The Church: melodies, memory and story
After their years of slavery African-Americans kept with them Christianity and the hymnals that sang the religion’s praises. It was a powerful connection in a community deprived of education, where literacy was a rare achievement. Where few people read, word of mouth rules, especially word of mouth raised in oration or song.
“For black Americans living in the South, the church was the focal point for community life,” says Kip Lornell, teacher of American vernacular music at George Washington University. “And it was a focal point not just on Sunday morning when people would come from different plantations or different homes to meet at church, but it also served as a social nexus. If you had a problem the pastor could serve as a spokesperson for the community. If you needed help with a project you might ask some of the other people in the church to help come together to build a cabin, to help out if there is some problem with the family, if you were in need of food. The church was really the central organizing social entity for black Americans well into the 20th Century.”
There’s always music making of some kind. It wouldn’t matter if you were in Southwest Louisiana, it could be an accordion player. In Alabama where quartets were really important at the turn of the century, it could be a quartet performing at the church. And a lot of times of course, this material is so familiar to everybody that you might have a leader, but that line between the congregation and the person who was the singer was really blurred because often everybody would join in.”
“When I was a kid I used to go to these black Baptist churches. And you hear some of those types of songs are call and response songs. It’s really, really wonderful to hear a whole group of people improvising and being and staying on the same wavelength,” says Pianist Henry Butler.
It is little surprise that many of the giants of music developed their skills in church. The late Whitney Houston preformed in the New Hope Baptist Church of Newark, NJ. Decades earlier Sarah Vaughan started performing just a mile south of at the Mount Zion Baptist Church. WC Handy studied the organ to please his minister father in Guntersville, AL.
Music taps deep into the conscious and particularly influences memory as the sounds of music become tied to the other senses. A song can bring back memories, inspire new ones and help retain important information.
This principal of oral culture, start with the songs people already know. Check out “Precious Lord” to get a sense of this tradition
As Hennery Butler points out, “If you really listen to the music of the Five Blind Boys of Alabama you can hear that the harmonies are quite simple. You know, those kinds of harmonies and they were great because there was so much passion coming from the singers and the only rhythm you heard was the tapping of the feet. Some songs were maybe a little more sophisticated than that, but not much more. It was great for the times and when you hear the five blind boys today, it’s still great now.
A connection to the mystical and spiritual world rooted in a supportive community gave music its passion and its support. It provided powerful narratives of redemption and hope, messages not only important to communities oppressed but by weary individuals. It is little wonder some of the best ambassadors of this music were individuals who saw light in a world of darkness. Without these religious communities and the blind singers who spread these songs it’s difficult to envision a world filled with their heavenly sight.
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