to happy than the other two; “I’m working on simple right now.”

Joshua thinks about being a dad, and he’s had the blessing of his own family to give him something to guide him. “Ultimately,” he knows, “children are going to make their own decisions. I hope I can give guidance when asked, and let go at the time I’m meant to let go.”

Through gentle conversations, Joshua’s help stringing my own guitar, and French style coffee that Aurelie invites us to on occasion, Joshua proves out to be a young man I would be proud to have as my own son. I’m impressed with his parents for doing such a good job in raising this talented, and best of all, big-hearted man. He thinks for himself, and he’s not afraid to show love, while doing so quietly. I always get a good feeling when I hear him playing his guitar and floating that bluesy voice up through my floorboards. I know Joshua won’t be living down below forever. He’ll put a band together that will carry him and his sweet wife to other parts of the state, the country, the world. But he is someone whose career I will always follow. I hope I get to meet his children. And I hope that for years to come, he will continue to occasionally drop into my dining room and spend a couple hours gifting me with his music. Maybe he’ll even write me a song . . .

 

Kelle Olwyler is a “story harvester.” Through interviews with clients she determines what defines them when they are operating at their very best. She works with them to intentionally bring that part of themselves to everything they do. Kelle works with individuals and groups. She is a non-fiction writer and songwriter who easily crosses cultural boundaries as she was raised in central Mexico and has worked in eleven countries around the world. [ 828-254-8049; kelbergan.com ]