SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK

Throughout history, music has been a means by which messages of love, liberation, struggle, social responsibility and every emotion possible has been delivered. For the past thirty years, one group of women in particular has poured all of these messages out into the ears of the world with steadfast conviction and stirring vocals. Sweet Honey In The Rock is a Grammy® Award-winning African- American female a cappella ensemble with deep musical roots in the sacred music of the black church ­ spirituals, hymns, gospel ­ as well as jazz and blues.

The Sweet Honey experience is like no other. As the Washington Post put it, “The sound of Sweet Honey In The Rock is a wide-open sound, one that invites you in. Female a cappella groups are a rare thing, and no group of either gender has pushed the boundaries of unaccompanied choral music to the level Sweet Honey has, or made stylistic iconoclasm seem more natural.” Sweet Honey uses her voice as a personal vehicle to call forth all that is deeply felt — from life’s hopeful struggles to its long-awaited victories. These five women join their powerful voices to create a blend of lyrics, movement and narrative that variously relate history, point the finger at injustice, encourage activism, and sing the praises of love. The music speaks out against oppression and exploitation of every kind. The quintet, whose words are simultaneously interpreted in uniquely expressive American Sign Language at every live performance, demands a just and humane world for all.

The daughter of a rural Georgia Baptist minister, a cultural historian, and musician, Bernice Johnson Reagon organized Sweet Honey from members of her workshop in 1973 in Washington D.C., while working as the vocal director of the D.C. Black Repertory Co. Her work with performing music began as a founding member of the original SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Freedom Singers. This influential and historic African-American a cappella quartet was formed in 1962 by Cordell Hull Reagon, and as a part of the Movement and a part of the Folk Music Revival of that era, traveled throughout the country performing the songs that were drawn from the freedom struggles across the South. Reagon was also an organizing member of the Atlanta-based Harambee Singers, an ensemble of African-American women singers who performed as a part of the Black Consciousness/Black Power struggles of the late sixties and early seventies. Sweet Honey In The Rock is both a continuance and an expansion of the work of those earlier groups. For three decades she has been a voice celebrating life and reminding all within her sound that it is not only possible, it is better to go forward as a light into, against, and through the darkness.

Including her first recording in 1976, Sweet Honey In The Rock (Flying Fish/Rounder Records), the group has released 18 albums. Sweet Honey’s first recording for younger audiences, All For Freedom (Music for Little People, ‘89) received three national awards for outstanding children’s music. Sweet Honey has received top awards as a singing group from the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America (CASA). The group garnered a Grammy® in 1989 for work on the Smithsonian Folkways/Columbia recording, Vision Shared: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. In honor of her twentieth anniversary, the group’s first book, We Who Believe in Freedom: Sweet Honey In The Rock, Still on the Journey, was published by Anchor/Doubleday Books. This anthology, edited by Reagon, contains essays by the singers, past and present, and others who have been a part of the group’s support team including their artist representative, producer, sound engineer, and members of Sweet Honey’s audiences. In her introduction to the volume, Alice Walker wrote: “Sweet Honey is our connection to our roots, as well as strong branches sheltering, blessing our connection to all who labor to create a healthy world. Healthy being another word for just. This is a sacred role­this putting of the heart, the courage, the energy back in our bodies. There is no way to adequately thank her for being this for us, except to live our culture, which nurtures us, which she so regally represents. And with gratitude acknowledge it as the sight of our own souls' reflection which moves us so profoundly in her song.”

The group’s sojourn and membership (all 22 women) are the subject of “Tribute” a rap composition by Nitanju Bolade Casel which can be heard on Still On The Journey, their 20th anniversary recording (EarthBeat!, ’93). In January, 1995, adults and children of all backgrounds packed world-famous Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco for a momentous Sweet Honey In The Rock concert. The result was the video Singing For Freedom: A Concert for the Child in Each of Us (Music for Little People). Drawn largely from her two award-winning children’s recordings, All For Freedom and I Got Shoes (Music for Little People, ’89 and ’94, respectively), these songs include old spirituals, tradition-rich play songs, a moving medley of civil rights anthems and even an uplifting a cappella rap. Interviews with children in the audience and Bernice Johnson Reagon add depth and perspective to the concert experience. In the Fall of 1995, Sweet Honey released a collection of sacred songs, Sacred Ground (EarthBeat!), which linked the traditional repertoire with the new compositions of the members. In her writing for the liner notes, Bernice Johnson Reagon (co-producer with her daughter, Toshi Reagon), described the evolution of the recording: “As the group worked with the old songs, we also composed new ones, discovering that all of the songs we were bringing forth settled well within our wider notion of the sacred and the divine in us all.” Sweet Honey celebrated her 25th anniversary with the release of Twenty-Five (Rykodisc) in 1998. Her 2000 recording in the children’s category, Still the Same Me (Rounder Records) was nominated for a Grammy® in 2001. Now, in honor of 30 years of Sweet Honey, the group presents The Women Gather. Predominantly original songs, and produced by Toshi Reagon, this newest project depicts the continuance and commitment of Sweet Honey In The Rock. Important to that is the fact that she is not only still here, but here in a strong and contemporary way, responding to the time she finds herself in as she completes her 30 years of existence. Sweet Honey conveys her message with not only new songs, but old songs, not only new struggles, but old struggles. “To be at 30 years and linked to a member of the younger generation we helped create space for, who, in turn, helps us to celebrate… very special,” says Bernice. The women who comprise Sweet Honey are more than entertainers. They are a quintet of artists dedicated to preserving and celebrating African-American culture and singing traditions. They are poets and activists who cannot remain silent on the most pressing contemporary issues. And it is the activist’s fervor and sense of urgency that fuels their sometimes tender and often explosive musical drive. Sweet Honey members continuously evolve as musicians, composers, arrangers, singers and storytellers, retaining an unmistakable quality of sound, yet always sounding fresh. The current ensemble includes: Bernice Johnson Reagon, Ysaye Maria Barnwell, Nitanju Bolade Casel, Aisha Kahlil, Carol Maillard and Sign Language interpreter Shirley Childress Saxton.

Buy Sweet Honey in the Rock's CD, The Women Gather, at www.earthbeatrecords.com