Moving Musical Tradition Revealed at Florida’s Backus Museum

The A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery (Fort Pierce, Florida) presents Tuned to the Spirit: Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community from March 11 to May 8, 2022. The Museum is honored to be debuting the traveling exhibition that highlights more than twenty years of “Sacred Steel” photography by scholar and folklorist Robert L. Stone.

The exhibition tells the compelling story through images and music of a unique tradition with a vibrant history. In the late 1930s, two related African American Holiness-Pentecostal churches began incorporating a novel, modern instrument into worship – the electric steel guitar. The churches cite literal interpretations of the Psalms of David as the basis for making loud music and dancing to give God praise. The expressive and energetic music rendered on this new era’s “stringed instrument” soon became essential to the spirited worship services, and generations later became known as “Sacred Steel.”

Robert L. Stone (b. 1944). Willie Eason, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1998. Archival pigment print, 18 x 24 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Opening reception. Pastor Elder Elton Noble and family musicians provide an engaging informance in the sacred steel tradition.

Tuned to the Spirit presents more than thirty-five stunning, sensitive, and deeply respectful images that portray music making and worship among House of God, Keith Dominion and Church of the Living God, Jewell Dominion congregants from Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. Resulting from nearly three decades of close interaction with the worship communities, Robert L. Stone’s photographs present an intimate picture of praise, prayer, contemplation, and celebration in the Spirit.

In addition to focusing on the musicians, he captures the aesthetics of gesture, movement, sartorial style and foodways. Altogether, the images offer vivid, eloquent testaments to the power of music in the expression of joy and communion.

The electric steel guitar is played horizontally, and takes its name from the metallic bar the musician uses to slide up and down the plucked strings, sounding each pitch between notes and producing extraordinary chromatic range and effects. The presentation at the Backus Museum also includes a lap-steel guitar, and a pedal-steel guitar, the latter positioned to reveal the intricate and elaborate mechanics of its foot pedals and knee levers, that aid the gifted instrumentalist in extending the harmonic capabilities. The exhibition’s images are augmented by music performances accessed in the galleries through QR Codes on visitors’ mobile devices. Additionally, Stone’s 2003 documentary film Sacred Steel: The Steel Guitar Tradition of the House of God Churches is also available in the exhibition, to see historic interviews and performance footage of these important musicians.

Stone, based in Gainesville, Florida, worked for the FL Department of State’s Florida Folklife Program as Statewide Outreach Coordinator where he conducted extensive fieldwork in a variety of cultural communities, and discovered in South Florida the use of steel guitars in African American Pentecostal House of God

Opening reception. Robert L. Stone, Chuck Campbell, Patricia Stone, Joi Campbell, and Deaconess Linda Blue Lewis.

churches. This decades-long tradition was relatively unknown outside of that small religious community, prompting Stone to write Sacred Steel: Inside an African American Steel Guitar Tradition and produce eight CD albums of the music for Arhoolie Records. His latest book, Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus! Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community was published in 2020 by University Press of Mississippi. His documentary photos have been featured in numerous other exhibitions and published in Newsweek, The New York Times, Forum, Wooden Boat and others.

With more than fifty congregations throughout the state, Florida is a stronghold for the House of God and Church of the Living God, including two congregations in Fort Pierce. Opening weekend featured special programming and musical guests to reveal and celebrate the joyful sounds for members and the community. A special guest of honor to the opening reception was the legendary Chuck Campbell, the dynamic pedal-steel guitarist of the renowned “Sacred Steel” performing group The Campbell Brothers. A National Heritage Fellowship recipient, Mr. Campbell received a 2021 Arhoolie Award, which honors musicians, organizations, and individuals who carry on and uplift tradition-based music to keep it thriving. The prestigious award was conferred that night by the Arhoolie Foundation’s managing director, John Leopold.

The next day, the panel discussion “When the Spirit Moves: Appreciating a Unique American Steel Guitar Tradition” was convened at the Museum, with guests Dr. Eric Lewis Williams, Curator of Religion, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture; Elder Elton Noble, steel guitarist and pastor of Fort Pierce House of God No. 2; and Robert L. Stone, folklorist and photographer. The illuminating program delved into the deep, fascinating religious and musical roots of the cultural tradition, with live music demonstration and performance by Elder Noble.

“The exhibition has national significance and local

Robert L. Stone (b. 1944). Florida East Coast State Assembly, House of God, Pompano Beach, Florida, 2001. Archival pigment print, 18 x 24 in.

right: Robert L. Stone (b. 1944). Deaconess Josephine Davis, House of God, Pompano Beach, Florida, 2001. Archival pigment print, 18 x 24 in.

connections for us and our community,” said J. Marshall Adams, Executive Director of the Backus Museum. “It was important that we could be the institution working with our partners that brought this exhibition to life. It was a rewarding effort to help bring to light and showcase this special cultural heritage.”

Tuned to the Spirit: Photographs from the Sacred Steel Community is drawn from The Robert Stone Sacred Steel Archive, part of the Arhoolie Foundation Collection. The exhibition is supported by the Arhoolie Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the documentation, preservation, and celebration of regional roots music and its makers. Learn more at www.Arhoolie.org. The inaugural presentation of the exhibition is organized by the A.E. Backus Museum & Gallery, Fort Pierce, Florida.

There is a vast archive of recordings originally gathered by Robert Stone and given to the Arhoolie Foundation, with the musical ones given to the Smithsonian which publishes them under the Smithsonian Folkways imprint. Many of those tracks are available on Spotify, Apple Music, etc. A sample Sacred Steel playlist on Spotify is here: https://spoti.fi/372v9Pq.

The video documentary Sacred Steel: The Steel Guitar Tradition of the House of God Churches (2003) can be seen here also: https://bit.ly/arhoolie-film.

lma Woodsey Thomas, Air View of a Spring Nursery, 1966, acrylic on canvas, Museum purchase and gift of the National Association of Negro Business Women, and the Artist, The Columbus Museum G.1979.53