A Beat of His Own: The Music of Joel Burks
A salt-and-pepper-haired man in a faded-green T-shirt and tan cargo shorts disembarks from an afternoon bus ride into Charlotte, N.C. Towing a large wooden wagon, he treks a few uptown blocks to the junction of South Church and West Trade streets. Facing the floor-to-ceiling windows of The Kings Kitchen restaurant, he begins to unpack.
Out come two tangerine-colored conga drums — marred by innumerable dings and dents. Then two 5-gallon plastic buckets: One white for sitting. One orange for tips. Taking his makeshift seat on the sidewalk, he squeezes a drum between his scar- whitened knees and his body starts rocking back and forth. He begins humming, his voice gravelly. With his dry, calloused and cracked hands, he begins drumming.
Joel Burks, 58, calls drumming a path to salvation — a distraction, occupation, and ministry all in one. He remembers a woman who approached him once as he was playing on the street. She told Burks her son had died two weeks prior.
“’I had no will to live until I heard your drums,’” he recalls she told him. In Charlotte, he’s a fixture on this corner. Pedestrians, scooters and bikes whirl by. Some stop to take videos, dance, or play alongside him. Others drop gratuities into his bucket.
The money helps but Burks says making music is about helping people live in the present and let go of their worries.
Joel Burks, 58, plays a conga drum on the corner of South Church and West Trade streets with a young spectator as her mother films them together on Wednesday, June 29, 2022 in uptown Charlotte, N.C. Burks says he feels his music helps him connect with others and spread positivity.
“It’s not so much about making a living as it is about the lives that I touch.” Burks said his love for music began in early childhood when, while living with his grandparents in Elizabethtown, his grandfather gifted him a set of bongos.
“Eventually, I realized I was moved by music,” Burks said. He played a drumkit for many years in school, then picked up the congas in adulthood after returning to his hometown of Newburgh, N.Y.
“I had a Spanish friend who had a conga drum, and I asked him to show me how to play it.”From there, Burks and his friends would play in groups on the street. Aside from the social component of performing with his friends, Burks said the congas had a far deeper impact.
“It exploded and took me all different places,” Burks said. Burks said he suffered numerous abuses in childhood. As a result, he made himself scarce in his family home.
“Sometimes, I’d be gone for a week, sometimes for a month, sometimes for three months,” he said. During that time, he was homeless, and developed drug addictions.
Conga drummer Joel Burks, 58, shows his right hand to the camera Tuesday, June 7, 2022 in uptown Charlotte, N.C. On occasion, Burks says, his skin will split from long days on the congas.
“I remember times when I was living on the street with no place to go, living from one meal to the next, and didn’t know how I was going to survive,” Burks said. “The drums gave me relief, and it gave me a sense of purpose.
“And it also opened up doors for me to be not on the streets, but under a roof.”
Through music, he found a modest stream of income to help pay for food and housing. Beyond even that, he said, it gave him a sense of purpose, and a way to healthily express his own suffering. He also believes it can help him reach out to others going through personal difficulty.
“One of the first uses of the djembe (a kind of African drum),” he said, “was to communicate.”
“God gave me a gift — I turn around and give the gift back. It’s not mine to own, it’s not mine to hold, but it’s mine to give away,” he said.