The Women of Blind Gospel
When we think of the tradition of itinerant blind black musicians, names like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Willie McTell or Blind Willie Johnson tend to come up quickly. Blind women in that tradition — harder to name.
But there were several and even some that gained wider recognition. Blind Mamie Forehand was one such performer and like many of her male counterparts she worked with her spouse, the reverend A C.
As University of North Carolina cultural historian Jerma Jackson points out: “Women evangelists are not as individuals going to street corners and evangelizing. They’re doing it in groups. There are two or three traveling together .
Which makes Flora Molton all the more remarkable.
“Flora Molton was a rough sister. She told me that she actually took training at the Washington school for the blind and they would train you to run these stands where you could sell things but during her day they never gave those jobs to blacks so… she took the corner for her job. In the beginning, she said the police would run her off and most of the police were white and she said they would run her off and she would go back,” says scholar and performer Bernice Johnson Reagon.
Flora Molton made few records, and reached a fairly limited audience. Especially compared to Blind Willie Johnson, for whom recordings meant a little bit of income and a lot of reknown.
But she wasn’t the only blind black female performer who’s influence can still be noticed today and who’s work has survived.
Airzona Dranes maybe one the most well known. “She was born in Dallas, Texas somewhere between 1904 and 1906. She was blind from birth and she recorded for Okeh Records between 1926 and 1929. Her piano style was very, very distinctive in fact, that was her signature sound,” says cultural historian Jerma Jackson:
More than just her playing her showmanship and performing prowess was legendary. Pianist Henry Butler remarks, “I have heard sort of bits and pieces of a lot of people playing like that especially in what we used to call sanctified churches. On the verse when she was doing this piano music I was reminded of what tuba players might play if they were marching in a parade in New Orleans or something like that. And the thing is you don’t always know what’s coming next and I dare say that she didn’t probably also know what was going to happen next, but it always worked
Arizona Dranes sold a lot of records, says Jerma Jackson, but witnesses say her live performances made her records feel like wax. “I interviewed some elderly women from Chicago who vividly recall, in the 1990’s hearing Arizona Dranes play in the 1920’s and they didn’t just remember that she played. They remembered how she played. She would sit in her seat, stand up, turn around, sit back down and continue to play as though nothing had ever intervened. And for a blind singer, that’s a gift. They remembered that in 1993! And for a religious audience, they were seeing God at work because she was demonstrating God’s work right before their eyes.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.