The Pilgrim Jubilees

2. Got to Be for Real

2. Got to Be for Real I t is late afternoon on the day before the homecoming program. Major Roberson sits at the small table in his motel room in Pontotoc, just north of Houlka. On the room's television set, a baseball game plays without sound; the curtains are pulled against the setting sun. Outside, people are splashing and laughing around the motel's swimmingpool, but Major has spent the afternoon sleeping. The night before, he and Michael Atkins drove more than six hundred miles from Chicago, stopping only for a brief rest in Memphis, Tennessee, about a hundred miles away. Now in the selfcontained world of his motel room, Major's voice grows quiet and his eyes gaze through the curtains into the past as he considers what makes a man dedicate his life to singing in a gospel quartet. "First thing, you got to love it. You've got to love to do it. Yousee other groups doing it professionally, and you say, 'One day, my group's gonna be there.' So you set out and . . . every day, groups are doing this. They're struggling, striving to try to get to the point where they can come on the road and stay out here and get paid for it. And it looks like the opportunity never will come. But one day it does come. And hey! You're right there. So you say, like we did, 'Let's go out and try it for maybe three months. And if we don't like it, we'll come home.' We didn't make no money in three 15 16 Got to Be for Real months. But we got a feeling out of it. And we said, 'Let's try a little bit more/ So wetried a little bit more. And you find out two yearshave passed. You're out there and meantime, your family thing isgetting bad. And you're so carried away in this thing you don't even look at what you've done. And firstthing youknow you'velost your family. But once wegot into it... like, you get old out here. Look round, and the years have passed on. Youfind yourself an old person. But you still find energy and a reason to keep going. So here I am. Seventy-four years old, still out here. I'm tough. Get a few hours sleep, I'm ready to go again. It's just a blessing. I don't think you get too old. If you just keep healthy and love gospel, you'll make it. But you've got to love gospel. You can't be a phony and stay here this long. Got to be for real." "Your family thing getting bad" is a reference to the heavy toll life as a professional quartet singer can take on marriagesand relationships. Marital strife is not usuallyacknowledged as a part of the gospel calling, but for the men in the quartets, it was—and still is—an ever-present risk. Theirs is a vocation that can require them to be away from home for weeks at a time but all too often pays poorly. The combined strains ofseparation and penury can overburden any but the strongest relationship. Yet,as Major also points out, even today groups are striving to join the professional ranks, to get on the road, to get a recording contract. And today it's tougher than ever, because quartets are no longer at the forefront of gospel music. That honor now belongs to the choirs and the big-name soloists-come-choir directors, such as Kirk Franklin, John P. Kee, and Hezekiah Walker. But at one time quartets were at the top. From the 1940$ through the 1950$ and into the 1960$, they were the rock stars of religious music, packing churches and auditoriums with the power of their message and the excitement of their delivery. Quartets are one of the most fascinating aspects of gospel music.1 They are among its best-known performers, rivaled only by the top soloists. Yet some church people, especially among the "sanctified" Pentecostal faiths, view them with suspicion because of their flamboyance and the worldly aspects of their craft. Quartets are usually not affiliated with a particular church and play no part in church services. They are "men only"—an ensemble with women in it is a "group," not a quartet, even if it performs [3.131.13.194] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 23:49...