Third grader Donovan Thigpen was having another ordinary day until his father showed up to his elementary school and pulled him from class. The student met with his father, Don Thigpen, in the hallway.
“I want you to come with me to Philadelphia, (Pa..), because I don’t know if Benny is gonna show up,” the senior Thigpen explained to him.
Don worked as the music director for soul singer Dorothy Moore. At the time, her drummer Benny was battling drug addiction, and Don was uncertain whether or not he would show up to their gig. The duo immediately left for Philly to meet up with the rest of the band. There, Donovan’s father was constantly fielding off questions from Dorothy regarding Benny’s absence.
Dorothy Moore kept asking, “Hey, where’s Benny?” In response, Don Thigpen told little white lies. “Yeah, he’s coming; he’s coming.’”
But he didn’t show, so Don Thigpen put his son on drums.
Thousands of people filled the baseball stadium, but the crowd did not intimidate the younger Thigpen in the least. In fact, he was more excited than anything to play in front of a large audience, he said. His time playing piano for various churches in Jackson had prepared him for this moment.
“We played for this Pentecostal church, and I don’t know if you know much about Pentecostal churches, but sometimes they will shout,” Thigpen told the Mississippi Free Press in a recent interview. “And we would be shouting in there for like hours at a time. It was just a training ground.”
‘Yeah, I Think I’m Ready’
Donovan Thigpen comes from a musical family. His father is a musician. His mother is a choir director. He and his siblings play instruments, and some of them can sing. As a family, they attended various church events, sometimes three to four times a week.
By age 12, Donovan began making money from playing piano, which he learned to play by listening to songs on top of the few lessons he acquired from his father.
“My dad asked me if I wanted to play for a church,