That Time I Was Almost a Pop Star

Anri's Circuit of Rainbow music video (That's me on the right!)

It was what I'd always imagined life would be like as a big-time singer.

The massive, metallic stage opens like Moses parting the Red Sea...the recognizable guitar riff blaring throughout Tokyo's legendary Budokan arena.

Five of us dancers on pedestals of varying heights, box-step and bounce...summoning the tens of thousands of screaming Japanese fans to get louder.

Anticipation builds with every "Come on!" Let's go! Get it up!" we declare.

Finally, the beloved Anri dances on to the stage...and the crowd goes wild...

The year was 1988.

I had dropped out of college for two semesters after a fighter-pilot-older-brother-of-my-high-school-friend told me he "saw Americans working" at Tokyo Disneyland.

"You should go do that, Tracy!" he said, standing in my family's Tampa, Florida kitchen during Christmas break of my sophomore year.

I called nearby Disney World the next day, tried out the day after that, and by April was flying to LA to meet my fellow cast mates.

During one of our "sets" at Tokyo Disneyland

We would spend the next 6 months dancing, waving, and smiling in parades and in person, as "face characters" throughout the park, alongside literally millions of the Asian Disney faithful.

I was 18.

After that contract ended, I stayed in Tokyo with a family I met at church and auditioned for random modeling jobs, English audio recordings, and just about anything that required a Caucasian's voice, body or face.

That's when I had a fateful encounter with a fellow American named Raymond.

He was a trained dancer and had done multiple contracts with Disney. He had moved to Japan full-time, learning the language, and immersing himself in the culture.

We happened to run into each other on a Tokyo street. We quickly caught up on what the other was doing. He remembered I was a singer too, and suggested an opportunity that would change my life forever.

"There's a Japanese pop star looking to add a blonde American to her entourage. You should audition."

"Meet me at the Rappongi subway station on Thursday at 2:30pm," he added.

(Or something like that. I'm taking creative license here, as I now have the worst memory.)

I thought I would explode with excitement. The possibility! The opportunity!

This gig was right up my alley.

I had taken the Disney job thinking I would sing and dance daily, as both were required at my Orlando audition.

Instead, I found myself writhing in pain from all the smiling during meet & greets.

napping in the break room between sets 

Not kidding.

I know this sounds pathetic. POW's experience pain. Not Disney characters.

But you would not believe how painful smiling can be until you do it for multiple, 20-minute sets every day for 6 months!

At any rate, Raymond lit a fire within me that would make this whole dropping-out-of-college thing worth it.

A fire that almost went out when he blew me off at that subway station the following Thursday.

I almost gave up on him.

I must have waited for 2 hours.

No sign of Raymond.

There were no cell phones back in the day, so I left him multiple messages on his answering machine.

As I walked up the subway station stairs, leaving Rappongi and my rock star dreams in the dust, Raymond walked up.

"Let's go!" he declared.

I followed--and nailed the audition.

It was one of those "I got this" experiences--when not only do you feel confident, quickly learning the dance steps and easily harmonizing to the lady at the piano, who is leading you in scales and checking your pitch--but you also know you're the best (wo)man for the job.

I was so young. Fresh and bold. And I knew what I was doing.

I was prepared.

I'd taken dance lessons since age 4; been singing and performing in school shows, choirs, musicals and pop bands my whole life.

And it didn't hurt that my resume read:  "Cinderella."

It's so funny how life is like that.

Every little thing prepares for you the next big gig.

I performed and traveled with Anri for 3 sold-out shows, to close out her 1989 "Circuit of the Rainbow" concert tour.

The following Spring Break at Vanderbilt, I visited her in an LA recording studio.

She invited me back to join her tour that summer across Japan & Hawaii.

I was thrilled, appearing in multiple music videos and tv shows with her massive band, dancers, and two full-time background singers Eri and Lavert to promote Anri's then-hit single, "Groove a Go-Go."

When I shared a green room with THE Howard Jones (No One is to Blame, Things Can Only Get Better, Everlasting Love), I felt I'd really made it!

(Oh...and hosting Michael Jackson's band & back-up dancers during his "Bad" tour.)

After several months on the road, I left the tour early due to incredible home-sickness, which led to chronic stomach issues.

But the connections I made with another American dancer named "Taco," whose claim to fame was teaching Michael Jackson how to "pop and lock" and appearing in his Smooth Criminal video, led me to eventually leave Vanderbilt for good and head to Hollywood for my own recording career.

I did not last long in that world.

The loneliness, emptiness, bad relationship choices, and incessant focus on looks & who you know, taught me the Hollywood entertainment industry is just not for me.

I was an academic girl who needed structure, connection with people who loved me, and Jesus.

I eventually found all of that in marriage, family, and television news.

I have not been back to Japan since.

But that, my friends, is the story of How I Almost Became a Pop Star.