As they say in the hills of Kentucky, Tim never met a stranger. Timothy John
McKay, 73, performance artist, musician, poet, actor, anti-racist, and dearly
beloved father passed away on September 9th, 2021. Born in New York City, NY,
December 14th, 1947, to Emma White McKay of Manchester, KY and Zackary
McKay of Romania, Tim was a wanderer, deeply committed to nonviolent change.
As a child, Tim and his brother, Peter, moved to Manchester, KY where he spent
his adolescent years crafting his wit and charm, and troublemaking at St. Joseph
Preparatory School, the boarding school he attended in Bardstown, KY. During the
Vietnam War, Tim became a merchant marine to avoid the draft and choose the
path of least harm available to him and the Vietnamese revolutionaries. One night,
while he and his crewmates were attending a party in Vietnam, a Viet Cong
revolutionary rushed in with a firearm. He leapt onto the man, wrestling the gun
out of his hands, and placing his body over the gun to protect all the people in the
room. Tim was committed to ending all wars. Following Woodstock in 1969, Tim
moved to NYC and met a man named Juma who played guitar for Jimi Hendrix.
Juma taught Tim how to play the bongos and djembe, the beginning of his lifelong
study of African percussion, music, dance, and art. He wrote many performance art
pieces and performed in several plays including a production of Fiddler on the
Roof. One of his performance art pieces, titled "Medicine Woman," is a dialogic
poem that follows a conversation between the narrator and the medicine woman.
The medicine woman uproots Western values of capitalism and colonialism and in
exchange bades the narrator, "Embrace the whole human." In 1974, Tim and his
brothers, Tomi and Peter, drove through Mexico and Central America to San Jose,
Costa Rica, where their family bought a saw mill in Limon, Costa Rica. After
becoming an expert in African and Central and South American hardwoods, he
joined an import/export firm in Memphis, TN. In Memphis, Tim created and
performed in many bands, including Calvin Newborn and the Owls. Newborn was
the brother of Phineas Newborn Jr., a famous, highly skilled and unique pianist
from Whiteville, TN. He performed at the Protect Life and People with AIDS
event in 1996, and in 1994, Tim won first place for his performance piece Fourth
World Musique Meets Cote d'Ivoire at the Memphis in May International Festival
celebrating Cote d'Ivoire. Shortly after, Tim met Anthony "Amp" Elmore, national
kickboxing champion and first filmmaker in Memphis. They collaborated on many
musical, Buddhist, and filmmaking projects at Amp's Safari House in Orange
Mound where Tim resided and Amp cared for him into his later years. Tim was a
friend to all and a father to many. He is survived by three children, Anya McKay,
Michal McKay, and Joshua Jorgensen of Memphis, TN. His legacy lives on in his
impact on those he knew and loved, which for Tim were always one and the same.
As he advised us in his poem:
"Consider the body as a temple / To be entered / With reverence for life."