Citation : MON., FEB 12, 2007 - 10:55 AM
Denise's road to 'Idol'
GAYLE WORLAND
Last month, Madison teen Denise Jackson sweetly confided to one of the largest audiences in reality television history - 37.4 million viewers - that "I was born as a crack baby, as they would call them. A crack baby."
The declaration captivated "American Idol's" producers. It flabbergasted her family. It made a bystander to the interview cry.
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But for Denise - she was telling her truth. The "crack baby" tale is her own. Hers. Just like her singing voice: a rich, soulful sound, untutored and yet knowing, mature beyond her 16 years.
And like her stage presence: so charming, so poised, that it earned the La Follette High School junior nearly four minutes on "Idol," centerstage in what has become a 21st century pop-culture phenomenon.
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On Wednesday night, Madison viewers will learn whether their hometown girl is among 24 finalists selected on "American Idol" to belt it out in the show's sixth season. Denise already has beaten the odds, rising above 10,000 "Idol" wannabes in a Minneapolis talent search.
But those odds? Nothing. Not compared to her life, which, at times, has been harrowing. A brutal Chicago ghetto. Drug-addicted mother. Poverty. No father.
There's no guarantee she'll make the cut in Hollywood. In fact, chances are "American Idol" will send a disappointed Denise Jackson back to Madison this week.
And yet, she could surprise everyone.
She always has. •
Hard-knock Chicago life
Denise's grandmother, Elaine White, sent her to school for her third-grade class picture in a ruffly pink dress and patent-leather shoes, overflowing at the ankle in a fluff of lacy socks. In the photo - back straight, legs crossed at the ankle - Denise stares at the camera intently, her lips closed in a determined, solemn smile.
"My grandmother always says, 'You're too serious!,'" Denise says with a laugh, a few days after the airing of her first televised "Idol" audition.
Then her mood darkens. "You know how you're supposed to have a childhood?" she explains. In the Chicago housing project where Denise lived off and on, "You don't really get to have that childhood."
With a mother who was largely absent and a father who vanished before her birth, Denise grew up thinking at times that her eldest sister, Nicole, was her mom.
"I think I've seen things that you shouldn't see when you're a little girl," says Denise, who moved to Madison with her grandmother at age 9. "My sisters were in high school when I was younger, so they'd be out. My mom would say, 'I'm going out, I'll be right back.' She would be gone forever, like forever.
"Me and my little sister would just sit in the window. Honestly, the sun would be up; it would go down and come back up. Not one wink of sleep. I'd put some soup in the microwave or something. I had to take care of my little sister."
Those memories have shaped her songs, her voice, her character.
"I am a girl who loves to sing, sit in her room and have dreams," Denise wrote as a freshman, in a personal essay published in La Follette's literary journal. "I am from a girl who has two sides: night and day, who likes to do things the right way. I am from a song unwritten, a song untold. I am from a mountain of gold."
"She's a remarkably smart girl," says Beth Steffen, an English teacher at La Follette High School who's taught Denise for 2 years and calls her "an innate critical thinker, extremely perceptive and wise."
"Denise is very engaged with the real world. And she's very, very insightful," says Steffen. "She watches the news and pays attention to what's going on in the world outside of school. So she brings those strands of knowledge together in ways that are very sophisticated."
And while she is "one of the sweetest young ladies you would ever, ever meet," says Hanah Jon Taylor, a jazz musician and director of the Madison Center for Creative and Cultural Arts (MCCCA), Denise also has a voice that "has a maturity that exceeds her years.
"Denise has a sense of urgency in her voice that exceeds that of most young people," says Taylor, who knows Denise from music programs at the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County and the MCCCA. "A lot of young people watch MTV, and they clone MTV. When I hear Denise Jackson sing, I know she believes in what she's singing." •
Born to sing
Her voice "helps me get a jump-start with my preaching," says Larry V. Jackson, pastor of True Worshipers Community Church in Madison, where Denise has long been a member of the choral "praise team" and often sings solos for the 70- member congregation.
Denise first stepped into the spotlight on a Sunday at age 5. "My grandmother used to take me to church. All the time," she says. "I joined the choir. And I had a solo: 'As Long As I've Got King Jesus.' Everybody was shocked. (Saying), 'She's not 5!' "
"And that's what they say now," she adds. " 'She's not 16!' "
Now, Denise lives with her grandmother, mother, younger sister and various visiting relatives in a modest brick four-plex off Rimrock Road.
"Living in a household of five women - ugh," shudders Denise, who rolls her eyes in typical teen frustration when she describes sharing a room with sister Cierra, 14.
Denise's mother, Charmaine Brown, delivered her first baby girl at age 13. Four more daughters followed.
"When Denise was born, I was heavily into drugs," Brown explains. "I want everyone to know that I love all my daughters with all my heart. And if I could take back the things that hurt them during my drug addiction, I would, in a heartbeat."
White, Denise's grandmother, recalls: "When (Denise) was born, her mother was on cocaine. They weren't going to let her come home (with her mother). I had to go to the hospital and get her. I said (she is) not going to foster care. I will take her home."
"I would say that out of Denise's whole 16 years, 13 of them have been with me," continues White, who today supports Denise and Cierra with her pension from years as a VA hospital nurse in Chicago. Denise's mother, "so proud" of her daughter, has attended Denise's two recent concerts in Madison.
"She's doing good now" and helps care for White's own elderly mother and ailing sister in Madison, says White.
All of Brown's girls "were healthy babies," says White. "The doctors had warned us that they would go through withdrawal and stuff like that. But God blessed them, and they never did."
"God blessed me," agrees Denise. So criticism of her "crack baby" revelation on "American Idol" caught her off guard.
"It's not like I got on TV and lied," she says. "If it's the truth, it's the truth. I have nothing to be ashamed of. When I was interviewed, they asked me to tell something about myself, and I thought, what's so special about my life?" she says. "A lot of kids (born to mothers on drugs) have got defects or something's wrong and they have to suffer. I just thank God I came out with a gift.
"I was blessed instead of cursed." •
Absent father
The man legally listed as Denise's father was killed by gunshots when she was 2. Today her family believes that Denise's actual biological father was another man, a father she has never met.
"My sisters, my (family friends) knew him. But I don't know him," says Denise, looking down. "I would love to. My grandma says he's a sweetheart.
"People want to know their biological father, get to know them. And sometimes, you know, you look at other kids - they have their moms and dads and stuff. It kind of (hurts) that all my older (siblings) know my father, but not me. Because they're old enough to remember. And I probably wasn't even born. He probably doesn't even know he has a daughter that's 16."
At 5-foot-2, Denise has a figure that is lush, a presence that is friendly and warm, and a broad, toothy smile that she rarely reveals for the camera.
"People are like, 'Do you do that because you have a gap?,' " she says. "No! I hate smiling. I think if I did get my teeth fixed, I wouldn't smile. Because it feels funny. I can smile when I'm talking to somebody, when I wave to somebody, but to just sit there and smile out of the blue - I don't know."
But Denise has never flinched at being in the spotlight. Rafael Ragland, an old family friend, first heard her sing at a cousin's funeral. He knew she had something special.
Ragland had dreams of being a music star himself but left home at age 15 for the Chicago streets.
The fifth time he was thrown in jail, he says, he decided no more.
Now the father of two, Ragland, 28, co-owns a Madison moving business and is devoted to Denise's career. It was Ragland who pushed Denise to audition for "Idol." Ragland chose the gutsy song "You're Gonna Love Me," by early-'80s R&B star Jennifer Holliday, which she performed to wow the judges.
He produced her first CD in a studio set up in the back room of his business and filmed, then edited, a DVD about Denise's life in less than 24 hours to show at a late-January concert in Memorial Union.
"She feels like I'm the closest thing she has to a brother or a father," Ragland says. "She didn't have a lot of things when I met her, like clothes and things. I said, 'I haven't seen you around here,' and she says, 'I don't come outside because I don't have what other kids have. So I separate myself.'
"She said she sings herself to sleep. She sings around the house." And she told Ragland that her goal was to become a professional singer.
"I told her, 'I don't know any big-time people, but I can help you with music.' I was into music since I was 14," says Ragland. "If I had someone to mentor me, maybe I would've reached my goal - because I wanted to be a performer, too."
Denise had wanted to try out for "American Idol" since the show's debut but had to wait until she reached the minimum age of 16. When Midwest auditions arrived in Minneapolis last September, Denise's grandmother balked at letting her go. Ragland convinced her to give Denise a chance.
Family, friends, and Denise's pastor chipped in to help pay for the trip. Ragland says he gave up his apartment, using his rent money to pay for gas and overnight lodging.
But the "Idol" tryout process dragged on for several days. Ragland could no longer afford the $100-plus nightly motel costs. He was nearly broke.
"I called a guy I knew in Minneapolis and said, 'Do you know anywhere we could stay?,' " says Ragland. The friend offered an abandoned apartment that he was renovating; it had lights, but no heat.
"The next thing you see a mouse run across the floor," says Ragland. They tried to sleep, but Denise "was freezing. So I drove to Wal-Mart and wrote a check for a little $20 heater. We're all bunched up in this little room around this little heater."
The next-to-last day for auditions, Denise wore capri pants and a top from home. A judge told her to come back the next day for the taping "dressed like a superstar." Ragland's Minneapolis friend gave her clothes from his tiny shop.
"That's what you saw on TV," she says. "My superstar look."
The day after she was on "American Idol," she brought a DVD of the show to her English class.
"She played it and annotated it for us," says Steffen, her English teacher. "I think the other kids enjoyed her perspectives on the behind- the-scene aspects.
"A couple days later she said she was looking on the Web and 'People said mean things about me,' " recalls her teacher. "The kids were very defensive for her, (and asked), 'Why do you let them bother you? You're great!'"
Move to Madison
Until she moved to Madison in 1999, Denise had never met a white or Asian person. "The part of (Chicago) I lived in, we never saw these people," she says. "You heard all these stupid things about white people, like white people are mean, they're racist.
"When I came to Madison, I found the sweetest people you would ever meet." Still, she was terrified when she learned her fifth-grade teacher would be a white woman; she'd never had a white teacher. Today she speaks affectionately of how that teacher tried to get her interested in piano lessons. "She would take me out for ice cream," says Denise.
When Denise's grandmother recalls the support that Denise's singing has received from her schools, "I start getting teary-eyed," she says. "The teachers at Sennett (Middle School) and her teachers at La Follette, and the principals, have been so beautiful."
Denise says she has to finish school, or "my grandma would kill me. She wouldn't let me drop out. I wouldn't even drop out on my own," says Denise. "You know how hard it is to get a job with a high school diploma? Some people can't even get a job with a college degree."
Says White, "Sometimes I think things are moving a little too fast. I want her to finish school before she really gets into this 'other life,' as I call it. I was really against her going to 'American Idol' at first. But then I told her to stay focused and remember where you started from. God gave it to you; God can take it away from you."
On the Friday before Denise heads to Los Angeles for the next round of "American Idol" auditions, she's in Ragland's studio, wearing no makeup, a well-worn white cotton turtleneck and a pair of faded jeans. She admits being tired. She hasn't yet packed.
What if she doesn't beat the "Idol" odds?
She'll still come out ahead.
"If you want to be something, be something," she says.
"My grandmother calls me 'Beautiful,' " says Denise, flashing the bright smile that sometimes refuses to hide. "My sisters call me 'Superstar.' "
source:
http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/i ... 15&ntpid=3
--Message edité par felix le 2007-02-12 21:09:09--
