Folk Visions and Voices: Traditional Music and Song in North Georgia

I Don't Know How We Made It Over: The Brown's Chapel Choir of Bishop

I DoritKnow How\\fe Made It Over THE BROWN'S CHAPEL CHOIR OF BISHOP ROWN'S CHAPEL is a country church outside Bishop, Georgia ; its members are in large part the descendants of slaves who worked on the cotton plantations around. When it meets on the fourth Sunday of every month, the old "Dr. Watts" hymns are lined out and sung in the surge-singing style that black singers adapted from the whites long before blacks were allowed to organize their own churches. And the traditional spirituals are sung as well, by the congregation and by the choir of four women and one man, one of the most impressive vocal groups we have heard. Most choirs from rural and small-town black churches in Georgia still dip back into the well of traditional spirituals for their repertoires, but very few sing these in the old a capella way, and with as much soul-stirring artistry, and almost overwhelming dignity and poignancy, as the Brown's Chapel Choir. All but one of the choir's members have moved up the road from Oconee County to Athens, a few miles to the north, and it was in his home in Athens on the Plaza, a street of well-kept houses, that we talked to Otha Cooper and to Imogene Riggens. Cooper, a widower, is the bass singer of the group. Riggens sings lead and is the youngest member, the only one who was not in the choir when it was organized over thirty years ago. When I asked Imogen Riggens what one has to do to be a good sacred singer, she said, "You have to pray a lot, too, to be a good singer." Cooper took it from there: "You got to have that talent, got to have the voice to produce, and then, you know, meditate with the Lord, and as you grow in grace, you get stronger. But, I mean, it's gotta be a God-given talent." I remarked that I felt the choir put more feeling into their singing than did most modern gospel singers. "Well," Cooper said, "after we got to going without music (instrumental accompaniment), we rearranged the songs, put a little salt and black pepper on it, you know. Sing it with a feelin' on it, you know. And you have to get a little of God's grace in there, you see, to be able to put the program over, and I mean, when you put your heart and mind—trust in God, and put your heart and mind on it, and ask Him to help you, He ain't gonna let you down." I asked about the time they sang with instruments. "Oh, yeah. One of the leaders of the group when we had musicians —our first leader, she passed, Moselle Bell. She had a Godgiven talent." Her favorite songs were "Sweet Home," "I Don't Know Why I Have to Cry Sometime," and "I Don't Know HowWe Made It Over." I asked if Cooper had learned these songs from her. "I knowed 'em way before then. See, I been knowin'—I came out of a singin' family. Well I was raised around a Christian altar—family altar. 'Cause my father was a minister, and my mother, she was a faithful member up until her death." A man who had played guitar and piano with Cooper in jubilee quartets, played with the Brown's Chapel Choir when it was formed. I asked when he left the group. "Seven or eight years, or probably longer'n that. Me and him was ordained as a deacon the same time. He lives right across the street over there, but, you know how some peoplejust turn back." "Does he still play?" "No, he don't study about nothin' like that. . . . He got stuck on the bottle, and every dollar he gets, that's where he put it. He's not there by himself—there's plenty mo' with him! Plenty mo' in the boat with him." I observed that singing without accompanimenthad brought them 144 / Don't Know How WeMade It Over B TTTT J_J_ » 1 back to the way people used to sing in the old days. "That's right," Cooper agreed. And my older brother, 'sides me, he sung until he had a heart attack. He could 'double-bass' where me and the rest of them leave off, he could pick...