A Song on Broadway

It has been quite a year for me, with the release of the new TEDx talk and a beautiful calendar of events. I’m deeply grateful, and somewhat baffled, to find that my career seems to be on an upward trajectory here in the second half of my fifties.

But Broadway? That wasn’t even on my life-time bucket list, much less my calendar.

On October 12, I received a note from a friend via Facebook saying that she had read a review of the new revival of the classic play, Our Town, on Broadway, and that it mentioned that the play opens with the song, Braided Prayer, by Abraham Jam. She sent the article, and there it was. Jim Parsons, of the Big Bang Theory, plays the lead character in an impressive cast.

Abraham Jam is a trio comprised of Billy Jonas, Dawud Wharnsby, and me (a Muslim, a Jew, and a Quakerterian Christian). We aren’t touring these days, but we are working on recording a new song together, and we remain the closest of friends. We put out two albums and a short documentary about the band in our decade together.

When we were recording our 2019 album White Moon, we stumbled on an interweaving of some sacred text from each of our traditions. Billy and Dawud sang/recited melodies that accompanied the Sh’ma and the Fatiha, and I came up with a melody that fit with the other two for the Lord’s Prayer, which I sang in Spanish. That a cappella recording became our song, Braided Prayer.

I have not yet seen the play, but as I understand it, the play opens with an actor sitting at a piano playing just a handful of notes, as though he is trying to remember a melody. Then a song plays over the sound system while the whole cast gradually assembles on stage, walking down through the audience and in from the wings. That song is our own Braided Prayer. Our recording. Our voices. The opening of the play. I don’t have a file folder in my head to store that information. Mind blown.

Richard Thomas is also an actor in the play. I watched him as Johnboy on The Waltons when I was a kid (my favorite character on a favorite show). Now he has heard me sing a hundred times. I would love to go back in time and tell my 13-year-old self that this would someday happen. And he would be blown away that I ended up getting paid a bit of money for it, too.

The most moving thing that has come from this, though, was this note from Jessica Dixon on Facebook:

I know you have many more important things to worry about right now David LaMotte. But I have a story that involves you. A friend and I went to see Our Town on Broadway tonight. Perhaps an odd show to see (about the romance and marriage of a couple, and then the death of one) but it turned out to be the perfect catharsis for my first wedding anniversary after my husband’s death. We sat down and waited for the show to start, the lights go down and the actors start walking down the aisle for the entrance, and the next thing I hear is your voice. It literally froze me for a moment. I have found such comfort in your music over the years. As the sound of your voice and those of your Abraham Jam partners prayed the words of Braided Prayer I was overwhelmed. It was beautiful. But then I doubted myself the rest of the show. Was it really them? Sure enough when I checked the program after the show, there you all were.

Amidst all of the excitement of how glittery it sounds to have a song on Broadway, and to have famous people hear our music (as though they matter more than others), this is the part that truly matters. In a moment that she needed it, a friend who needed some comfort found it in our song.

I am hoping to get to NYC to see it after Christmas, and that will be great fun. In the meantime — I’ve got a song on Broadway. Thanks for celebrating with me.