The Voices of Gullah
The Voices of Gullah Singers are featured in Henry Louis Gates’ The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, the SCETV program By The River, the documentary Spirit Cum Ba Yuh, and the mobile app Free and Equal: The Promise of Reconstruction. The Voices of Gullah Singers received the 2019 Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage, the highest honor for folk traditions in South Carolina.
Gracie “Minnie” Gadson first learned Gullah songs from her grandmother Queen Singleton, who was a member of the Hopes and John Fripp Praise Houses on St. Helena Island. These praise houses were originally maintained by Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Gracie has been a member since 1968. In the 1970s and 1980s, Gadson sang with local groups, such as the Soul Survivors and the popular Praise House Shouters. Her early exposure to the old spirituals and experience singing in performing groups has resulted in a large repertoire of spirituals, including the shouting song “Adam een de Gaardin,” and the mournful spiritual “Remember Me, Lawd,” which date back to the mid-19th century.
Joseph Murray’s first experiences with Gullah songs came as he watched his mother Helen Murray dance the ring shout at the praise house in Big Estate, South Carolina. He later sang for many decades with choirs in Huspah Baptist Church in Beaufort. Murray currently serves as a deacon in Ebenezer Baptist Church, one of the few churches on St. Helena Island where the congregation still sings the old Gullah songs. Visitors to Penn Center’s annual Heritage Days Festival are often directed to Ebenezer during the prayer meeting services to hear the old plantation hymns. Murray’s extensive knowledge of Gullah songs and language has been a critical part of maintaining the tradition within the church.
Rosa Mae Chisolm Murray is one of the few living islanders who attended the famed Penn School (1862-1949). Murray gained early exposure to Gullah songs as a member of the Mary Jenkins Praise House, which still holds Sunday evening services on the island. She later joined the group Gospel Four and the Adam’s Street Gospel Singers in the 1980s. These groups sang gospel songs but also performed reenactments of the Gullah songs first recorded on St. Helena Island. Murray continues to sing songs such as “Till We Meet Again” and the haunting “Lawd Do Something for Me” at festivals on the island. Murray first joined Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1952 and continues to sing in the Senior and Adult Choir, thus ensuring the survival of the Gullah spiritual tradition.
Charles Brown, son of Rosa Murray, is the youngest member of the ensemble. He has sung for many years with his step-father Joseph and mother Rosa in the gospel choirs at their home church, Ebenezer Baptist, one of the oldest churches on St. Helena Island. For the past 6 years, he has performed with the Voices of Gullah in Dallas, Texas, St. Augustine, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, Atlanta, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, and Denver, Colorado. His signature Gullah song is “The Buzzard Lope.” Brown is a long-standing member of his church’s male chorus, and he offers contemporary gospel interpretations of the old songs.
