J.C., TRAV’LIN and Me - A Brief History

By TRAV’LIN  creator and co-author Gary Holmes

I was a ten year old kid playing in the basement of the bank branch my Dad managed in Wurtsboro, NY, when he called me upstairs to his office. There stood J.C. Johnson, a slight and quiet gentleman who was, Dad explained, a composer and piano player from New York recently retired to our village.

We hit it off immediately. Learning I had just started piano lessons, Mr. Johnson encouraged me and wished me well. An hour or so later, he returned and presented me with a copy of the sheet music for his popular 1930s song, “Believe It, Beloved,” inscribed, “To Gary, Young man, if you develop the feel, hearing, and appreciation of good AMERICAN MUSIC, you should succeed.”

Thus began a close friendship/mentorship that lasted until his passing in 1981. Over the years, I would regularly visit J.C. and bug him to tell me stories of Jazz Age Harlem and the people he knew there, famous and otherwise.

The seed for TRAV’LIN was planted one day when he remarked that as much as he liked having his songs in Broadway revues such as ME AND BESSIE and AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, he preferred book musicals with a full plot and characters. He also indicated that, were such a project done, he would like me to do it.

At J.C.’s wake, his widow Julie gave me permission to go forward with the project. I took J.C.’s 500 songs, literally spread them out on the floor and selected about 40 best suited for a book musical. I realized they told three distinct love stories, each set at a different stage of life.

It was a given that the show would take place in J.C.’s beloved Harlem and in the 1930s, the era when most of the songs were written. Simultaneously, all the stories J.C. had told me were swirling around in my head, inspiring the characters and feel for the musical.

One conversation with J.C. proved particularly influential: In my late teens J.C. first told me about the hurtful racism he had experienced downtown. Shocked, I commented that he and his friends back in Harlem must have complained bitterly about their treatment in Manhattan.

“No, Gary,” he assured me. Once uptown, he said, he and his associates, particularly his best buddy Fats Waller, simply enjoyed themselves, playing the clubs, partying, enjoying life. “Back in Harlem,” he emphasized, “we were home.” That one remark provided the emotional touchstone for the script.

So…out of J.C.’s songs and stories, TRAV’LIN was born. The project has taken many turns since then. Along the way, I earned my M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the Arts. Allan Shapiro, then a music and Broadway attorney, came on board in 1984, eventually becoming a co-author.

The first public reading of TRAV’LIN was at the York Theater in 2009, directed by triple Tony nominee and theatrical icon Micki Grant (Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope). Its first full mounting was a sold out, acclaimed run in 2010 at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Since then it has enjoyed five successful regional productions, enthusiastically received by both audiences and reviewers.

Remarkably, although the show has changed in many ways, its basic characters, plot structure and score remain very similar and faithful to the original 1981 concept. Most importantly, the show continues true to the gentle spirit of J.C. Johnson and his romantic vision of the Harlem he cherished.