JOEY: Musical Talents Carried Great Expectations

Joey d'Entremont could sing. And play piano. And guitar. And drums. And just about any other instrument he got his hands on.

"He could pick up anything. Like you show him something on any instrument and he had it down," said Hailey Leight, a companion since fourth grade.

Longtime friend, classmate and junior varsity football teammate Nathan Emge can attest to that.

"He lived in four houses since I've known him," Emge said. "Every time he went to a different house he learned how to play a different instrument."

The "fallstonfootball12" page on YouTube offers proof of d'Entremont's talents. What his friends and family regret, though, is not seeing him perform live more often before the 14-year-old was killed Friday night when he was struck by a car less than a half-mile from his mother's Forest Hill home.

"I never went to many of his shows. I was only at a couple but I feel like I never had the time to do it, but now I regret it," said Jarrett d'Entremont, Joey's 13-year-old brother.

Although Leight spent a lot of time with Joey and got to play guitar with him, she, too, wished she could have gone to more of his shows.

"He invited me to so many of his shows and I never got around to going; I was busy. And now it's a little too late," Leight said.

Sitting on the piano in the d'Entremont's home are sheets of music and handwritten lyrics that Joey never finished. There is one original song, however, that he recorded before passing, "Caught Me By Surprise," and it is at the center of one of Austin Rutkowski's greatest memories of the close friend he only knew for six months.

"He had a party for formal; it was a dance for eighth grade," said Rutkowski, another JV football teammate. "We went to this flea market thing at C-Mart the next morning over by his mom's house. And we went in there and there was a piano and he started playing on it and singing and we had a huge crowd in there and it was insane. And we were still in all of our dress clothes."

Giving a crowd a good show came naturally to the precocious 14-year-old, even if he did not know someone very well.

"I remember the first time I ever went over to his house he had this keyboard," classmate Adam Adolfo said. "He started playing this song and I actually got goose bumps from it because I knew he was going to make it far in life just doing that."

All the better, then, when he did know them.

"He would always sing his songs to me on the phone," said Brooke Nigrin, one of Joey's girlfriends who he had asked Thursday night to be his Homecoming date. "The first time I went over to his house he sat me down in his piano room and played a song for me."

His performances were moving, often bringing listeners to tears, 11-year-old brother Jordan d'Entremont said.

"His shows were really emotional. Every time you went there was people crying," Jordan said.

Most of the people who knew Joey describe him as their best friend, or at least a very close one. It is no wonder, then, that he had so much to express through his music.

"He had a lot of things to inspire him," Jordan said.

And apparently, he inspired others as well.

"He has the most beautiful voice," Leight said.

When asked about his big brother as a musician, Jarrett did not hesitate. Nor did he get excited. He just shared a matter of fact.

"He was really good. He liked to write his own music and then hear how we thought about it," he said. "He should've been huge but of course that didn't work out."

Part Two will feature Joey as an athlete.

Part Three will feature Joey as a person.

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