Pg. 12 OCT 6 - OCT 19, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM
MUSIC FEATURE KEEPERS OF THE FLAME
participants. The album includes two tunes by Dedicated Men of Zion, as well as contributions by 10 other eastern North Carolina performers — each keeping the flame of the Tar Heel State’s unvarnished and primal, yet protean, gospel alive in their own way. “To me, eastern North Carolina sacred soul is ‘Sacred Soul’ celebrates a little rawer, a little more quartet singing-based,” musical praise in its rawest, says Bruce Watson, who co-produced the album most vital form with Duffy, and whose Memphis-based label Bible & Tire Recording Co. is releasing the album. BY PAT MORAN Watson, who is also a co-owner and in-house producer for revered Oxford, Mississippi-based “This is my favorite part of the song,” intones roots music label Fat Possum Records, compares the Anthony Daniels. “Where I sing these words.” music on Sacred Soul to gospel groups in Memphis, The sentiment, enfolded by a slinky blues guitar riff and a loping R&B groove, comes right as he reaches the middle of the song “Can’t Turn Me Around” by Daniels’ band Dedicated Men of Zion. Daniels’ declaration, connecting intimately and one-on-one with the listener, exemplifies the direct power and emotion of the Dedicated Men’s music, and the genre that the group is a part of. “We’re calling [the genre] sacred soul,” Tim Duffy says. Duffy is founder of Hillsboroughbased Music Maker Foundation, a nonprofit that preserves the traditional music of the South by supporting the musicians who make it. The foundation achieves it goals by giving music makers material help with necessities like housing and medical access, plus tour support for gigs and outreach that exposes the region’s musical JOHNNY RAY DANIELS (IN RED) RECORDS A TRACK FOR ‘SACRED SOUL.’ treasures to new audiences. Duffy’s latest project, produced in conjunction with Bible adding that eastern NC groups eschew the smooth and Tire Recording Co. founder Bruce Watson, is a horns favored in Memphis for a more direct vocalcompilation album of raw and vital gospel — or centered sound. sacred soul — from eastern North Carolina. “I hear a little more country in [Eastern NC Entitled Sacred Soul of North Carolina, the gospel], and also you hear a little funk influence as album drops Oct. 15. Recorded in eight days at a well.” makeshift studio in a former drug store in Fountain, Though forging their own path, Dedicated Men NC, the collection is proceeded by an identically of Zion hold traditions in common with the other titled 30-minute documentary, scheduled for an performers on the compilation, including Johnny Oct. 5 release. Ray Daniels, Big James Barrett & The Golden The film documents the recording session in the Jubilees, The Johnsonaires, Little Willie & The tiny town, located about 18 miles west of Greenville Fantastic Spiritualaires, Marvin Earle “Blind Butch” and home to just 435 people. It includes interviews Cox, Big Walt & The Faithful Jordanaires, female with and insights from many of the project’s
Kadesha Daniels, Andrea Edwards, Christy Moody and Tinisha Weaver. Though a septet, Faith & Harmony draws on the regional gospel quartet style exemplified by The Glorifying Vines Sisters. Characterized by entwining polyphonic vocals, the style was first popularized in the 1930s by Kinston, NC, group Mitchell’s Christian Singers, although The Vines Sisters’ version of the style is a Family, church and rock ‘n’ roll The Greenville-based Dedicated Men of Zion more rough-hewn and urgent. Championed by legendary record producer was formed in 2014 by four singers — Anthony Daniels, Antoine Daniels, Marcus Sugg and Dexter John Hammond, who supported the careers of Billie Weaver — all of whom are related by blood or Holiday, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and others, marriage. The family connection threads through Mitchell’s Christian Singers eventually traveled to the album. Every performer on the collection New York in 1938 to play Carnegie Hall. KeAmber Daniels stresses that her group is a relation or friend to one of two eastern NC performs just as readily at secular venues as they do at sacred ones — Faith & Harmony are booked at The Ol’ Front Porch Music Festival in Oriental, NC, Oct. 8-10 — but the group will always recognize its roots in the church. “It’s in your bones,” KeAmber says. Likewise, church and singing in harmony are inextricably entwined for Dedicated Men of Zion. In the band’s official bio, Anthony Daniels claims that his mother would call the children inside every day after school, make them turn off the television and insist that the children sing and speak in harmony until bedtime. Growing up, Alice Vines also found church and harmony interconnected. “We got together singing in churches,” Alice says. The group launched in Farmville, NC, in 1958, but it took a few years before the Vines sisters branched out from PHOTO BY ZOE VAN BUREN playing churches to singing in secular spaces. While they did, the Glorifying Vines Sisters cut families: the Daniels, led by patriarch, performer five albums and numerous singles. Alice remembers and Anthony Daniels’ father Johnny Ray Daniels; that the songs “There’s a Blessing Over the Hill” and and the Vines, who claim as matriarch Alice Vines, singer and manager of The Glorifying Vines Sisters. “We Will Work Till Jesus Comes” were regional hits. “We made good money off of them,” she recalls. “I grew up in the church and started singing Attrition took its toll on the group, which initially at a very young age, listening to my grandma [Alice, and] the Vines Sisters,” says Faith & Harmony consisted of six singers. Two sisters have passed away over the years member KeAmber Daniels. “We would travel with and now just four remain, Alice says. them.” Though sacred soul retains the elemental, Faith & Harmony is comprised of six people, stripped-down building blocks of early gospel, the two sets of sisters who are either daughters or genre should not be considered an archaeological nieces of Anthony Daniels. That includes Anthony artifact, unchanged and preserved in amber ever Daniels’ daughter KeAmber, Alexandria Suggs,
vocal septet Faith & Harmony and all-female gospel quartet The Glorifying Vines Sisters. All of these performers grew up learning how to sing in eastern NC’s Black churches, and all have kept their faith and love of music intact in the face of racist oppression.
