Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice

Last updated

Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice is a 2005 television documentary. It was produced by Firelight Media and directed by Stanley Nelson for the PBS series American Masters .

The film chronicles the history, music, and cultural impact of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a Grammy Award-winning African American female a cappella group with musical roots combining jazz, blues and sacred songs of the black church such as spirituals, hymns, and gospel. The documentary uses concert footage and rehearsals, archival stills, and reflections by ensemble members, as well as interviews with scholars and cultural commentators. It is intended to introduce the viewer to the group's performance style and activism, and "the organization's significance as a national institution". [1]

Related Research Articles

Jesus music, known as gospel beat music in the United Kingdom, is a style of Christian music that originated on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This musical genre developed in parallel to the Jesus movement. It outlasted the movement that spawned it and the Christian music industry began to eclipse it and absorb its musicians around 1975.

Sweet Honey in the Rock American all-woman a cappella ensemble

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 Musical artist

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.”

Nitanju Bolade Casel has been a member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock since 1985. Prior to joining, Casel spent four years studying performance and cultural organization in Dakar, Senegal. While in Africa, she and MarieLouise Guinier co-founded ADEA, an organization that seeks to use the arts to facilitate the exchange of ideas and services between Pan African people.

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 American musician, composer, and producer

Toshi Reagon is an American musician of folk, blues, gospel, rock and funk, as well as a composer, curator, and producer.

Sally Timms English singer and lyricist

Sally Timms is an English singer and lyricist. Timms is best known for her long involvement with The Mekons whom she joined in 1985.

Cyril Neville American percussionist and singer

Cyril Garrett Neville is an American percussionist and vocalist who first came to prominence as a member of his brother Art Neville's funky New Orleans-based band, The Meters. He joined Art in the Neville Brothers band upon the dissolution of the Meters.

Ken Tamplin American musician

Ken Tamplin is an American Christian rock performer and vocal coach. Tamplin is known for his vocal range and has composed music for television and movies.

"Salty Dog Blues" is a folk song from the early 1900s. Musicians have recorded it in a number of styles, including blues, jazz, country music, bluegrass. Papa Charlie Jackson recorded an adaptation for Paramount and Broadway in 1924. According to Jas Obrecht, "Old-time New Orleans musicians from Buddy Bolden’s era recalled hearing far filthier versions of 'Salty Dog Blues' long before Papa Charlie’s recording." Similar versions were recorded by Mississippi John Hurt and Lead Belly.

<i>Sweet Replies</i> 1971 studio album by Honey Cone

Sweet Replies is the second studio album by American R&B/Soul/Funk Girl group the Honey Cone. It was released by Hot Wax/Invictus Records in 1971.

Stanley Nelson Jr. American documentary filmmaker

Stanley Earl Nelson Jr. is an American documentary filmmaker and a MacArthur Fellow known as a director, writer and producer of documentaries examining African-American history and experiences. He is a recipient of the 2013 National Humanities Medal from President Obama. He has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.

Firelight Media is a non-profit filmmaking company founded by filmmaker Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith. The company is located in New York City.

Marcus Garvey: Look For Me in the Whirlwind is a 2001 television documentary. It was produced by Firelight Media for the PBS series American Experience. The film chronicles the rise and fall of Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican national who emigrated to the United States as a laborer in 1917 to then became the leader of the largest black organization in history. After 10 years in the United States, he was arrested and deported. The film includes interviews with people who were a part of Garvey's revolutionary movement.

<i>Freedom Riders</i> (film) 2010 American film

Freedom Riders is a 2010 American historical documentary film, produced by Firelight Media for PBS American Experience. The film is based in part on the book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by historian Raymond Arsenault. Directed by Stanley Nelson, it marked the 50th anniversary of the first Freedom Ride in May 1961 and first aired on May 16, 2011. It was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The film was also featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show program titled, Freedom Riders: 50th Anniversary. Nelson was helped in the making of the documentary by Arsenault and Derek Catsam, an associate professor at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin.

Michelle Parkerson American filmmaker and academic

Michelle Parkerson is an American filmmaker and academic. She is an assistant professor in Film and Media Arts at Temple University and has been an independent film/video maker since the 1980s, focusing particularly on feminist, LGBT and political activism and issues.

The 44th NAACP Image Awards ceremony, presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), honored the best in film, television, recording, and literature of 2012. The ceremony took place on February 1, 2013, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, aired live on NBC and was hosted by Steve Harvey.

Yasmeen Williams American gospel singer

Yasmeen Williams is an American gospel singer and former member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock.

Stuart Bascombe American singer-songwriter

Stuart D. Bascombe is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Bascombe is an original member of the R&B/soul vocal group Black Ivory who recorded a number of R&B hits in the 1970s, including "Don't Turn Around", "You and I", "Time Is Love", "I'll Find a Way ", and their disco hit "Mainline".

Sacred Ground is an album by the American a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, released in 1995.

References

  1. Hayes, Eileen (2006). "Not Your Mother's Racial Uplift: Sweet Honey in the Rock, Journey, and Representation: Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice". Women Music. 10 (3): 71–79, 124. ISSN   1090-7505 via ProQuest LLC.