RESEARCH QUESTION

How do Black performers of gospel music on the Williams college campus connect to this it in their daily lives? What part does the historical significance of gospel music play in their performance of it?

BACKGROUND & SIGNIFICANCE

I have been singing gospel since before I can remember. In Haiti, where almost everyone is Christian, mothers raise their children on gospel music like they raise them on plantains and rice. I woke up to singing and went to bed humming the same song. Of course, it wasn’t technically gospel, not in the way we think of it here in the states, but the sentiments were the same. Thus, when I moved to the United States and started singing in the church choir at the age of eight, the music itself was not new, only the language was.
Growing up in the inner city with highly over-protective Haitian parents, the choir quickly became my entire life. Not only was it the only social life I had, but it was also just my thing…my niche. I had never been without gospel or my choir, so from the moment I stepped foot on this campus I knew that I needed a find a similar sanctuary. In order to survive Williams, I would need to have some semblance of “home” and “family” here, and I found that and so much more rather quickly when I joined the Gospel Choir. Now, as a long-term member, and current director, of the Choir, I have had the opportunity to witness not only the group’s growth and evolution but also the things that have remained exactly the same.
GC was great three years ago and it is great now, but at least in my eyes, there has definitely been an expansion both in terms of who our members are and in the choir’s own understanding of how we function in this community. No matter where our members have come from, how much experience they have had with gospel music in the past, or even how religious they are or ever were, they all have one thing in common: their love of Gospel music and subsequently, their love for GC. It is important to realize that because Gospel Choir presents itself as a “no audition,” “no experience necessary” and “religiously unaffiliated” group, there is very little incentive to fully commit apart from pure interest. While this policy certainly does have its difficulties, it ensures that everyone who is a member of our choir is there because they truly want to be. Something beyond talent, religion, and personal history binds us as a choir, and I don’t think any other group at Williams, musical or otherwise, can declare that like we can. It is one of the many things that make GC special.
Although I knew deep down that being a part of GC was essential to my survival here at Williams, it took me years to articulate exactly why that was the case. Indeed, I am still in the process. My faith is undoubtedly a huge part of it, but an even bigger part is Gospel music in and of itself. For me, in my life and in my time here at Williams, it has truly been powerful in a way that transcends religion and taps into a deeper sense of human strength and perseverance. But every member of my choir has a different story and a different path that led them to this place and to this choir. Thus, I cannot expect that they all experience and interact with this music the same way I do. This leads me to question how exactly do they as individuals and we a group relate to this music that we sing every week? What purpose, if any, does it serve apart from a performance art?
When we welcome the audience to our concerts every fall and spring, we always stress that they have not come for “a show,” but for an experience. We say that we do not expect them to simply sit there and watch us perform but to stand up, clap, sing along, dance, roll down the aisles etc., because this interaction makes the experience more “authentic.” If we are doing it right, the music should do something, because historically, it always has. But Gospel Choir’s performances are indeed performances, aren’t they? We put hours and hours into making sure we sound the part, look the part and even act the part. We even go as far as to instruct the audience to act the part themselves. While our focus on performance and the experience of gospel may sound inauthentic, for me, it raises even more interesting questions. Does our performance of gospel have its own symbolic significance? How does “putting on a show” featuring gospel music add or take away from our appreciation for the music or its function in our lives?
These are questions that have been milling around my head for the better part of a year. As my studies in American and Africana studies delved deeper into performance studies and the intersectionality of identity, the question of “performing blackness” continued to reemerge. As the one form of black performance I actively participate in, I assume Gospel music has had a hand in shaping my understanding of my black identity, and that my performance of the music itself has been shaped by that identity as well. Historically, gospel music has been an integral part of the black experience in America, and while the music has evolved and modernized with the times, branching out into other communities and making a name for itself even among popular music, there has been very little research on how today’s youth connect to gospel music. A project like this one might illuminate the various ways in which gospel music not only continues to shape the black experience and black identity but also share that experience and identity with members outside of the black community.

RESEARCH SITE

My research will take place on the Williams College campus, specifically in the places and spaces that the Gospel Choir frequently occupies. These spaces include the classrooms and practice rooms within the Bernard Music Center, Chapin Hall, which will be the site of our Fall Concert, various churches on or near the college campus, and other common spaces like classrooms and dorm rooms where I plan to conduct my interviews.
I started my literature review several weeks ago but the active research itself began just over a week ago on October 26, 2015, the first day of solo auditions. I expect my research to take about a month to complete, culminating sometime during the week of November 22, 2015, after our concert. I will be interacting with Gospel Choir members for this project during their busiest time of the semester, the month immediately preceding their concert. As they work tirelessly to perfect their performance, I will be trying to engage them into critically thinking about the motivations behind their choices as well as tapping into where this passion for gospel comes from.

THEORETICAL INTERLOCUTORS & LIT REVIEW

One of the oldest and largest documentations of the “musical capacity of the negro” came in the form of Slave Songs of the United States, a mid-19th century index of slave songs collected from every corner of the south. This collection lists a staggering 138 songs and spirituals, many of which have been long forgotten by the descendants of their creators. While only the most powerful or catchy have survived 200 years of musical growth, the existence of such a collection speaks to the importance of music and song during the times of slavery. Even as the authors aim to categorize, justify, and explain the characteristics of and the inspirations behind these songs for their white audience, they admit that there are aspects of these music that are simply outside of conceptual reach. In other words, there is just something about gospel that makes it infectious and communal and transformative. While the introduction of this book goes into great detail about when, where and how these slave songs were sung, precious little is mentioned as to why they were sung, other than to “pass the time.”
Bernice Johnson Reagon certainly makes it her goal to answer this question in her collection of essays entitled, If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me. Reagon opens explaining not only why enslaved people sang spirituals back then but why black people continued to sing them as they moved out of slavery and out of the south. In a chapter devoted entirely to the discussion of spirituals, she affirms that the “oral transmission that passed these songs from one generation to another was, and is, powerful and pervasive” (68). Her subsequent list of spirituals heard throughout her childhood contains many of the ones Allen, Ware and Garrison collected, and indeed, several that I myself am familiar with. The passing on of the gospel tradition then, goes hand in hand with the power of the music itself to not only speak to past struggles but to adapt to current ones. The purpose of the music then is the purpose of the music now: to encourage, to uplift, to give hope and to free.
Students here at Williams are continuing what Reagon calls the “African American sacred song tradition” in their own way by participating in a Gospel Choir and performing songs and spirituals similar to the ones she reminisces about in her book. As black students leave the comfort of their homes, the protection of their families, and the embrace of their religious communities to come here, a whitewashed bubble in western Massachusetts, they must find new ways of surviving and thriving. Just as Reagon analyzes the place and function of sacred music as a source of spiritual and emotional strength in a new environment, I aim to take it a step further by adding in the performance aspect. I want to discover the ways in which gospel music functions as a source of strength for black Williams students but also how performing gospel, rather than simply learning and experiencing it in strictly religious settings, adds or takes away from the tradition of passing it along. Is that je ne sais quoi that Allen, Ware, and Garrison speak of still apply when gospel is removed from daily and religious life and brought on stage?

METHODOLOGY

I plan on utilizing two methodologies to conduct my research: oral history and performance studies.
Choosing between ethnography and oral history proved challenging, but the decision to go with the latter is informed by the range of historical literature I am using as my theoretical interlocutors for this project. At this semester’s concert, the Gospel Choir is singing two Negro Spirituals, songs that were particularly potent during slavery times and then reimagined and utilized during the civil rights movement 100 years later. Now 50 years after that moment, we are singing them again, bringing them into our present where they speak to new struggles. Thus, I am interested not only in how GC members connect with gospel in their daily lives, which is more of an ethnographical question, but also in the connections they make between what gospel music has historically stood for and how their understanding of its history affects their performance of it here at Williams.
I want to hear the members’ stories about their time here at Williams, primarily, but like my own story, I am sure their connection with gospel music here will be informed by experiences that precede Williams. Therefore, my chronological parameters are a bit loose, tailored to the story of every member. Generally though, I expect it to encompass only the last five years (2010-2015), because I doubt a deep understanding of gospel and its relation to identity existed for most of us before adolescence.
I plan to interview 6-8 African-American/Black members of the gospel choir for this project. The process will, of course, include one-on-one dialogues between each of the members and myself where they will have a chance to narrate their stories in depth. In these interviews, I want to learn 1. How each member got started with gospel music or what sparked his or her initial interest, 2. How being a part of the gospel choir here helps them navigate a place like Williams, and 3. What kind of historical understanding of gospel music they each possess and the ways in which that understanding informs their performance of it at Williams. The questions I am prepared to ask are as follows:
1. When did you first start singing gospel music? Why?
2. Did you like it right away? What about it kept your interest?
3. Why did you join Gospel Choir at Williams?
4. How do you think it has impacted your life here so far?
5. How (if applicable) do you interact with gospel music outside of the choir?
6. What is the difference between the two? What feels different between maybe listening/singing gospel music on your own time and learning a song at GC to perform?
7. Do you like performing Gospel Music with GC? How do you think it is read here at Williams?
8. What role do you think Gospel music has played throughout history in the black community?
9. Does it still play that role in the black community?
10. How about outside that community?
Apart from these one-on-one interviews I would also like to have at least one group interview, preferably right before the concert on Nov. 21st. While I want my narrators and choir members to think critically about their individual experiences in the choir and their own personal relationship to gospel music, there is no denying that gospel music has always been experienced communally, with people bound by a collective struggle. Indeed, a huge part of being in GC is being part of something bigger than oneself, connected by this music that is so important to all of us. As I stressed earlier, it is this aspect of Gospel Choir that makes us truly special on this campus. Thus, I want to give my narrators an opportunity to feed off each other in dialogue and maybe tap into some aspects of their experience with Gospel music that they did not consider during the one-on-one interviews. While I will be recording, I expect this group interview to be very informal and loose. I may even open it up the entire choir, which, of course, includes several members who are not black or African-American at all. I’m not entirely sure where this will fit into my research findings but I am very interested in what will come up when we’re all together.
Several of my oral history inquiries address this question of possibly “performing blackness” through gospel music. In addition to what the performers themselves have to say, it will be interesting to see how the audience receives this particular concert. I say this because the two spirituals we are singing will be making subtle statements about the relevant issue of systematic violence against black and brown bodies. As mentioned before, “Oh Freedom” and “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” were reclaimed during the Civil Rights Movement and outfitted with new phrases that made them applicable to the times. We do this again for the fall concert as our own form of activism.
Because I am not only performing in the concert but more or less leading it as the director of the gospel choir, I will not be able to fully analyze our performance or the choir’s reactions in the moment. However, since the concert will be recorded, I will have a chance review the footage later on. This is certainly a secondary interest as my primary goal is to analyze my narrators’ understanding of their performances.

FINDINGS

As I mentioned before, my first week of active research took place during Gospel Choir’s solo audition week. Every member auditioning came into a practice room and told my fellow co-director and me which songs they were auditioning for. If “Oh Freedom” or “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” were one of their choices, I presented them with a list of three questions:
1. Why did you choose to audition for this song? What about it resonates with you?
2. How does this song relate or connect to your life here at Williams, outside of the choir?
3. What connections do you see between this song and the world/society beyond Williams?
These questions were not only a way to begin the critical thinking process for whichever soloist would eventually get to perform the song, but also a way to see which members were forthcoming in their answers and thus, good candidates for narrators of this oral history project. With the speaker’s permission, I have transcribed some of the answers here. These four speakers have decided to continue being a part of this project so it will be interesting to see how their future responses build from these ones. Some speakers answered all questions at once while others took them one at a time. For the sake of time and clarity, they are not transcribed verbatim here. Filler words such as “like” or “um” have been removed and responses have been condensed, all without losing the general idea of the speaker’s statements. An arbitrary letter, their gender, and their class year are all that identify the narrators. In future transcriptions, pseudonyms will likely be created from these arbitrary letters.

–O, Man, Class of 2019 (On “Oh Freedom & “Ain’t”)–
“I know that ‘Oh Freedom’ was a song sang to represent the freedom that African-Americans wanted and that no matter what, they were going to receive that freedom and that’s they way I look at it. In my spiritual life, the Devil cannot hold me back; I’ll get my freedom, with social issues going on, like police brutality. I will not be stopped, I will keep going and before I be a slave by whatever, spiritually, socially, emotionally…I’ll just keep going and be strong.”

–E, Man, Class of 2019 (On “Ain’t”)–
Q.1 – “Well…I chose this song because it’s pure Gospel. It’s a style of music I like and a style of music I feel fits my voice and it fits my preferred mode of expression.
Q.2 – “From the words of the song and the emotion behind the song, I feel like it’s a song of doggedness, a song of tenacity and it resonates with my attempt at tenacity as well, like I ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around…
Q.3 – “There are so many things in the world and at Williams that can turn you around. There are so many distractions, there are so many external forces that could turn you around and this song, if you keep it as a mantra in your head…just keep on saying it or keep on thinking about it you could have the strength to withstand all those external forces.”

–A, Woman, Class of 2018 (On “Oh Freedom” & “Ain’t”)–
“I’m choosing to do “Oh Freedom” because I feel as though it’s significant especially during the time in which it was sung. To be able to create such a beautiful song in a time where there was only struggle and pain and subjugation of an entire people, it just really speaks to the creativity of African-Americans and how through pain they can create such a beautiful masterpiece. The lyrics especially are what resonate with me. The part where it’s like ‘before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave’ as in like even though they technically were slaves, by singing this song it was almost a way to free themselves maybe temporarily on a psychological level from the chains of slavery.
The song itself is about breaking free of constraints so yes; absolutely I see it connecting to my life. It’s more like mind over matter in the sense that it is all about your mindset because even though my situation can never be as bad as what the slaves were going through, if my situation is bad, it’s my mindset that will help me get through the trials and tribulations. In terms of Williams, it’s more like I’m not going to try and conform to Williams’s society. I know it’s very white and elite but the song sort of humbles me since it tells me where I came from. And while I still have a long way to go, I’ve still come very far. At Williams, I’m my own person and I don’t have to ‘be a slave’ to Williams society, I don’t have to pretend like I’m elite or come from money or act like I’m something I am not. ‘Before I be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave’ as in, that’s not an option for me at Williams or outside in society. When I get into the real world, I just know that I’m going to stick to who I am and remember my roots.
As far as “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around,” I chose that song because it also speaks to the time, just like “Oh Freedom” where their resilience and determination just resonates through that song. I feel like this song absolutely connects to me life because there have been instances in my life where I had so many outside forces like the devil and society in general trying to deter me from what I knew was God’s plan for me. But just by saying it, by speaking those words into existence, ‘ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around…’ it just helps me stick to it.”

–R, Woman, Class of 2017 (On “Oh Freedom”)–
“In listening to the song before this and even now…just the way in which the lead singer started off the song so much strength and passion in her voice and then everybody else joining in after she sang her part seemed like a unifying factor of this song and that that’s what really struck me. What resonates is…that last line ‘and go home to me Lord and be free’ just because here on this earth there are so many things that restrict our ability to be who we are and I see heaven, personally, as a place where we are free and we can be with the Lord who grants us peace, freedom and protection.
I see the song connecting to the life of the community I am a part of outside of the choir at Williams, which refers to the student groups that come together to make up what is the black student network of this campus. Outside of Williams I see myself as part of a community of black people who are constantly struggling to exercise their freedom here in the US. It reminds me of how painful it is to watch and to hear about these things that occur and to hear this lady say ‘I’d rather be in my grave,’ it’s what a lot of people out there are fighting for still, to be free and to exercise their rights as American people, Black American people.”

These questions were preliminary in their reach, only scratching the surface of the subjects I plan to delve deeper into and yet, they produced a wide breath of answers from all of the speakers. I know from familiarity that all four of the speakers I interviewed here are religious or spiritual in some way and, as expected, their faith came through in their answers. While I also expected talk of social pressures in conjunction with religious beliefs, some social aspects, particularly the idea of being a “slave to the Williams society,” were new and intriguing to me. I feel as though the questions were specific enough to focus each speaker’s attention on their time here at Williams, but also broad enough to allow their own experiences to guide their interpretation and thus, their responses. I believe that my questions for the formal interview will have the same effect and will hopefully open up the door to stories and sentiments that perhaps I have not considered.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Reagon, Bernice. “Spirituals.” In If You Don’t Go, Don’t Hinder Me: The African American Sacred Song Tradition. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
2. Allen, William Francis, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison. Slave Songs of the Unites States. New York, New York: Peter Smith, 1951.
3. Baptist, Edward E. “Tongues.” In The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and The Making of American Capitalism. New York, New York: Basic Books, 2014.
4. Sylvan, Robin. “The Connection between Music and Religion.” In Traces of The Spirit: The Religious Dimensions of Popular Music. New York, New York: New York University Press, 2002.
5. “African American Spirituals.” The Library of Congress. Accessed November 5, 2015. http://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/.
6. “Why “Negro Spiritual”.” Negro Spiritual Scholarship Foundation. Accessed October 28, 2015. http://www.negrospiritual.org/why-negro-spiritual.