James Bridges has had a knack for singing since he was a little boy. And for decades, he’s sung happy birthday wishes to church members and close friends. But then, through word of mouth alone, more and more people discovered his ability and requested he sing to their loved ones.
“People heard how well I could sing, that they got me to sing to their girlfriend and boyfriend and their children and all that stuff,” Bridges said. “And it just blew up from there.”
In 2003, news coverage of his work exacerbated this explosion. Now, Bridges personally calls and sings happy birthday to no fewer than nine individuals on any given day of the year. He sings to the most people — a whopping 45 — on his own birthday, May 1.
Happy Birthday(s)
Bridges cracks open a binder, chocked full of birthdays, and finds a name with his finger. He taps out the accompanying phone number for his cousin, Steve Turner. As soon as Turner picks up, Bridges rolls into a resonant rendition of the famous birthday jingle, with his personal flair sprinkled into the mix.
“Happy birthday, Mr. Turner, my cousin,” Bridges said. “This is Deacon Dr. Bridges, Deacon Dr. James D. Bridges, wishing you a very, very happy birthday, and I will see you later.”
Turner is just one of the nearly 3,000 individuals Bridges has called since he started keeping track. Another yearly recipient of Bridges’ warm greetings is Marcia Bryant, who worked with him at Air Products and Chemicals in Calvert City for more than three decades.
“I changed companies in 2012, and he’s called me every year since then,” Bryant said. “But up until then, of course, he would just make sure he stepped into your office on your birthday and sang to you in person.”
Bryant says people feel “special” when they receive a call from Bridges.
“You know he cares to make that effort because he knows he’s putting that smile on your face,” she said. “As a matter of fact, today is my birthday. This morning, the first thing my husband said when I got up, he said, ‘Have you got your call from James yet?’ I said, ‘No, not today, but it’s still early.’ And in about 30 minutes, I got that phone call.”
And she knows Bridges feels just as good calling so many people every day.
“I think it makes him feel like he’s doing something to please people, to make people happy,” Bryant said. “He likes to please people. He appreciates the praise we give him and the thanks we give him for doing it.”
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Because Bridges makes a point to call people on their actual date of birth — no matter what day of the week that may be — Bryant says she and others have always wondered how he blocks out the time to do it.
“While he was working, he got up, he had a long drive from Cadiz area to Calvert City,” she said. “And he would call people when he got up in the morning. He would call people on his way to work. It took him several hours a day, I’m sure, to catch everybody and to leave messages for all the people that he had each day. I guess that occupied his drive to work anyway.”
Humble Beginnings
Bridges has been a member of Corinth Missionary Baptist Church in Cadiz for more than 60 years, serving as a deacon for about 10 years now. Before that, he was a Sunday school superintendent and a choir member. The latter role was where his penchant for singing shone brightest.
“I sang in a church choir,” he said. “And then, they knew how well I could sing, so I led the songs in the church and all this stuff.”
In May 1978, Bridges received devastating news: He had a brain tumor doctors deemed inoperable because of its sensitive location. This stressful diagnosis nearly sidelined his life — until one uncanny encounter with a cow.
“Basically, long story short, I hit a cow,” he said. “That made [the tumor] move enough for them to operate. And then, that’s where this stuttering came from. But I don’t stutter when I sing, like Mel Tillis.”
This turn of fortune inspired Bridges to become even more involved in his faith.
“I feel very blessed, very blessed,” he said. “I didn’t want the government to be taking care of me for the rest of my life, so I got up and I started doing my exercising and going through physical therapy and all this stuff. And I got up in 1980, was the time they called me back to work.”
That wouldn’t be the only struggle Bridges would face, though. His wife, Theresa, recently grappled with complications related to a hole in the heart she’s had since birth, which doctors anticipated would eventually close up on its own.
“She was climbing up the steps one day and she said, ‘James, you’re going to take me to the doctor because I don’t feel too good,’ Bridges recounted. “So I took her. Then, they kept her up there from about three until nine o’clock that night. Then, they told her that she would have to be rushed to medical. They had all kinds of needles sticking in her arm or something. I got down on my knees, and I prayed that God would take care of her, and she’s back with me.”
Bridges said he missed his wife during her month-long tenure in the hospital earlier this year but remained positive in the face of adversity.
As to how, he said: “Just thanking my heavenly father for bringing me this far and bringing Theresa this far, because she didn’t have to come home with me, but the Lord so said to let her come on back home.”
No End in Sight
Since retiring from Air Products and Chemicals on June 3, 2019 — after 46 years, seven months, and 11 days, by his calculations — Bridges said he’s had more time to wish more people a happy birthday. Only now, so many people wish him well on his birthday that he spends days returning their calls.
“I went through my phone, but I haven’t gotten them all yet,” he said. “There’s so many people that’s wishing me happy birthday because mine is on the first [of May]. People love you. Since I’m retired now, I love it, I love it, I love it.”
At 68, Bridges still finds joy in every birthday call he makes. He says calls to the elderly are particularly heartfelt.
“So many elderly people that I sing to, they just cry. Oh, golly,” he said. “And then, they want to bring up that I cry with them because I’m tenderhearted, too. The wife, she says that I’m not, but I’m tenderhearted. But those elderly people, they cry, and then, I sing happy birthday to them, and I just cry.”
Children, who Bridges says are treated to the traditional version of the song, also bring forth some fun reactions.
“They are shy because they don’t want to pick up the phone,” he said. “But as they get older, then they’ll listen to me, and they’ll say, ‘Thank you and thank you and thank you.’”
Due in part to news coverage over the past two decades, Bridges gained notoriety “all over the country and in some foreign countries” for his birthday calls, a feat not lost on him. He keeps another binder of clippings from various publications that have documented his story, including The Cadiz Record and even a Ripley’s Believe It or Not comic strip.
“When I wake up in the morning, I thank the Lord for letting me see another day,” he said. “And I say, ‘I wonder how many birthdays I got to sing today?’ And then, I go to the book and I say, ‘Oh, it’s only 15,’ and 18 and stuff like that. Now, I can talk longer because I’m not on the job.”
Bridges plans to keep calling people on their birthdays for the foreseeable future. In fact, he jotted down my birthday at the end of the interview.
