Rock band of disabled NY musicians finds success

FORT PLAIN, N.Y. (AP) — It's almost show time. Drummer David LaGrange is led to his kit with his cane hooked over his elbow. Nick Robinson wheels up near the curtain, his electric bass across his lap. Singer and guitarist Michelle King stands in the wings studying a piece of paper printed with: "Hey everybody, Do you know where we were two weeks ago? Athens, Greece ..."

The three musicians waiting to perform at Fort Plain's combined junior and senior high school belong to Flame, a rock cover band born five years ago at the Lexington Center, an agency here in the Mohawk Valley that serves people with developmental disabilities. All ten band members have disabilities, ranging from paralysis, to blindness, to cerebral palsy to mental retardation. They have played well over 300 paying gigs, recorded three CDs and tasted success far beyond their upstate New York stomping grounds.

Flame has flourished not merely by proving they can perform, but — led by King's radio-worthy voice — by doing it well.

 They are clearly a band with a difference. As members file onto the school auditorium stage, Lexington's Andrea Donahue tells them where to put their lunch packs and their coats. She palms down percussionist Paul Zuckerwar's hair, fixes backup singer Falon McBride's sleeve and leans in close to LaGrange to whisper advice and kiss him on the cheek.

Then they're ready to rock.

"Hey everybody!" King tells a raucous roomful of students as the curtain parts. "Do you know where we were two weeks ago? Athens, Greece!"

King strums her acoustic guitar and belts out "Give Me One Reason" in a full-throated voice that makes her sound like a ringer for Tracy Chapman. Switching gears to sing Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now," her voice soars: "Look all around, nothing but blue skiieeees ..."

Students in the audience, already happy to be out of class for a holiday assembly, are on their feet, clapping, swaying and — what the heck — crowd-surfing. LaGrange, though blind, hears the reaction from the crowd over his drums. He can sense the spotlight.

"I can feel the warm heat on me," he says later. "It makes me feel good."

LaGrange, 50, and bassist Robinson chug out a steady rhythm as Flame performs more than a dozen chestnuts from "Proud Mary" to "Mony, Mony." The band is rounded out by bongo players, backup singers and three "Shakettes," who dance and shake maracas. But it is King's voice that stands out.

King is 36, has autism and is mentally challenged. She speaks little now — at least off stage — and spoke even less as a child. But she has been singing since age 3, when she grabbed an open microphone at the Bronx restaurant where her mother waitressed before they moved upstate.

"I just have it," she says. "It's in my ear."

Flame was formed after King entered a talent contest at Lexington in 2003 and sang her favorite song, The Carpenter's "Rainy Days and Mondays." King won the contest and inspired the center's former recreation director to form a band from people at Lexington. LaGrange came up with the band's name after being inspired by the Special Olympics torch.

 Flame keeps a brisk tour schedule heavy on paid gigs at area schools, community centers and conferences. They have played in eight states. Maybe their biggest coup was playing earlier this month at the International Conference on Disability Legislation in Athens, Greece. They are set to play at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in February in Boise, Idaho.

Lexington public relations director Tim Fiori said the band members' original goal was to make money and get famous. But as Flame got bigger, Lexington officials realized the band serves the larger purpose of debunking stereotypes about people with developmental disabilities. They want to "change the world," Fiori said. They are living, singing examples for disabled people, their parents and everyone else.

Administrators at Lexington back the band energetically and shepherd them through tours. The band even has a Web site offering news, pictures and band merchandise(Flame caps sell for $15).

Band members get out of it what people in rock bands everywhere get — the joy of playing and singing, adulation from crowds and the buzz of breaking away from the more sedate rhythm of the workaday world. Seven of the band members work at Lexington's sheltered workshop, where jobs often consist of packaging coin boards used to raise funds for leukemia research.

But they live for the limelight, even is some can only feel it.

"I always had to be on stage," says Scott Stuart, 52, a Flame singer who is blind and has cerebral palsy. "I always wanted to be in show business and this is paving the way for me to really make a name for myself."

King especially comes alive on stage. She has some shimmy moves down and will hold her acoustic up like a guitar hero. By the time she sings the lone song she penned, "All for a Reason" — which she says is dedicated to all the people of New York and North America — her cheeks are glistening with sweat. She's smiling too.

"I want to keep going my whole life," King says after. "I'm never going to give up hope."