NEWSPAPERS Special Edition
JANUARY 29, 2025
candgnews.com
Macomb County and Grosse Pointe papers
Chris Burk continues to facilitate the Warren Reading Group after 20 years. “Reading and books are my passion. It’s dharma,” she said.
Facilitator turns the page on 20 years with reading group
FOR CHRIS BURK, READING AND BOOKS ARE HER PASSION AND DHARMA
BY GENA JOHNSON gjohnson@candgnews.com
WARREN —This month, Chris Burk celebrated 20 years as the Warren Reading Group’s facilitator, providing a “warm and welcoming” atmosphere for readers to “dig deep” into books and share their insights and experiences.
Burk has led the group globe-trotting around the world, ushered them as they became professional sleuths and solved mysteries, and accompanied them to history’s most triumphant and tragic moments, all by turning the pages in the books.
After the exhilarating voyages, Burk would lead the readers through an examination of every part of the story including the characters, plot, pacing, subject and more.
See READING on page 8A
Lives of local domestic workers explored in Invisible Labor’
BY K. MICHELLE MORAN kmoran@candgnews.com
GROSSE POINTE SHORES — They were the people — mostly women — who spent their lives cooking, cleaning and caring for the children of the elite, but their stories have largely been forgotten. Until now, that is.
“Invisible Labor: The History and Impact of Domestic Workers in Grosse Pointe and Detroit,” on display through Feb. 25 in the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House Visitor Center in Grosse Pointe Shores, is an exhibition researched and prepared by University Liggett School students that
Photo provided by University Liggett School
“Invisible Labor,” an exhibition about 20th century domestic workers in the Grosse Pointes and Detroit, is on display now at the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House Visitor Center.
Photo by Patricia O’Blenes
SECOND FRONT PAGE
CENTURIES-OLD TREE ENDANGERED BY NEW DEVELOPMENT
BY ANDY KOZLOWSKI akozlowski@candgnews.com
STERLING HEIGHTS — Just south of where the Clinton River crosses Van Dyke Avenue is a tree that may predate the founding of the United States.
Estimated at roughly 270 years old, it’s a rare chinquapin oak, 88 feet tall and 14 feet around — the seventh largest of its kind in Michigan.
But now, after surviving centuries of change, the proud tree may have finally met its match — slated for destruction, so that apartments can take its place.
“It feels wrong to kill it for new construction,” said Mark Graf, a 25-year resident of the city who lives several miles from the site. “This tree was standing when the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. It’s been with us for generations.”
During a visit one snowy afternoon Jan. 12, Graf gazed up at the chinquapin — also spelled “chinkapin,” in equal measure — and lamented what would be lost. An engineer by trade who is also a master naturalist and nature photographer, Graf spoke about the environmental impact.
“Our green space is shrinking,” he said. “This tree is a keystone species — it supports the whole ecosystem. It’s grown to the point where it provides food and habitat for wildlife. It provides carbon storage, which slows down climate change. It plays a vital role in all these things. Replacing it with new trees is just not ecologically equivalent.”
Graf brought the chinquapin to the attention of certifiers with the Michigan Big Tree Survey,
See TREE on page 9A
St. Clair Shores to host Galentine’s Day event
BY ALYSSA OCHSS aochss@candgnews.com
ST. CLAIR SHORES — Grab your gals and get ready to celebrate the love between friends at the Downtown St. Clair Shores Galentine’s Day event in February.
The 9-Mack Merchants Association is sponsoring the event that will take place from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Feb. 13.
Anna Casali, owner of Casali School of Dance, said individual businesses will provide promotions that benefit their interests. Along with that, there will be a bingo card for patrons to participate in that will earn them 9-Mack Merchant dollars to spend in the downtown.
Some of the activities and promotions include a design your own cocktail activity by Cache Cocktails and Wine Bar, half off yoga classes the day of the event at Shores Yoga, and beanies for the first 50 participants from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Roy O’Brien Ford.
“It’s another event to celebrate and get to know the 9-Mack Merchants,” Casali said.
There will be no vendors at this event, and it is not a Social District outing, Casali said.
“You’re not going to be able to walk in the street with your cocktail,” Casali said. “You’ll be able to enjoy your cocktail in the designated businesses.”
Casali said that many events held in the downtown area are not held by the city, but by the 9-Mack Merchants Association. The exception to this rule is the Social District which is run by another business in the downtown area.
Amy O’Brien-Kravitz, a sales manager at Roy O’Brien Ford, said that planning for the event started sometime in the summer.
“(We) started throwing some ideas out there and then realized, ‘Yep, we want to go ahead and get this on the calendar,’” O’Brien-Kravitz said.
Casali said she is excited for the event.
“I am a board member, and I think that our goal on the board is to make sure we have some kind of event monthly,” Casali said. “So that the community stays involved with our area.”
Casali went on to say that the response they’ve already received for the Galentine’s event has been great.
“This is the first one so it’s going to be bigger and better than every year that we move forward,” Casali said. “So we have a lot of new things and (are) excited for it.”
O’Brien-Kravitz is also excited.
“I think it’s going to be a great turnout,” O’BrienKravitz said. “St. Clair Shores is an awesome community and people really look forward to fun and different events.”
Though this event is called Galentine’s, it is open for everyone to join in on the fun.
The downtown area is located along Greater Mack Avenue from Nine Mile Road south to the Nine Mack Drive and Cavalier Drive intersection.
Mark Graf, of Sterling Heights, visits a rare chinquapin oak located on Van Dyke Avenue between Canal Road and Riverland Drive. The tree is hundreds of years old and currently stands in the path of a planned apartment development.
Photo by Andy Kozlowski
JAY WHITE SHINES LIKE A ‘DIAMOND’ ON STAGE
BY MARIA ALLARD allard@andgnews.com
CLINTON TOWNSHIP — Neil Diamond fans, get ready to sing along to “Sweet Caroline.”
“The Sweet Caroline Tour” starring Jay White, featuring the music of Neil Diamond, comes to the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts Feb. 1. White, a former Detroiter who performs as Diamond on the Las Vegas Strip, looks forward to playing for his hometown.
On stage, White takes on the role of the celebrated singer/songwriter with his music, mannerisms, fashion style and personality. Audience members will experience songs from Diamond’s 50-plus year career with “I Am…I Said,” “Song Sung Blue,” “Forever in Blue Jeans,” “Love on the Rocks” and “America.” It’s a night for any Neil Diamond fan.
“Jay White’s Sweet Caroline Tour was selected for our season based on several factors. Listening to the feedback from our donors and patrons, I felt Jay’s programming was an excellent fit for the Macomb Center,” William Wood, director of Cultural Affairs and Community Engagement, said in a prepared statement. “Plus, knowing Jay’s local roots and his status as an alum of Macomb Community College made this choice even more special. We’re thrilled to support a hometown talent and can’t wait for our community to experience his incredible show.”
White grew up near Seven Mile Road and Mack Avenue on Detroit’s east side. He attended St. Philomena Catholic School, Bishop Gallagher High School and in 1973 graduated from Finney High School. White also enrolled in classes at Macomb Community College in Warren and Wayne State University in Detroit, but performing was his true calling.
“I kind of gravitated towards that,” White said. “For me it felt very natural, very comfortable.”
Before his career as Neil Diamond began to shine, White had a passion for theater and was cast in several Detroit and Grosse Pointe productions, including “The Music Man,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Inherit the Wind.” He also fine-tuned his musical chops in various groups around town. Local residents may remember White singing baritone with an acapella doo-wop “The Voices.”
Photo provided
Las Vegas performer Jay White, who grew up on Detroit’s east side, will bring “The Sweet Caroline Tour” to the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts Feb. 1.
RARE Penguins play first game in Northeast Adaptive Recreation Basketball League
BY MARIA ALLARD allard@candgnews.com
ROSEVILLE — The showdown was on. During the early evening of Jan. 9, the RARE Penguins played their first-ever basketball game against the Shelby Pistons.
Both teams are members of the Northeast Adaptive Recreation Basketball League, which is open to teenagers and adults with cognitive and/or physical impairments. All skill levels are welcome. Players pay a fee to participate.
The Pistons play through the Shelby Township Parks, Recreation and Maintenance Department. The Penguins’ initial game was held at the Recreation Authority of Roseville and Eastpointe building on Sycamore Street in Roseville. Before game time, RARE Assistant Director Sara Frederick — coach of the Penguins — gave the team a pep talk.
“Make sure you are dribbling the ball and rotating the ball,” she told the group.
Then they put their hands together and yelled, “Go Penguins!”
“All right, good job,” Frederick told the team after the first quarter.
The Shelby Pistons coaches, Aimee Davis and Amber Brunn, also rallied their star athletes.
“They love to compete and they want to have fun,” Davis said. “They have a great time and get a little bit of exercise.”
On the court, the Penguins wore blue and white; the Pistons wore red, white and blue. Both sprinted across the RARE auxiliary gymnasium like seasoned pros dribbling the ball, passing the ball and sometimes getting it into the basket. There was the occasional intercepted pass, a few layups throughout the night and plenty of good sportsmanship.
Cheers like “good rebound” and “nice pass” from the crowd added to the enthusiasm of the game. Michael Lipinski, whose dad, Tony Lipinski, is the RARE executive director, was the referee. The team played four eight-minute quarters.
Thirteen-year-old Mason Baerman, No. 7 for the Penguins, is so dedicated to his teammates that he made sure to attend each practice.
“I like to play. I like shooting,” he said. “The first game feels amazing, cool, really fun.”
His mom, Michelle Baerman, and
brother, Ian Baerman, 7, were in the crowd.
“I’m so happy they added this. He’s been wanting to play for a long time,” Michelle Baerman said. “It’s been great to see. They just love each other. They have so much fun.”
Wearing a No. 5 jersey, Penguins shooting guard Zack Maracle couldn’t wait to get his game on.
“I’m excited. I try to be a good player,” he said. “Everyone is really good to me. We’re all really good friends. We cheer each other on. It’s a really cool experience.”
While players on both teams made baskets, organizers didn’t keep track of the score. The games — held in neighboring communities — are at 6 p.m. on Thursdays during January and February.
RARE Assistant Director and Penguins coach Sara Frederick cheers on the team
Jan. 9.
Next to her is player Zack Maracle, who wears No. 5.
Photo by Erin Sanchez
Exhibition
documents the lives and contributions of these workers in the 20th century. Under the direction of ULS librarian and teacher Karen Villegas, director of information services and global online learning, and Ford House Director of Material Culture Lisa Worley, students spent a year researching, collecting materials and preparing the exhibition.
“The stories of these women have remained largely untold,” Worley said in a press release. “This project not only brings their contributions to light but also empowers students to engage deeply with history.”
Because almost all these workers lived before the advent of social media — and, in many cases, before the internet — students didn’t have the benefit of a digital footprint to follow as they would with modern figures.
“These people were essentially invisible, and finding information on them was kind of an impossible task,” Villegas said. “These kids followed the path wherever it led.”
Still, there were ways they could find information, even if it meant more extensive digging than a Google search.
Students did some of their research using the online tool Ancestry Classroom. Senior Elizabeth Dickey, of Grosse Pointe Woods, looked into the life of Ada Alice Hill and discovered Hill’s immigration papers, marriage license and declaration of intent that she wanted to become a United States citizen.
“What definitely surprised me was how much I could find on my person,” Dickey said.
Thanks to grants from the Edward E.
Ford Foundation, Americana Foundation and the Michigan Humanities Council, Villegas said the students were able to expand their research to include not only staff who had worked at the Ford House, but also other workers in the area, most notably Mary Upshaw McClendon, a trailblazer in the fight for the rights of domestic workers. McClendon, who began cleaning homes at age 9 in her native Alabama alongside her mother, moved with her family to Detroit in 1955. Despite having limited resources, she formed the Household Workers Organization in 1969 to get better pay and conditions for domestic workers. At 54, she attended community college to become a certified home care aid. She was born in 1922 and died in 2015. Her papers are among the archives at the Walter P. Reuther Library on the Wayne State University campus in Detroit.
A single mother, McClendon ran
HWO out of her home. She wrote numerous letters to politicians to advocate for laws to better the lives of domestic workers.
Some of the students, including senior Da’Mya Johnson, of Detroit, spent time combing through McClendon’s papers and other archives at the Reuther.
“At Liggett, we’ve done a lot of placebased research from primary sources,” Villegas said.
Conditions were often harder for domestic workers than they were for other worker groups, because most of those employed in this field were from marginalized groups.
“One of the reasons they didn’t have these rights was because they were immigrants or Black people,” Johnson said.
Villegas said one of the subjects of the project was a woman from France who served as a governess to the Ford children. While she had a relatively good salary for the
time, she never married or had children of her own because her work caring for another family’s children was so demanding. Villegas said the governess would save her money to visit her sister in France every couple of years.
“A lot of these women were divorced or never married. … (They had) limited options” as far as employment to support themselves, Villegas said.
Their jobs also typically entailed difficult manual labor with no health benefits or sick time.
“You are doing really hard work for really low wages,” Villegas said.
That was the case for McClendon, who worked tirelessly for years.
“One of the things I found shocking was even though she fought for so many rights … she died without any benefits at all,” Johnson said of McClendon, who suffered from debilitating chronic back pain in her later years.
The project is generating some recognition for McClendon, a historical figure whose legacy has been largely overlooked. Johnson said the Louisa St. Clair Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution plans to give an award to McClendon’s surviving family members. Although the date for that event hadn’t been set at press time, Johnson is expected to be there and is looking forward to meeting McClendon’s granddaughter.
“For the most part, she lived a really powerful life,” Johnson said.
McClendon was someone who encouraged people to get a good education, as Johnson said McClendon believed it would give them greater opportunities to better
Many of the University Liggett School students who worked on “Invisible Labor” gather for a group photo.
Photo provided by University Liggett School
Exhibition
from page 6A
themselves. As Villegas pointed out, most of the workers never owned their own homes, whether because they were living in the homes of the people for whom they worked or because they couldn’t afford one.
Besides learning how to use online and archival research to find information about ordinary people, students were introduced to the process of creating panels for a museum exhibition, where they had to consider everything from font size to photo placement to the amount of text a visitor would read.
The exhibition comes at a time when Ford House officials have been re-creating the historical home’s domestic quarters to give visitors a glimpse into the lives of the staff who worked there.
“They didn’t have a lot of information on the (staff),” Villegas said. “We thought that it would be a cool way to engage the kids in history and the research process.”
Senior Isabel Jenkins, of Harper Woods, said she appreciated that this was a local history project, which she said made it easier to connect with on a personal level. She also found the research eye-opening.
“It definitely did change my perspec-
tive on a lot of things,” Jenkins said.
This project was voluntary and students gave up their summer last year to work on it.
“It was worth it,” Johnson said. “I would definitely do it again. Learning about (McClendon) was invaluable.”
Other students who worked on the project include Alexander Gould, Jillian Whitton, Nadia Le, Alexander Macek, Ari Medvinsky, Mya Shah-Littles, Elizabeth Dickey, Kiki Donaldson and Donald Rowlands. All will be graduating this spring.
Medvinsky and Whitton even had a chance to present their research during the American Association for State and Local History national conference in Mobile, Alabama.
“People were clamoring to talk to the kids,” Villegas said of the professional historians in attendance. “They were really interested in their experience.”
There’s no admission charge or reservations needed to view “Invisible Labor.” A Ford House spokesperson said by email that the public can stop in the Visitor Center during operating hours to see it.
The Ford House is located at 1100 Lake Shore Road in Grosse Pointe Shores. For hours of operation and more information, visit fordhouse.org or call (313) 8844222.
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“I am the tour guide on this journey. We go to India. We go to China. We’ve been everywhere with a purpose. We chew up the plot, or lack of, critique the author, and dissect the characters as naturally as breathing,” Burk said. “We are a serious group, and deep.”
According to members of the Warren Reading Group, Burk is knowledgeable of themes, characters, plot devices, writing styles and the craft of writing. She digs deeper into the author and story while adding group members’ insights from their personal experiences. Burk encourages members to come to the meeting even if they haven’t completed the book because they still have something to share.
The group describes Burk as an innovator for such things as inviting local authors to the meeting to discuss their books or having Civil War reenactors show up dressed in full regalia. Burke started Chrissie’s Night at the Movies where members went to the movie depictions of books they’d already read such as “The Help” and “Eat, Pray, Love.” She also decorated the meeting room in the theme of the book. When the group read “Deep Dive,” a book about World War II U-boats, she had fish netting and shells on the walls.
“Chris has a very warm and welcoming way of guiding the conversation for the group. She asks open-ended questions and encourages different viewpoints,” Becky Wyatt said. “It’s a safe space for people to talk and share their ideas and their feelings.
She actively listens to people and makes sure they feel heard.”
The members of the Warren Reading Group are diverse in gender, age, race, cultural and professional backgrounds. They described Burk as “great” and “a well-prepared facilitator” who is “heads and shoulders” above the rest.
Eliza McWilliams said, “I really enjoy intellectual stimulation. The group brings a lot of that to the group. They bring a lot of wisdom and shared experiences. These women are all in their 70s or 80s, so they have read all kinds of books. We talk about how the author presents the book.”
McWilliams joined this reading group because she was retired and sought intellectual stimulation.
“The intellectual stimulation is really phenomenal in this group,” McWilliams said. “I am one of the younger ones and I am 76. These women know a lot of things about a lot of things.”
According to McWilliams, she is one of three Black people in the group.
“I share with them things that happen in the Black culture that they may not be aware of,” McWilliams said. “By the same token, many of them are of different ethnic groups. They are Jewish, Polish, and other groups, and they tell me different things that I have learned. They’ve traveled, they know about different regions of the world, and they bring that information to the table.”
For example, McWilliams’ aunt was one of the members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the predominately Black division of the Women’s Army Corp charged with the responsibility of sorting and delivering millions of undelivered
mail to Allied fighters. “No mail, low morale” was an accurate slogan because a letter, piece of mail or package meant so much to the soldiers on the front line and the families at home. The woman had six months to complete the job and did it in three months.
McWilliams said members of the group are close enough to know what’s going on with members of each other’s families.
“We’ve made lifelong friends. As life goes on, things change and it’s fun to have new members join us as well,” said Joan Theisen, who has been a member of the Warren Reading Group for 18 years.
Burk comes to the meetings with related articles about the authors and books with handwritten highlighted notes including Post-it notes throughout the pages of the book, Josh Foster, 42, said. He is among the youngest in the group and the only man.
“It was intimidating at first,” Foster said about joining an older all-women’s reading group. “I didn’t think they would want me there.”
However, Foster raved about how warm and welcoming the women have been.
“It’s great being in a room where you can learn so much and then still be asked to share your experience and your opinion,” Foster said.
“I just love that the focus is on the book,” Foster said. “But the way they (members of the group) pull in their life experiences is so fascinating to me.”
Some look to the group for a social outlet.
Beth Trim joined the group in 2011 but took a hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to the group in the spring of last year.
“My husband has Parkinson’s so I’m taking care of him at home. I thought I needed intellectual stimulation and to get out of the house,” Trim said. “Even though it’s one day a month it still gives me something to look forward to and socialize a little bit.”
Terrye Benjamin said she liked discussing some of the errors or fallacies in the books. She talked about a book they were reading about Charles Lindbergh.
“There were things happening in the book which did not seem to be what would happen at the time,” Benjamin said. “For instance, there were no such things as air traffic controllers back then. I enjoyed the story, and I enjoyed how we were able to discuss the shortcomings of the book.”
Warren Library Director Oksana Urban said, “Chris Burk loves what she does, and she takes the time and is very meticulous about organizing things and having information available to her readers in her group. She loves it, enjoys it and wishes to continue it.”
Burk has been reading and loving books since she was 3 years old.
“It’s my passion. It’s dharma,” she said. The Warren Reading Group meets at 6:30 p.m. for one hour on the second Monday of the month at the Civic Center Library at 1 City Square in the Mark Twain Room. All are welcome.
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maintained by the nonprofit Michigan Botanical Society. Ted Reuschel, coordinator for the survey, said that nearly every state has an organization that sponsors an official register of their largest trees, with certifiers taking official measurements on-site.
“The Society maintains this register for the general public interest in big trees,” Reuschel said via email. He noted his group is purely educational and does not advocate for any specific outcome.
Reuschel confirmed the specs of the tree, which is located at 43934 Van Dyke Ave., on the east side, north of Riverland Drive and south of Canal Road, next to Henriksen’s Golf and down the street from Zap Zone. Its GPS coordinates in full decimal format are 42.61874, -83.03159.
“(Chinquapins) are unusual in leaf shape, being coarsely toothed, and are far less common than most other oak species,” Reuschel said. “Like most other oaks, however, its acorns are favored by various wildlife species, the wood is very strong, and the longevity is great. It is impressive in both form and size.”
A formula by the International Society
of Arboriculture was used to produce an estimate of the chinquapin’s age without taking a core sample and counting the annual growth rings. Environmental factors play a role, but the most conservative estimates put the tree at 250 years old, while it could be as old as 300 years.
The development
The 10.5-acre property was originally purchased by the city of Sterling Heights for $640,000, using federal funds through the American Rescue Plan Act.
In August 2024, the City Council voted 5-2 to sell it to the Chaldean Community Foundation for $60,000, so that the CCF can develop the front 2 acres into 82 apartments. The $30 million project was pitched as a way to provide affordable living options amid the housing crisis.
The 8 undeveloped acres, in turn, will be deeded back to the city. Those acres are floodplains that back up to the Clinton River, and it’s unclear whether they could be developed.
Voting in favor of the arrangement was Mayor Michael Taylor, Mayor Pro Tem Liz Sierawski, and City Council members Michael Radtke, Henry Yanez and Barbara Ziarko. Voting against it were City Council members Deanna Koski and Maria
Schmidt. When the mayor and members of council were contacted for comment, only Ziarko replied, stating she was not familiar with the tree at the property and would need to research the matter.
In its current configuration, the undertaking leaves no room to spare the chinquapin. It is located right on the 2 acres where the apartments would be built. A cutand-fill operation would also be necessary, scooping colossal amounts of earth from the back of the property and moving it up front to raise the ground, elevating the apartments above the floodplain.
At press time, the project was still under site plan review, with no timeline for the start of the cut-and-fill operation. Martin Manna, CCF board president, said his team has been focused on work on another development at 43700 Van Dyke Ave., so they haven’t had time to assess the tree.
“We are good neighbors, and if we can save (the tree), we will, like we did in West Bloomfield with the memorial (at the Chaldean Community Center at Walnut Lake and Inkster roads),” Manna said. “But again, we have yet to review.”
Melanie Davis, spokesperson for the city, provided a statement to the Sentry from the office of City Manager Mark Vanderpool, which outlined the city’s eco-
friendly practices.
The city has received the Arbor Day Foundation’s “Tree City USA” designation for nearly 40 consecutive years, and it is conducting a citywide tree inventory, with plans to create green microforests and reforest the city to the tune of 18,000 new trees, paid for with grants and dedicated millage funding.
The city also has a tree preservation ordinance that applies to all city development projects.
“When unavoidable impact occurs, such as tree removal, we rely on our robust tree preservation ordinance to create the necessary land use balance by requiring the developer to replace any ‘landmark’ trees removed with new trees, inch for inch,” the statement reads. “In the long run, the large number of replacement trees — in addition to required landscaping trees — will aid in increasing the city’s tree canopy, bolstering the amount of carbon that is sequestered and resulting in reduced greenhouse gas emissions.”
For his part, Graf said that he appreciates the city’s sustainability practices and that he also appreciates the work of CCF.
“I just hope this one very special tree can be spared,” Graf said. “There’s still time.”
Jay White
“People said to me a couple of times, ‘You sound like Neil Diamond when you sing,’” White recalled.
That sparked an idea and from 198387 White performed as Diamond — along with Elvis Presley, Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie and Olivia Newton-John impersonators — at Mr. F’s Beef & Bourbon in Sterling Heights, a supper club known for its cow statue outside.
It took time for White to master Diamond’s vocals, characteristics and style.
“It really did start with the voice first,” White said. “Then I started working on the look.”
By 1990, he was one of the headliners in the show “Legends in Concert” at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, a gig that lasted nine years and 5,014 performances. The neon lights of the Vegas strip suited White, where he has been a mainstay for more than three decades, including an 8-year stint at the Riviera Hotel & Casino.
“It’s been quite a ride,” White said. White performs alongside a group of talented players that includes members of Diamond’s band, King Errisson on conga drums and Richard Bennett on guitar. White also recruited his son, Neil White, on bass guitar. He and his wife, Pam, named their son before White embarked on a career as Neil Diamond.
White also takes the show on the road, even traveling Down Under to Australia. When Hollywood director Ron Howard needed a Neil Diamond impressionist for a scene in his 2008 film “Frost/Nixon,” White got the job.
“It was just a tremendous experience,” White recalled.
White has met Diamond twice. The first time was before a Diamond concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. They also
crossed musical paths again when Diamond performed at the Los Angeles Forum, where he met some of the superstar’s family, including his mom.
“We had a chance to chat,” White said. “She was very kind, very complimentary and very appreciative. The family was very, very kind and took me in very quickly.”
At one point in his career, Diamond gave White a couple of his costumes; they became part of the act. As another memento, Diamond autographed a picture of the two singers together with the following message: “Jay, keep singing so I can stay home and relax. Your friend in music, Neil Diamond.” In 2018, Diamond retired from touring and performing after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
White didn’t start out as a Neil Diamond fan. He changed his tune when in 1978, he attended a Neil Diamond concert with his then-girlfriend and her mother at Pine Knob in Clarkston.
“Wow, this guy is really good. By the end of the two-hour show, I was hooked,” White recalled. “I really loved the songs. What a great artist. His stage persona was appealing, so fun, so interesting. His personality was so likeable.”
White also makes time for this other love: hockey. When White’s not center stage as Diamond, he can be found on the ice. He played in metro Detroit as a kid and grew up watching “Hockey Night in Canada.” As an adult, he has played goalie in several NHL and Hollywood all-star games.
White will perform “The Sweet Caroline Tour” featuring the music of Neil Diamond on Feb. 1 at the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts, located on the Macomb Community College Center Campus at 44575 Garfield Road, at Hall Road. For tickets call (586) 286-2222, email Macom bArts@macomb.edu, or visit macombcenter. com.
