Sounds Of Blackness Interview

at Greenbelt 1991, Castle Ashby, England, August 25, 1991.

GH : Gary Hines, Musical director

JT : Jennifer Timms, stage manager

AN : Ann Nesby, primary soloist

Andrew Jackson (British magazine writer) : What are / who are the Sounds of Blackness ?

GH : A 40-member ensemble, a 10-piece orchestra, 30 vocalists, and we're dedicated to glorifying God and unifying people through singing the full range of African-American music. We sing the whole family of black music : gospel, jazz, blues, rock and roll, ragtime, work songs, and we've been doing it for twenty years.

Janey Lee Grace (radio presenter, GLC Radio, and member of Cola Boy) : (... unclear .. ). Do you know why?

GH : We certainly do. As early as twelve years ago we were approached by some major labels in the US, who shall remain nameless. At the time, they told us they were interested in us, but they had qualifiers, such as, 'would you consider only singing gospel or only singing R and B. And that, of course, is the antithesis of what we're about, since we sing the totality of black music. And they were also saying things like, well, 'would you consider changing your name to something like, say, 'the Sounds of Music'. Of course, we would never compromise on that; we come from an unapologetic black perspective, but we relate to people of all backgrounds.

Robert Longman (WUSB-FM; Notebored magazine) : Blackness is something that is very special and particular. How do you go about relating to people of all kinds through that blackness?

GH : By sharing our experience and music with them. What we're talking about is variations on a theme. The common theme being humanity. The African-American musical style no matter what form, jazz, rock, gospel, whatever, is a variation on a humanity theme. There's a European version, there's a Polynesian version, every ethnic group has their means of expression, and we share from our own frame of reference.

Janey Lee Grace : On your album, how did you manage to persuade such famous people to join up with you ?

JT : I wouldn't consider it 'persuasion'. I've been in the group for fifteen years. It started as a hobby for me. I enjoyed singing, and enjoyed singing not just one style of music, and the versatility within what we sing So it was real easy, and there are people who'd love come and to audition all the time and trying to get out there and sing and be able to do things that maybe somewhere else they are not able to do or are restricted in doing. So it really wasn't hard to persuade them to come and stay as long as we have.

(unidentified radio presenter/questioner) : How did you come to sing with the group ?

JT : I saw them at a concert, in fact it was the Jackson 5 they opened up for, it's when I saw them first and heard them and saw what they did, that's when I said, 'that's what I want to do'. I helped a family that was singing with them and met other people who had sung with the Sounds before. And that's how I got in, I just kept asking 'where do I go, who do I talk to, to get in'.

Janey Lee Grace : How about you [Ann Nesby], how did you get to sing with the Sounds of Blackness ?

AN : I came to visit my sister, Thanksgiving Weekend, and I'd known Gary as family friends for about 15 years, and my sister had been a part of the Sounds for six or seven years at that time. And I came in to one of their rehearsal for one of their many many productions, such as The Night Before Christmas, which was a musical fantasy, and I came in and I didn't know at the time that they needed a principal character for the show -- but my sister did . And she went to Gary and said 'my sister doesn't know it yet, but she's going to read the script for us', and I went up and read the part, after which Gary said, 'she's going to sing about 30 seconds of something she wants to sing, a capella'. OK, Gary. Well, at that time I still didn't realize I was auditioning for the group. So, I did the play, and I stayed on for the next production, which was Music For Martin, and from that point on, it was history !

JT : We cast out the line and reeled her in !

[[ Assorted cackling, howling, and giggling for about a minute]]

GH : That was the ever-popular 'sneak audition'. Our regular ones are somewhat more formal.

RHL : You've done many productions over the years -- four that I know about, and certainly more. Was this album a bit of a departure for you, or is it in continuity with that, and how ?

GH : It's definitely in continuity, in the sense that our repertoire consists of the entire spectrum of black music, so whenever we present a production such as The Soul Of the Sixties, which is a tribute to the R and B artists of the sixties, or comedic in nature like The Night Before Christmas, whatever the background is, we always have an educational theme, a historical context to them. So in Evolution Of Gospel, while we focus in on gospel music, if you're familiar with the album, you'll know there's some African music, some blues, some rock and some R and B styles. So in every production we do, we incorporate that element.

RHL : That said, what is it about gospel music that makes it stand out to you ?

GH : For me personally, and I know I can speak safely for Jimmy [Jam] and Terry on this, gospel is at the heart of African-American music, and Jimmy and Terry both wanted our first project to be gospel, cause we could have done music from our other productions, but we wanted to give first fruits and first thanks to the gospel idiom, and so that was a very deliberate move, on all our parts.

JT : I would say the same : it's the root, it's where most of us started, in the church, and having that background behind you help you do whatever there is to do. So it would only make sense to come out first with *Evolution of Gospel*. The next project, I think, will be called *The Beat Of the Drum*, and it will go through another stretch of black musical history.

RHL : The question relevant to Greenbelt, of course, is gospel more than just the background behind it ?

GH : We say it verbally and we say it in writing, it's there on the album. Our purpose is to glorify God and unify people through our music. I think it kind of raises some questions implicitly about black music. We reject outright some of the notions popular in some circles that certain styles of black music such as the blues or ragtime are somehow "the devil's music". We think that's a vestige of slave mentality where anything that was black or sounded African was "of the devil". We're actually about the exact opposite of that, saying that all this music, through this experience of suffering and endurance, is a gift from God, and that's why we claim it.

[[[ editor's note, re RHL's question : In Greenbelt, one of the key theological elements is "no dualisms"; thus, noone could've found any support whatever at Gbelt for the 'demon beat' theories. Another Greenbeltism is that one can express one's faith in whatever way they want, but one is under no obligation at all to specifically, verbally, personally profess Jesus Christ, nor will there be heavy pressure to do so -- however, there will also be no lack of opportunities to choose to do so. The question was the raising of just such an opportunity, and was about Mr. Hines himself rather than about his music.]]]

JLG : At what point did Jimmy and Terry get involved?

GH : It was actually at two points in time. They had been familiar with the group for a number of years. And in earlier years, we even occasionally appeared on the same bill : Flighttime Band and Sounds of Blackness. They approached us in fall of '88 to do a couple of background tracks for Alexander O'Neal's Christmas album, My Gift To You, and those sessions went really well, and we were literally headed out the door, and for purposes of credits on the album, they said, 'by the way, who are you guys signed with?'. We said, we're not signed with anyone. They were just not aware of that. [They said] 'Well, we definitely want to do a project with you.' And they made the commitment right there in the fall of '88. We've got to give some propers [=thanks] to Janet Jackson, because in the next few months, in January of '89, at our Music for Martin concert in St Paul Minnesota, they brought Janet Jackson with them, and she was just then finishing up her *Rhythm Nation* tracks. She was sitting there, and, they really just divulged this in the past few weeks, saying that throughout the concert, she literally elbowed them in the sides, saying "I love these guys, there's nothing like this out there, you've gotta do the project with them right now". So they came backstage that night, to the reception, and brought her back there and they said 'get ready' and we did.

RHL : I found this to be a rather stirring album when I first heard it. Not just because it had all those different styles, but the way you dynamically treat it, a contemporary sound with a large group choir, it's something that's absolutely flooring, especially on 'He Holds the Future'.

JT : Well, thank you !

RHL : You've been having success in quarters that you are not accustomed to having it in, especially with 'Optimistic' and 'The Pressure', on the dance floor. How are you taking it in ?

GH : We are e-la-ted. The Scriptures tell us to go out into the hedges and highways. Reaching people who, face it, are not going to be there at 10:00 worship on Sundays. and that's what it's all about. Jesus in the flesh often wasn't there himself; he was out with the thieves and whoremongers and tax collectors, and all of that. So however we get the message out, to reach one person or help someone along the way, then, mission's accomplished.

(Unidentified German reporter) : Do you all live in the same community ?

GH : The Twin Cities, Minneapolis / St. Paul and the surrounding areas. There are two or three geographically-identifiable black communities, and much of the black population of the area lives there, but there's a diverse scattering of people of color throughout the area. So we're communal in spirit and interaction, but not in one geographical community.

RHL : What was the origin of the group?

GH : From a group founded by our current business manager Russell Knight, in 1969, at Macalester College, and was called the Macalester College Black Choir. Macalester is a private college in St. Paul with a population of about 2000, and I say that because in the late '60s they embarked on a very ambitious program to recruit students of color. At one time they had some 200 black students on campus. And there were many student-initiated programs, there was a political group called the Black Liberation Affairs Committee, there was an arts and drama group called Black Arts Midwest which toured throughout the Midwest, and there was a singing group of about 80 voices, the Macalester College Black Choir. And they had achieved quite a bit of acclaim on their own, and in '71, the person who was then their musician and director transferred to another campus, and yours truly was a student at Macalester, and they approached me about assuming the task, and I did that.

JT : What was great was that it opened up. So you didn't only have Macalester, you had Augsburg, Concordia, University of Minnesota, and they're going, 'Hey, could we come in?? Even people from the nearby community joined in, who were not college students at the time. So then our repertoire changed. In the late '60s, the repertoire was basically freedom songs and consciousness-awareness type things, and when the membership changed, and the repertoire changed [to incorporate a fuller spectrum of black history], we had to find a name to fit our repertoire, and we can up with Sounds of Blackness.

Note : since then, not only has Sounds Of Blackness released two more albums, but Ann Nesby has begun a solo career with the release of her new album (though she has not entirely left the group).