Howard Dwaine Dorough

When Howie was only three years old (he was born on August 22, 973), he jumped onto his grandmother's bed and sang her the old classic song, "Baby Face." Part of the Dorough family legend includes those times little Howie would jump up on a bed and start singing and playing his little guitar!     Back then Howie was a major Michael Jackson fan. "Michael had a big influence on my life, in terms of inspiring me to sing," Howie told BOP! "He's a great artist. He's incredibly talented. When I was a little kid, I had the album Thriller, I had the Michael Jackson glove, and I even had the Thriller skateboard!"     However, there was a point in Howie's early life when he was thinking about another career! "I had an uncle who was a doctor and my father was actually a police officer," Howie revealed in an online interview. "So it was between those two [careers]. But once my sister got me involved at the age of six or seven [in theater], then I started dreaming that someday I would be singing live in front of a big audience."     "I really started performing when I was seven," Howie told 16 maazine. "My first play was The Wizard of Oz - I played a Munchkin." But that was just the beginning.