“You win or lose by
the way you
choose, and if things don’t
Square Gardens, in front of 150 000 people. Just one light shining on the stage, on me and the guitar. I was singing and 150 000 people were shouting my name, “Larry Joe, Larry Joe!”. Then I woke up and realised this was just a dream, although it felt so real at the time. It was the first time ever in my life that I felt so fulfilled, so happy,” says Joe.
At this stage he had two young daughters – his youngest had Downs Syndrome and was very sick. The first person he saw after that dream was his eldest daughter who was 3½ years old, and Joe describes, “She looked at me with this admiration in her eyes, like I was the most wonderful human being on the planet. And I think that morning I discovered myself, I realised that we as human beings are so sensitive and vulnerable, and at an early age I learnt not to show my vulnerabilities to people because they take advantage of it. So, what could I do to never lose that look of admiration in my daughter’s eyes, and make my dream come true?”
After being a fugitive for seven years, Joe knew that the first step towards making his dream a reality was to take responsibility for his actions. So he went back to Douglas, walked into the police station and handed himself over. He was sentenced to 5½ years in prison.
Two things happened while he was in prison – about 2 weeks into his sentence, his father passed away and he was not allowed to go to his funeral. Joe says, “It was very painful – it wasn’t easy to share my emotions with the fellow prisoners, because inside prison you’re supposed to be hard-core.”
Three months after that, his baby daughter died, and again he was not allowed to go to her funeral. “I was down and out, and I took out a book and I started writing all that I was thinking and feeling. I took out the guitar, and I wanted the guitar to make exactly the same sound as I was feeling inside, and that’s how I related the lyrics and the music to what I feel and what I was seeing, and that’s how I started composing songs,” Joe explains.
go right, you can always turn left.”
April 2012 | Management Today 49
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