A still from the video
Little Rickey
The entertainer serves the elderly good tunes and great joy
I come from a pretty stereotypically homosexual background. I have no problem admitting I was in choir in high school. Why would I deny that? Performing and making people smile is cunt. Every Christmas season we would bus out to a center for the elderly and sing them Christmas tunes. I remember in two instances the same woman in the back of the room spent the entirety of our performances sobbing tears of joy (We checked to make sure we hadn’t triggered something awful). Were we that good? Probably not. But I think music and youth evoked something in her that only made itself apparent once in a while. Nevertheless, watching her cry while we sang “Holly Jolly Christmas” was unusual, to say the least. But each year all of us left the performance feeling uplifted — like maybe what we were doing mattered.
This is why people like Little Rickey are so refreshing to see. Rickey Josey, or Little Rickey, is a singer, dancer and all around performer based out of the greater Atlanta, Georgia area who is known for entertaining the elderly. For Rickey, performing is more than just aesthetics. “I don’t get hung up on if, you know, I mess up, or I didn’t get that quite right. That’s not all I am! I am doing all of it. The look, the dancing, the singing, and being nice to people — which don’t cost you nothing! This lady told me once when I was singing at the Underground — ‘Rickey, Rickey, Rickey. It’s not about your singing. It’s not just about your dancing. It’s not just about the way you look. It’s not just about the way you treat people. Rickey [you are] all of the above.’” Since then Rickey has found great joy in performing for the elderly, and for those with dementia especially, “It’s very rewarding,” he says, and encourages other artists to pursue the elderly audience.
It would be one thing if Little Rickey was just another traveling performer with a busted up voice, making ends meet and exuding ambivalence on stage, but what sets him apart is the pureness and generosity you can hear in his voice.
In the future Little Rickey hopes to go more places and “raise awareness that people should respect the elderly and visit them and not just go visit them like they’re going to pick up their dry cleaning. I see people check their watches… Don’t check your watch, go visit with your Mama! Don’t you dare worry about, or talk about getting older. You have no idea what a privilege that is. In my 20s a bunch of my friends died, and they did not get old.”
He sure provides some food for thought. Though I hope you sip what he’s serving and give him a ring next time you’re down in Georgia!
