For These Stars, Mom Rules

As a group, the mothers interviewed were modest about themselves. But that's where their children filled in the picture.

Nils Lofgren noted that when he left home in 1968 to find his way in music, even friends told him he was making a mistake by dropping out of high school. His parents had concerns and asked questions but stood by him.

"It just wasn't something you did in middle America," he said, "so for them to have the faith and the vision -- I mean, we were all nervous, me most of all -- but to have their support really helped. I wouldn't be having my 40th year on the road now."

'She Sounded Like an Angel'

Dorothy Graves-Kenner, 67, looks at the transformation of her life as a mother, from raising three children in a two-bedroom apartment on Galveston Street in Southwest Washington to finding herself in the finest concert halls in the United States and Europe, as the guest of acclaimed mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves.

Her daughter.

"Little did I know," Graves-Kenner said with a smile, remembering when Graves was one of the "Little Sunbeams" at the family church. At the time, Graves-Kenner was a single mother working at what is now the University of the District of Columbia. She was set on keeping her family close.

"I come from a large family myself," she said, "and I wanted that same closeness with my family." Graves-Kenner recalls gathering her children for a prayer before school and making their friends welcome in her home after school. As Graves grew a little older, the family of four formed a gospel group, the Inspirational Children of God.

"Denyce had a really beautiful, beautiful voice," Graves-Kenner said. "I always thought she sounded like an angel."

For Graves, her mother said, the first sounds of opera changed everything. She said Graves knew it was her calling. "How does anyone know [that] in seventh grade?" Graves-Kenner asked. "It's a gift."

With the guidance of a dedicated music teacher, Graves went on to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and New England Conservatory.

In 1995, Graves debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She has since starred in operas all over the world and performed at an array of high-profile national events -- a presidential inauguration, a memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral for victims of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the recent D.C. visit by Pope Benedict XVI.

More times than she can count, Graves-Kenner has traveled from her home in Glenarden to see Graves onstage in countries such as Austria, Iceland and Italy. She has become a familiar face to other performers, she said, including Placido Domingo, who now embraces her with: "Hi, Mama. How are you?"