He reached out, she sang

“Get me a karaoke machine for Christmas,” Joyce Jude told her husband in September of last year.

“Why?” Jerry asked.

“I thought I would go to nursing homes and sing,” she said.

“He was surprised. In the 31 years we had been married, he had never heard me sing a solo.” That’s because she hadn’t, not in 40-some years. The last time she sang alone was in high school when she sang on WNRG in Grundy.

“I grew up in Buchanan County,” she said. “When I was 6, I sang on the radio. I had to stand on a chair to reach the microphone. Then when I was 12, I followed my dad around the county. I sang and he preached.” That’s where she learned the old hymns, as she calls them, hymns like “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” That song captures the rhythm of her life. “I started life singing that song, and now I find myself singing it again.”

She’s also playing the accordion that her parents gave her when she was 12. It’s an Italian-sound accordion, and small, just the right size for a little girl. Today, it’s still the right size, fitting perfectly in the petite blonde’s grasp.

Her parents gave her the gift of the accordion out of necessity. When she and her dad traveled from church to church, they couldn’t always depend on having a piano available. The accordion came in handy.

Just as it did this past summer. When Jude accepted an invitation to perform at the Tazewell County Republican Party’s annual picnic, she thought there would be electricity for the soundtracks that backed her up. When there wasn’t, she circled back to when she was 12 and pulled out her trusty sidekick -- the white Bontempi that she plays like a piano with her right hand and keys with her left. “It’s the way I taught myself to play all those years ago,” she said.

When she turned 18, she put the accordion in its case and buried it in a closet where it lay for more than 40 years. “Years would go by before I would play it again. Occasionally, when Jerry and I were jamming [he plays the guitar], I would take it out and play.”

Remembering those rare sessions, Jerry later told her to start playing her accordion when she sang -- that people would like it. “It sounds a lot better than that canned music,” he said, referring to the soundtracks.

Jude is happy that she did not sell the instrument: “I kept it for sentimental reasons.”

Those reasons are her “precious memories,” images that filtered over into her dreams in August 2003. The dreams were as haunting as the old hymn’s lyrics: “ In the stillness of the midnight / Echoes from the past I hear / Old-time singing, gladness bringing / From that lovely land somewhere.”

The midnight dreams came relentlessly. “I saw myself singing solo again in front of a large group of people,” she said. “The dreams were so compelling that they woke me up.” When they filled her with an intense desire to sing solo again, she knew she couldn’t ignore the message: Something greater than she had a plan for her.

That’s when she asked for the karaoke machine to help get her voice in shape. Jerry didn’t wait until Dec. 25 -- he gave it to her on Sept. 15. From that moment her life became a whirlwind. “This Christmas, I haven’t had time to put up a tree or address my Christmas cards,” she said. “But I don’t dare to complain. I want to stay ahead of the Lord.”

That she has done since the day she got the early Christmas present. Solo and concert invitations have fallen like manna from the sky. She’s always ready with a repertoire of songs. She carries the music with her wherever she goes in case someone needs a singer.

Her first solo came as a surprise to everyone, but her. It was at church where everyone knew her as the woman who had sung in the choir for 40 years. However, on the evening of Sept. 28, with 13 days of preparation behind her, she volunteered to sing “When He Reached Out His Hand for Me” all by herself when the scheduled couple canceled.

It wasn’t until March, though, that her dream took off. It happened when she repeated the pattern of her youth: “I stepped out of my home church and started traveling to other churches.”

The last 10 months have taken her beyond those churches. She has sung at town festivals, club meetings, county fairs, and appreciation days. She has also sung Bluegrass, Southern and Black Gospel. The Back Porch Pickers backed her up at the Tazewell County Fiddler’s Convention.

One of her favorites is Mahalia Jackson’s and Linda Randle’s versions of “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” “I can get going on that one,” she said. “It speaks to me.” Maybe what speaks to her is the refrain: “I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free.”

She also sings because it is her gift to those who thirst for spiritual songs.

Many times she finds those people in nursing and retirement homes where she sings “Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away.” “That’s my true calling,” she said. “I love the elderly and respect their untapped knowledge and wisdom and their appreciation for my music.”

“That’s the true meaning of Christmas for me,” she said, “to tell the good news of Christ and why he came. I get a pleasure out of sharing the good news in song.”

Just as she did all those years ago as a young girl playing the little white accordion in Buchanan County, Va.