Blues, gospel music part of Texas' cultural soundtrack

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Blues, gospel music part of Texas' cultural soundtrack
November 29, 2010
By JOSH BIRNBAUM
Dallasnews.com

Blues is not dead - yet.
Many famous bluesmen and soul singers have come out of Texas: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker and Freddie King, just to name a few.
Dallas still has a bustling blues culture, at R.L. Blues Palace and Tucker's Blues, just to name a couple. This photo essay is about the roots of blues, gospel and soul in East Texas; it is a glimpse into the culture, history and motivations of the music.
This is a journey into the soul of Deep Texas. Lona Strange
The lovely Lona Ree English Strange is a 93-year-old gospel singer who can belt a tune with more soul and conviction than any recording artist you will find. That is because Lona's music is her music, not anybody else's.
"All my life," Strange says. "It's a part of me."
Strange attends services at Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in Crockett, a small town north of Houston. She has been going there since 1942, when she helped build the church with four other women. She is the last living original member of the church.
"I was young then, and I could work and I wanted a church," Strange says. "We was determined to do it."
So began a lifetime dedicated to the music of the Lord.
Strange sang, for me and it nearly put me into shock. She starting off with one her "daddy loves so well," a rendition of "Since I Laid My Burden Down."
She started off slow and timid with the "Glory Glory" part of the song, but by the third word, "Hallelujah," she was able to pull some deep notes that must have come from some other place. her words echoed through the halls of the empty church and bounced back emphatically at me.
The church's pastor, Rev. Harry Fred Scott, helps her along like a one-man backing choir. He gleams with pride."This region of East Texas is such an incredible wealth of any kind of music you can think of," Scott said. "It's a crossroads."
K.M. Williams
"I had a born-again experience, an actual conversion," the Rev. K.M. Williams says. "At that point, my musical abilities seemed to just multiply. It was like a gift."
Rev. Williams was playing guitar in a corner of the Alligator Café in Dallas, trying to be heard over the din of the crowd. Dressed in a black suit and wearing a black preacher's hat, he was playing mostly deep blues tunes, originals with names like "I Don't Want No Skinny Woman" and "Preach These Blues."
Williams is also the associate pastor of Wayman Chapel in Ennis, where he leads songs and prayer every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.
"I don't differentiate between gospel music and blues," he says. "It's kind of all the same to me because it comes from the same source. Really, all black music started from spirituals or work songs."
In fact, many of the early blues masters were also preachers. Blind Lemon Jefferson was called Deacon L.J. Bates on his first records, and Charlie Patton and Son House were both preachers.
Williams' new album was released on Dialtone Records on Sept. 1, but that's not changing anything in his life.
"They call me the Texas Country Blues Preacher," Williams says. "I can preach you the blues, or I can play you the blues. I'm kind of a throwback to a generation, but I just happen to be in this generation doing it."
Greater Mt. Moriah Baptist Church
Many of the old gospel traditions are still upheld by this generation, such as revivals that continue to use the old-style music in new contexts.
As soon as the four-hour service begins, Charles Easterling preaches from the pulpit as his wife's keyboard chords punctuate his points from the corner of the room. A storm is brewing outside, and the windows turn a deep blue, lightning and thunder shake the room, and the lights flicker as the power goes on and off. But they keep on reviving.
"Praise the Lord, play those things, make a joyful noise unto the Lord!" Easterling says to his musicians and choir in Crockett.
After the revival is over close to midnight, congregants commune over a fish fry in the church's dining hall.
The pastor believes music is man's connection to God. He and his wife have been preaching together at Mt. Moriah for five years now.
Both the pastor and his wife are looking forward to the next life - and to the music they will play when they get there.
"I tell my wife, 'You know what, baby? When all this over down here, we gonna be able to go home and sing in the heavenly choir,' " Easterling says confidently. "You got to know that you going home to live with the Lord and sing in that angelic choir."
'How did you start singing?'
"How did you come upon gospel music?"
Strange meets the question with silence and a stare.
New question: "How did you discover gospel music?"
Still silence. Finally, "How did you start singing?"
She reacts immediately, saying, "Oh, you mean my singing? My church music?"
To her - a member of an older generation who has survived into this one - gospel music is what her parents sang to her on their way to church in a wagon. It is what she sang in church all her life. It is what she does now to praise God.
"It dwells in your heart, and you just feel the spirit moving in your heart," Strange says. "As long as the Lord let me, as long as he give me the voice, I'm going to do my best."
Josh Birnbaum completed this project while an intern at The News. He's now a freelance photographer based in Ohio.