Gospel

The Branchettes

The Branchettes of Johnston County, North Carolina (Ethel Eliot and Lena Mae Perry) have been performing hymns and gospel songs together for well over twenty years. Their style and repertory have their roots in the older African-American musical traditions of congregational hymn singing.

Essie Mae Brooks

Essie Mae Brooks was born in Houston County, Georgia in 1930. Her father was a great drummer in the nearly forgotten African-American tradition called “Drumbeat.” He would play the drum every weekend and people would gather and dance all night long. Her grandfather was a harmonica player and Essie started…

Cora Fluker

Cora Fluker was born in Livingston, Alabama, around 1920. When Denise and I visited her in 1997 it was a deeply moving experience. She told us of a childhood growing up sharecropping with her family. The conditions were so hard that she tried to run away at the age of…

Guitar Gabriel

Drink houses in Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s black community, like juke joints in the Mississippi Delta, remain a vigorous setting for the perpetuation of the blues at its most real and rooted level. A refuge for the homeless and the down-and-out, as well as a gathering place for friends and lovers,…

Bishop Dready Manning

You may have been going to church all your life, but chances are you have never attended a church with as much spirit as Bishop Dready Manning’s St. Mark Holiness Church outside Roanoke Rapids. Bishop Manning, a traditional guitarist, harmonica player, and gospel singer, has infused his church with music,…

Cootie Stark

A blind street singer, he learned his stuff from Greenville, South Carolina, bluesmen Uncle Chump and Pink Anderson in the 1930’s. At 70 he rediscovered his unplugged genius and has headlined at festivals throughout the U.S. and Europe. His card catalog repertoire runs from soul classics to Piedmont blues songs…