Singer and musician Roger Blevins Jr. toured the country and world with his band, Mingo Fishtrap, for three decades – until he received a life-changing tongue cancer diagnosis in 2022.
His wife, Valerie Blevins, said they both cried after receiving the news, “then we stopped crying and got down to business.”
Surgeons removed most of Blevins’ tongue and used tissue from his thigh to reconstruct a flap, allowing him to eat and speak again.
“So most of my tongue … is white. That’s all part of my leg. I don’t have control of that,” Blevins explained.
He had to learn to speak again and said he locked himself in the bathroom and recorded practicing sounds and phrases.
“It’s really hard to physically speak differently than you have for five decades,” Blevins said. “Singing has been the center … of my rehab.”
Return to singing
Singing with a napkin in hand to catch the drool left by surgeries, Blevins went back to church, a place that always grounded him. His voice wasn’t as strong, but his passion was there, and in time the strength returned.
“I’ve had every leg up,” Blevins said, crediting his medical team at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “They took into account what I did for a living … which is amazing in itself, but a bit of me is kind of proud to wear their work.”
While Blevins remains a patient at MD Anderson, he’s hit another milestone: a full year of clear screenings or N.E.D. (no evidence of disease).
“They saved my life, but they also saved my love,” he said.
A year later, Valerie Blevins said her husband’s singing almost sounds better.
“That’s like a sliding scale because he’s always been really, really good,” she said. “I mean, we’ve been saying ‘grateful’ over and over and over again.”
In August, Blevins took the stage for his first ticketed show since the surgeries at the 04 Center in Austin, Texas.
Helping families battling cancer
From Blevins’ cancer fight came a new mission: helping other families battling cancer. The Blevins launched the nonprofit “The Tough Crowd Project.”
On its website, the nonprofit states it is “committed to raising funds for and awareness of organizations offering financial aid, access to services and other support to cancer patients, survivors, and their families.”
“I think of every kid I saw there with cancer,” Blevins said. “All of the people that you meet, the other patients and their families … they all become a part of your journey and your story as well.”
Justice Barrett on the Supreme Court’s checks on Trump’s power
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” turns 50: “Don’t dream it, be it”
Stand-up Nate Bargatze on operating in “the chaos”
