The Pilgrim Jubilees

1. Houlka, Mississippi

1. Houlha, Mississippi S tanding in the shade doesn't help when it gets hot in Mississippi. As the temperature climbs through the nineties, the air grows heavy and the summer heat attacks from all sides, radiating from every surface and exerting a physical pressure that slows movement, thought, and speech. But the man who has engaged me in conversation seems immune to the temperature. His name is Willie Harris. He looks to be in his fifties, stocky and muscular in a blue suit and with a necktie pulled up to a powerful neck barely contained by his tightly buttoned collar. He is a church deacon and a gospel singer, a member of the Sensational Traveling Stars of Houston, Mississippi. "I always wanted to be a professional singer," he says. "But I never had the chance. Maybe it's because of where I was born. If I was in Jackson or Memphis, maybe I wouldVe had a chance." The Sensational Traveling Stars are long established. "You'veheard of my group?" says Willie in a mixture of statement and question. "I'm sure you've heard of my group." Back when records were made of vinyl and seven-inch 45-rpm discs ruled the airwaves, the Stars went to Nashville to make some singles and one album. "They're old now," says Willie, "but they still sound good." A puff of wind stirs the dust and flicks a furnace blast into our faces. We stand quietly for a moment, me trying to remember whether I've heard of the 3 4 Houlka, Mississippi Sensational Traveling Stars, Willie mulling on events of years ago. "You know, I was offered a contract to sing blues," he says, apropos of nothing that ha§ gone before. "But I turned it down. It wouldn't have been right to go from singing the Lord's songs to singing blues." He pauses. "I can sing blues. Seems to me it's easier than gospel. All you got to do is get up there, holler a bit, do the step, and let the music take over. In gospel, every time you open your mouth you have to be saying something." But isn't being a professional gospel singer a tough calling to follow? "No," Willie demurs. "Not if you keep your mind on the Lord. I could do it. Youjust have to want to do it." He's not singing today. He'll be in the audience. The stars today are the Pilgrim Jubilees, a group that forty years earlier also had the chance to become professional—and wanted to do it. They've been based in Chicago since 1952, but their roots are in Houston, Mississippi, and every year for the past eleven years they have returned on the first Saturday in June for a "homecoming." It's usuallyheld at Houston's high school, but this year that venue is unavailable. The official reason is that the auditorium is being renovated, but it's also being suggested that school officials saw the masses of equipment brought in to record and film last year's homecoming and decided the Pilgrim Jubilees could afford to pay a bigger hire fee this year. "It seems like the Devil tried to block this homecoming," says its organizer, Joann Reel. "This is the closest I could find." "This" is the Houlka High School gymnasium, a hulking, dowdy, cavernous tin-roofed building that boasts it is the home of the male Houlka Wildcats and the female Houlka Wildcattes basketball teams. From the placards on the wall, it seems the Wildcats last appeared in a state final when they were beaten in 1991, and the Wildcattes' last taste of fame was in 1977. The gymnasium is not air-conditioned. And however hot it is outside , it's hotter inside. Twogiant fans have been placed at each end of the room, but all they do is push the hot air around. So the audience waits outside until it's time for the music to start. Houlka is the next town north from Houston, and many of those at the homecoming have driven the eleven miles up Highway 15. Although he is in a Houston-based group, Willie Harris has come quite a bit farther—he lives in West Point, about forty-five miles away. Two young women have come from Louisiana, a small group is here from Georgia, two women have Houlba, Mississippi...