Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-woman, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are an American three-time Grammy Award–nominated troupe who express their history as black women through song, dance, and sign language. Originally a four-person ensemble, the group has expanded to five-part harmonies, with a sixth member acting as a sign-language interpreter. Although the members have changed over four decades, the group continues to sing and perform worldwide.
Bernice Johnson Reagon is a song leader, composer, scholar, and social activist, who in the early 1960s was a founding member of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's (SNCC) Freedom Singers in the Albany Movement in Georgia. In 1973, she founded the all-black female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, based in Washington, D.C. Reagon, along with other members of the SNCC Freedom Singers, realized the power of collective singing to unify the disparate groups who began to work together in the 1964 Freedom Summer protests in the South.
“After a song,” Reagon recalled, “the differences between us were not so great. Somehow, making a song required an expression of that which was common to us all.... This music was like an instrument, like holding a tool in your hand.”
Carol Lynn Maillard is an American actress, singer, and composer. She is one of the founding members of the Grammy Award-winning a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Toshi Reagon is an American musician of folk, blues, gospel, rock and funk, as well as a composer, curator, and producer.
Tor Lars Oskar Endresen is a Norwegian singer and composer.
"Sweet Home Chicago" is a blues standard first recorded by Robert Johnson in 1936. Although he is often credited as the songwriter, several songs have been identified as precedents. The song has become a popular anthem for the city of Chicago despite ambiguity in Johnson's original lyrics. Numerous artists have interpreted the song in a variety of styles.
"John the Revelator" is a traditional gospel blues call and response song. Music critic Thomas Ward describes it as "one of the most powerful songs in all of pre-war acoustic music ... [which] has been hugely influential to blues performers". American gospel-blues musician Blind Willie Johnson recorded "John the Revelator" in 1930 and subsequently a variety of artists have recorded their renditions of the song, often with variations in the verses and music.
"Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment" is one of the few Civil War-era songs inspired by the lyrical structure of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the tune of "John Brown's Body" that is still performed and recorded today. The "Marching Song" has been described as "a powerful early statement of black pride, militancy, and desire for full equality, revealing the aspirations of black soldiers for Reconstruction as well as anticipating the spirit of the civil rights movement of the 1960s." The song's lyrics are attributed to the regiment's white officer, Captain Lindley Miller. An almost identical song, "The Valiant Soldiers," is attributed to Sojourner Truth in post-Civil War editions of her Narrative. Recent scholarship supports Miller as the original author, or at least compiler, of the song.
The Freedom Singers originated as a student quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with protest songs and chants, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond of the struggles of the Jim Crow South.
Gonna Let It Shine: A Concert for the Holidays, is a live album by American folk singer Odetta, released in 2005. It was recorded at Fordham University in New York City for a public radio broadcast.
Fellowship is the fourth studio album by an American singer Lizz Wright, which was released on 28 September 2010 on Verve Forecast. Guest performances on the album include Meshell Ndegeocello, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Joan as Policewoman and Angélique Kidjo. The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Jazz Album chart, and has sold 17,000 copies in the United States as of August 2015.
Every Mother Counts is a charity compilation album and soundtrack for Christy Turlington's 2010 documentary film No Woman, No Cry by various artists, released by Starbucks' record label Hear Music on April 12, 2011. Featuring fifteen tracks about motherhood, some of which are original and previously unreleased, the compilation was sold exclusively at Starbucks locations and benefited the CARE's maternal health initiatives and the Every Mother Counts foundation. The album debuted at number 83 on the Billboard 200.
Charles "Chuck" Neblett is a civil rights activist best known for helping to found and being a member of The Freedom Singers.
"Bye and Bye We'reGoing to See the King" is a Christian song from the African-American musical tradition. It is known by a variety of titles, including "I Wouldn't Mind Dying " and "A Mother's Last Word to Her Daughter". It was recorded seven times before 1930, using the preceding titles.
"Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right" is a gospel blues song recorded in 1930 by Blind Willie Johnson with backing vocals by Willie B. Harris, who may have been his first wife. The song was released in 1930 on Columbia 14597 as B-side to "Go with Me to That Land".
"Let Your Light Shine on Me" is a traditional gospel blues song, having been recorded by The Wiseman Quartet in 1923, by Ernest Phipps in 1928, and by Blind Willie Johnson in 1929. The song itself is also known as "Shine On Me", "Let It Shine on Me", "Light from the Lighthouse" and "Light from Your Lighthouse".
"Trouble Will Soon Be Over" is a traditional gospel blues song recorded in 1929 by Blind Willie Johnson and Willie B. Harris, who is thought to have been his first wife.
"Sweeter as the Years Go By" is a Christian hymn written by Lelia N. Morris in 1912. It has been included in 87 hymnals. Its subject-matter is expressed in the refrain:
The Complete Blind Willie Johnson is a compilation album of all the known recordings by American gospel blues singer-guitarist Blind Willie Johnson. As part of the Roots N' Blues series, it was released jointly by Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, on April 27, 1993. All of the tracks on the two-compact disc set were originally issued by Columbia on the then-standard two-sided 78 rpm record format.
Yasmeen Williams is an American gospel singer and former member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock.
