YOU’RE a QUEER, a SISSY, GAY, a FAGOT; little words that do enormous damage to any person, but especially children, may be long forgotten by those who say them, but never erased from the memory of those who endure.
Unless he was in front of an audience, Jimbeau Hinson, Jimbeauhinson.com writer of Setting Fancy Free (The Oak Ridge Boys) Tonight I’m Looking for a Party Crowd, (David Lee Murphy) and other hits, was always a shy, quiet child.
“I always felt different from everyone else at the time, but I’ve come to realize I was only more sensitive. I tried to put on the hard shell that those around me wore, but it never worked for me. As a result, I had all this pent up, emotional turmoil that most kids don’t have. Music was my release; it was the only time I felt it was acceptable for me to speak, and when I opened my mouth to sing, all of those pent up, damned up, raw emotions came out that just made people go, Wow. I was loud and had a wide vocal range, and people just could not believe this was coming out of a little kid.”says Hinson.
Many creative kids feel different than those around them, and because society punishes rather than rewards differences, many creative geniuses seek out drugs and other means to satisfy that need to fit in. Our prisons are full of artist, writers, and painters, that fell by the way side, while others internalize and never learn to release those pent up emotions.
“Suicide is really high among kids, because they have never lived through that first, dark night, they don’t realize it gets better the next day, that the sun comes up, and things were not as bad as they seemed. Everything seems so magnified as a child, and they never make it through that first dark night.”
It was on a night such as this that Jimbeau Hinson climbed the water tower in Newton, Mississippi, and contemplated taking his life.
Jimbeau’s Journey From Contemplated Suicide to Hope
“I just came out singing, no one else in my family did, no one ever played any musical instrument, otherwise I would probably be a pretty good musician. Brenda Lee was my first singing idol and I just thought, “I want to do that” so I just mimicked everything she did.
Singing out in Honky Tonk’s since he was ten years old, Jimbeau feels really blessed to have had music in his life. Winning contest at his school in Newton, Mississippi, and local fairs, from Newton to Neshoba County, The Mississippi State fair came to Meridian and that got him on TV, local radio programs, and into clubs in Meridian and Jackson, singing with bands. He became like a Cameo Artist, and they would pay him $25 a week, and he would get up and sing three or four songs, and sit on people’s laps, and they would stick a tip in his pocket.
“Eventually I got the attention of Loretta Lynn when I was 14 at the Mississippi State Fair in Meridian. Loretta Lynn’s Rodeo was in town on tour, and when ask to hear me sing ,she was kind enough to listen, and impressed enough that she ask me to come back the next Saturday and put me on her show. After the show I got to hangout with her and she took me to a club in Meridian called Skyline or Skyview, and I played there for a year. Then the unthinkable happened: my voice changed, I lost pitch, and it took a whole year to straighten out. I had had three record companies in Nashville, including RCA, looking to sign me, but as a result of the voice change I lost those deals, and all my club gigs. From there I spiraled down into a horrible depression”.
That was when Jimbeau climbed the old water tower in Newton, Mississippi, and considered throwing himself off of it.
“I thought my life had ended, but once I got up there and looked around, and though about my short lived , little pitiful life, I started thinking about everything: Collecting Coke bottles in my bicycle basket, WBKN, the radio station that I played at every Saturday afternoon, along with Skinny Lang and The Southern Play Boys, and I looked over at Hudson’s Funeral Home, and thought they would probably lay me out a lot flatter than I was at the time, and how sad everyone that had picked on and made fun of me would be, but I then realized they probably would not miss me. Everyone was growing up and into girls and sports, and here I was this weird little kid that was totally uncool and sang country songs, and at that point they really were not concerned with me, I was just as invisible, as I had tried to be.
I had been told I was a Queer before I even knew what the word meant, and at first I thought that explained why I felt different from everyone else, but then I leaned in church that a Queer was an abomination to God, so that meant that even God did not want me. So I felt totally hopeless.
I remember looking up at the stars and thinking how huge they were, how many there were, and how little I was, then I looked down at Newton, and I thought, no one is really going to miss me, and I realized there was nothing down there worth splattering myself over. The people of Newton are good, God fearing, honest folks, but my dreams were not tied there. My dreams were with music so I climbed down off the tower and decided my goals were going to happen, I was going to make them happen.”
Within a year of that dark night, Jimbeau signed his first publishing deal with Loretta Lynn’s publishing company, “The Wilburn Brothers”.
I made it through the dark night, I didn’t jump, and I want kids to know there is hope, don’t do that, don’t take your life. We don’t need to push our kids to the point they do something like that.”
Looking back Jimbeau is shocked to see how past the past has grown up behind him, how the negativity, hurt, and hard feelings from his childhood, are only splinters of discontent he has carried around. The people from his childhood that were once mean to him , now act like they are happy to see him, and act like the past never happened or they don’t remember.
“I wasn’t the only one that was made fun of: If it wasn’t how you walked or talked, it was the color of your skin.
Also, we need to give some thought to the way we try and turn men into men, If you grind the very center of a man, all you end up with is an A** hole.”
As an adult, Jimbeau came to realize that he was like a frog in a pond, and the frog on the log next to him felt the same way; all the picking and making fun done by others, was not about him at all, but was more about their own insecurity, their own need to feel important, and he harbors no hard feelings, but the pain never completely goes away, it just takes a new form and some turn it into a positive instead of a negative. Jimbeau turned his into a positive and you can too.
In addition to all the hit songs, and recordings of his songs by numerous Artist, Jimbeau, has been married to the love of his life, Brenda fielder, for 34 years, and now has a deal with Wrinkled Records.
No matter how dark the night, the sun, the moon and the stars will continue to shine, and you have something to offer that no other human can. You were created unique by The Maker of the Universe, and your life is important; there is not, and never will be, another you.
Now, I am going to leave you with the words to a song called Stones, from Jimbeau’s CD, Strong Medicine It pretty well says it all.
STONES
Copyright: JIMBEAU HINSON/KIM TRIBBLE/JON MICHAELS
BARELY OLD ENOUGH, TO CALL IT LOVE
SHOWIN’ OFF, SKIPPIN’ ROCKS ACROSS THE WATER…
STONES, I HANDED ONE TO YOU, YOU PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET
SAID YOU LOVED IT, SAID YOU’D KEEP IT FOREVER…
STONES….
CHORUS:
ONE BY ONE THEY MARK OUR PASSAGE
ALONG THIS WINDING ROAD WE’RE ON
WITH EACH TURN WE TAKE
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE
OUR LIVES ARE PAVED WITH… STONES
VERSE:
A TINY VELVET BOX, ONE PERFECT LITTLE ROCK
A LITTLE THING, IT’S JUST A RING
BUT IT SAYS â€MARRY MEâ€â€¦
STONES WE’LL BUILD OURSELVES A HOME
WHERE LOVE’S THE CONERSTONE
WE’LL HAVE CHILDREN, THEY’LL HAVE CHILDREN
TIL THEY ROLL OF ON THEIR OWN…
LIKE STONES……
CHORUS:
ONE BY ONE THEY MARK OUR PASSAGE
ALONG THIS WINDING ROAD WE’RE ON
WITH EACH TURN WE TAKE
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE
OUR LIVES ARE PAVED WITH……
BRIDGE: BIRTHSTONES, STEPPIN’ STONES, SKIPPIN’ ROCKS, AND DODGIN’ LOTS OF, STICKS AND STONES AND I’VE BEEN ON… BOTH SIDES OF… THROWIN’ STONES
TAG: YEARS ARE LIKE THE WIND, THEY’RE HERE AND GONE AND THEN, THEY’LL BLOW AWAY, OUR EVERY TRACE, ALL EXCEPT OUR NAMES ENGRAVED… IN STONES
REPEAT CHORUS:
We are all connected, It isn’t necessary for you to make big changes in the world in order to change the world , sometimes all it takes are small acts of kindness. Only love changes the word into a better place.
You can buy Jimbeau’s new CD, STRONG MEDICINE at: http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Medicine-Jimbeau-Hinson/dp/B009B1LTT0
Coming soon: Jimbeau’s rise to the top, his battle with the AIDS Virus, meeting the love of his life, his wife of 30 years, Brenda Fielder, and how love changes
1 comment
Reading this I cant help but to think yet again of a little girl who was on here saying she had no one in her real life and did not have fb she had absolutely no1. And even here she was treated badly and pretty much told she should leave just not in those EXACT words. Kids being mean to each other is bad enough but you know you live in an evil world when adults can treat little kids just as bad. I will always wonder what happened to her