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Various Artists
How We Got Over: Sacred Songs of Gee's Bend
Tinwood Media
2CD
$19
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Before we get into Kevin Nutt's astute review of these two discs, I feel the need to briefly testify as to the heartrending power of the songs sung by Mary Lee Bendolph found on this set. I have rarely heard anyone sing with such depth of feeling. Now then, on to Mr. Nutt:
The two compact discs in this collection were produced to accompany The Quilts of Gee's Bend exhibition organized by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and taken from the collection of Tinwood Alliance. As astonishing as the Gee's Bend quilts are, these CDs reveal a comparably rich singing tradition. Indeed, the CDs can stand on their own as a unique musical document.
The first disc consists of 18 recordings made by Robert Sonkin in Gee's Bend in 1941. Sonkin is better known as one of the collectors of what has become "Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection." What is not as well known is that Sonkin, working with the Archive of American Folk Song, journeyed to Gee's Bend in 1941 and over the course of several weeks recorded spirituals, hymns, conversations, and even the activities of a Fourth of July picnic. All the 18 selections presented here are hymns and spirituals and were apparently chosen because the performers were relatives of the contemporary quilter/singers featured on the second disc or quilters themselves.
Despite the reputation of Gee's Bend as being isolated and uninfluenced by outside forces, several of the songs reflect a probable awareness of some of the then-contemporary gospel recordings. "He's All" has an arrangement very similar to a 1937 commercial recording by Alabama's Ravizee Singers, while "Here Am I (Send Me)" is almost identical to North Carolina's Mitchell's Christian Singers 1934 recording. Besides the fine performances captured by Sonkin, the significance of the first disc is that the Sonkin Gee's Bend recordings, at least to the knowledge of this reviewer, have never previously been collected and released in this manner. Steve Grauberger of the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture has done a fine job editing and remastering the tape sources. These are all nice performances capturing a community performing a repertoire of songs ranging from nineteenth century spirituals, to hymns and contemporary gospel songs, and it is such a treat to have them collected on CD.
The second CD features recordings made in July and August of 2002 by Matt Arnett and Steve Grauberger. All of the singers are themselves quilters. The performances are all a cappella, casual, unrehearsed, and strikingly fine. Like the Sonkin recordings, the performances are a mixture of spirituals, traditional songs, hymns, and gospel songs. The songs consist of solos, duos, trios, and a quartet, The White Rose. Many of the songs benefit from unique arrangements. The title song, "How We Got Over," ignores the ubiquitous arrangement of W. H. Brewster, made popular by the Ward Singers and Mahalia Jackson in the early 1950s, and instead accumulates power simply by repeating the familiar refrain only changing a few words each time. There is a beautiful, understated tentativeness to the performances often highlighted by the singers' reedy tenors. Many of the songs are delivered in voices barely above a whisper. Indeed, the CD concludes with a barely audible "thank you Jesus."
In the shout or improvisatory section of "Power of God," the White Rose opt to eschew the practice often used by male quartets of using this section to increase the tempo, punctuate with energetic hand-clapping, and increasing the volume and intensity of the singing. Rather, the White Rose lower the volume to an almost inaudible hum with the lead singer's improvised exhortations barely audible above the repeated phrase "I'm moving by the power." Extemporaneous hand clapping and shouts at the beginnings and ending of several songs are wisely left in. Mary Lee Bendolph, singing the eighteenth century hymn "The Day is Passed and Gone," a favorite of her mother's, ends the song prematurely, overcome with emotion, weeping over the memory of her mother. The final selection is another performance by Mary Lee Bendolph and Essie B. Pettway, "Oh, Please Lord, Have Mercy" that approaches the power and beauty of Rich Amerson's and Price and Earthy Ann Coleman's 1950 Harold Courlander field recording, "Rock Chariot, I Told You to Rock." Such a cappella singing as a whole is becoming rarer and difficult to find and this CD should be valued for documenting this disappearing tradition and practice.
The CDs themselves are packaged in an attractive cardboard double foldout and the enclosed liner notes by Matt Arnett are succinct and informative. In keeping with the comparative historical presentation of the two discs of music, the liner notes and package feature several of Arthur Rothstein's familiar 1937 Gee's Bend photographs coupled with several excellent contemporary portraits of the quilter/singers. -- by Kevin Nutt, originally published in Tributaries: the Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association.
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