Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Voices that blend
It was sometime in the late 1980’s when I read a blurb about a singing group that was coming to Westport Plaza. I loved their name right away, “Sweet Honey in the Rock”, and was determined to get to the concert. I think a friend came with me, but I’m not sure anymore. All I knew from the promotion flyer was that it was an a cappella female-led African American ensemble. Its leader, back then, was Bernice Johnson Reagon, and I think she was accompanied by 4 other women. The only instruments they brought were their voices, featuring one woman with a true bass voice.
It didn’t take long to realize that this group sang about peace, justice, injustice, and a range of other social issues. Right away I was hooked by their melodies and harmonies and the persistent beat of their voices. They didn’t need instruments or percussion, because that was taken care of by their voices lifted together. I was blown away particularly by Ysaye Barnwell who could get down to lower notes that some men can’t echo. And, she wrote many of the songs they sang.
That was an important, restless time in my life. I had two small children and was in a marriage that was falling apart. Listening to the group sing about social justice issues, along with some treasured Black hymns, spoke to me about the power of women doing things on their own. As I contemplated leaving the marriage, somehow these women gave me the courage to be able to think deeply about this and start working on a plan.
Then they sang a song that has gripped me since I first heard it. Using words from Khalil Gibran as lyrics, they wrote the melody and let the music take off supported by each voice. It spoke to me at that time because I knew that leaving my marriage would change my children’s lives forever. That part kept me on the edge of profound sorrow, unsure if I really should do that to them. I listened to their song, “On Children” with tears running down my face.
Yesterday my friend, Diane, posted the words of the poem on Facebook. It is worth it to quote the part that Sweet Honey (SHIR) framed into a song:
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.”
As I started down the road to separation, I played this song over and over. Years later, as each one left home for college, I resurrected the album that featured this offering of theirs and played it again to remind me of the truth that are in the words.
From the time I first heard them I have attended at least 5 of their concerts when they were in the vicinity. I heard them at the University of Illinois, Grinnell College, Powell Hall, somewhere in Southeast Missouri, and at Westport Plaza. (Just out of curiosity I just checked their performance schedule and they are staying on the East Coast this year.) I have taken both children to their concerts and played their music often in my house as they were growing up. I remember when Jackie was first in school at Pomona College in California that she called me one night to say she had heard an A Cappella group on her campus that made her think of SHIR and it madeher homesick.
Bernice Johnson Reagon has retired from singing as have a couple of the other original members. But the ensemble continues to perform, keeping to its history of promoting social justice through song. I am so grateful to have become on of their groupies!