- Artist:Various
- Title: COMO NOW: The Voices of Panola County, MS
- Label: Daptone Records
- Release date: Aug 19, 08
click to download CD cover- Track Listing:
- 1. When the gates swing open - Mary Moore
- 2. It's Alright - The John Edwards Singers
- 3. Can See So Much - Brother and Sister Walker
- 4. Jesus Builds a Fence Around Me - Della Daniels and Ester Mae Smith
- 5. Trouble In My Way - Como Mamas Featuring Mary Moore
- 6. If It Had Not Been for Jesus - Irene Stevenson
- 7. What Would I Do - Brother and Sister Walker
- 8. New Burying Ground - The John Edwards Singers
- 9. God's Unchanging Hand - Como Mamas featuring Mary Moore
- 10. I Can't Afford to Let my Saviour Down - Rev. Robert Walker
- 11. Talk with Jesus - The Jones Sisters
- 12. Lil' Old Church House - Irene Stevenson
- 13. Send Me I'll Go - Como Mamas featuring Mary Moore
- 14. Help Me to Carry On - Brother and Sister Walker
- 15. Move Upstairs - Della Daniels and Ester Mae Smith
- 16. Somebody Here Needs You Lord - Mary Moore
“It felt like real religion in there that afternoon.” That’s how Ms. Irene Stevenson described the atmosphere at Mt. Moriah Church on that Saturday. It was July, and the paper fans that were meant to make the sweltering Mississippi heat a little more bearable were fluttering away furiously between songs that day. Some of the best singers had come out from all over Panola County to praise God’s word and add to the summer heat with their hymns. That afternoon was all about raw gospel testimony. No pretty piano playing or clever guitar picking. Just voices. Pure soul-stirring fire from the heart. That’s what real religion is and always has been in Como.
This was not the first time the people of Panola County had been recorded. The great folklorist Alan Lomax recorded musicians of this inspired pocket of rural Mississippi extensively in the 1940’s and then returned again in the 1950’s to record more. He made the first recordings of fife blower Otha Turner and bluesman Fred McDowell on these trips. Back then, people sang in the cotton fields, and they sang in the church. No one has to pick cotton anymore but you better believe that the people of Como never stopped singing in church. Song is synonymous with worship here, and everyone, be they three years old or one-hundred three, is expected and encouraged to sing proud and sing loud. Folks in Como believe that God’s word is “anointed”. That is, the more His word is raised in song, the more blessings He can bestow on all those who hear it. Most congregations here make little distinction between performers and observers. In Como, everybody sings and everybody prays.
It was a roundabout tip from the Alan Lomax Archive that lead me to Como, Mississippi a few years ago and thereby to The Como Mamas. Though to be precise, they weren’t yet called The Como Mamas; just two sisters and a cousin who, like everybody else down there, had been singing together their whole lives. In fact, their grandfather, Miles Pratcher was recorded by Alan Lomax on his trip back to Como in 1959. Ester Mae Wilbour who often leads the group is likely the most powerful singer I have ever witnessed. Listen to the fire she brings to the second half of ’Trouble In My Way’. As the daughter of a sharecropper, she grew up picking cotton and had to get by with very little. She says that the urgency in her singing comes from being so grateful she was delivered from such a brutal life. Angela Taylor and her sister Della Daniels both sing hard too. They sing about what they know. When Della was 18, a boy broke her heart and she poured her feelings into an original song that was eventually recorded in Nashville. To her disappointment, her mother refused to let her move there to pursue her singing career. Angela is the deep round voice you hear filling out songs like ’God’s Unchanging Hand’. Her mother passed away when she was 9 years old and so she learned to sing mostly by listening to her father in the choir every Sunday. “I enjoy singing,” Angela told me. “There’s nothing I like to do better. And when I sing I try to sing with all my heart and soul.” - Michael Reilly
With two solos and several songs with The Como Mamas, Mary Moore’s voice is a big part of Como Now. Though she is younger than the Mamas, she shares a similar musical upbringing. Some of the congregation in her church recognized her talent early on and encouraged her to sing in the choir. Mary is as passionate about singing as she is about church, and she is rightfully proud of her voice. As you listen to ’When The Gates Swing Open’ you can hear why it is one of her favorite solos to sing. Her performance of it here is so tough it feels almost invincible.
The John Edwards Singers are a family group made up of four siblings. When sisters Tricia, Sandra, Georgia, and brother George Edwards started singing together it was just for their own entertainment. Living on a large family farm in rural Senatobia, singing was a natural way for their family to join together and give thanks to God. However, after the death of their father, John Wylie Edwards, they decided to lift their voices in praise to publicly honor both their heavenly father and that of this earth. They named the group for their dad and began singing in local churches. After hearing this, I understood why their rendition of the Sensational Nightingales’ ’Burying Ground’ was so moving on that Saturday afternoon: “I’ve got a father,” wails George, “Waiting over there…” “Way over yonder,” his sisters answer, “in the new burying ground”.
Brother and Sister Walker are legends in Como and easily two of the most well-respected singers in all of Panola County. In the 1960’s, Mississippi Fred McDowell asked Brother Raymond Walker to sing with him on a tour abroad. Raymond refused. He said he could not bear to leave his family for such a long time. Around the same time, he was leading his own group, The Longtown Travelers on programs with top national acts like The Soul Stirrers and The Swan Silvertones. Though the Longtown Travelers were never recorded, the stories of the way they would tear up a church in those days are legendary. Their son, Rev. Robert Walker, says that his mother even married his father because he sang so well. At 81, he can still whip a crowd into a frenzy with his songs. As of this writing, Brother Raymond and Sister Joella Walker have been married for 52 years. ’I Can See So Much’ is the first song they sang together in the cotton fields over half a century ago, and it’s one of their favorite songs to sing together today. The sound of them singing together is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard and I consider it truly a gift to have met and had the chance to record with Brother Walker and his family.
Being the son of Raymond and Joella, Reverend Robert Walker and his siblings naturally started singing at a very young age. He and his brother Bobby also learned to play instruments -- the guitar and the bass -- about as soon as they were big enough to hold them. Soon after, the Walker children started their own group, lead by their youngest sister who was only four years old at the time. The Reverend’s congregation has given him over 70 suits but he says he has not had occasion to where them all yet. For most of that hot afternoon when we were recording Como Now, Reverend Robert Walker sat quietly listening from the back of the church, in the very last pew, apparently with no intention of getting up and singing. It took some coaxing from the others before he finally stood up with some reservation and, in a T-shirt that simply read “GOD”, he stepped to the front and offered his solo, ’I Can’t Afford To Let My Savior Down’. When he finished, nobody in the church said anything for a long while. His voice is deep and dark and resonant like his father’s, but there is also something vulnerable in it that makes it very different. I think that the rare combination of power and humility in his voice is what makes his one and only contribution on this record so distinctive and important.
Like Angela Taylor, it was Irene Stevenson’s father Rayford who pushed her to get up and sing in church. Though they lived in nearby Senatobia, her father preferred to take her to church in Como to sing every Sunday. She started singing at around 8 or 9 years old, but it wasn’t until much later that Irene says God revealed the true meaning behind the songs she had been singing since she was a girl. “Real religion”, she says, “is something beautiful that happens in church when folks don’t allow things to get in between themselves and the worship of God.” Irene says people in church today rely too much on instrumental accompaniment which can sometimes get in the way of real worship. She figures that the reason there is so much a cappella singing in Panola County is that until recently, few congregations could afford to buy a piano. Unlike many of the singers on this record, Irene writes a lot of her own songs. She wrote ’If It Had Not Been For Jesus’ and sings it with the sincerity and intensity of personal testimony.
Tambra, Tara, Tawanda, Dorothy, and Brittany make up the five Jones Sisters. Like most sisters who grow up close, they laugh constantly and communicate with each other in a way that is almost indecipherable to outsiders. Though they are by far the youngest act on the record, ranging from 21 to 28, their harmonies and phrasings have been honed by frequent engagements on local gospel programs. Like Irene Stevenson, many of the Jones Sisters’ songs are originals. ’Talk With Jesus’ not only shows their precocious talents for writing, arranging, and harmonizing, but also how strong and alive the tradition of gospel in Panola county is today. It’s good to know that younger singers like The Jones Sisters will carry this music to future generations, just as Brother and Sister Walker have carried it before them.
I am eternally grateful to everyone in Como for being so trusting and fearless in sharing their music with me. The singers there have changed the way I listen to music forever, and I am not a good enough writer to put into words how much I appreciate that. Since this record was recorded, I have been back many times to gather more music. So, to all the true music fans out there, just wait until you hear what the full-length albums by The Como Mamas and the whole Walker family can do for your head and heart.