Revisited: The Georgia Sea Island Singers

The Atlantic coast that stretches from South Carolina to Florida is scattered with over one hundred barrier islands within miles from the shore. Saint Simons is one such island, allocated to Glynn County, Georgia, and despite its recent development as a resort community, has history dating back two hundred years before European contact. The island later served as a hub for cotton production, like many of the neighboring Sea Islands, and became the adopted home to generations of slaves and their ancestors. It was here that Gullah culture was birthed to preserve the African customs, and it was out of Gullah culture that the music of the Georgia Sea Island Singers came to be.

Bessie Jones grew up in inland Georgia at the turn of the 20^th century, the granddaughter of a slave born in Africa. From an early age, her grandfather taught her the songs he would sing in the field, linking her through music to the culture of the slave generation. Upon moving to Saint Simons, Jones joined the Georgia Sea Island Singers, a travelling music group whose membership has always remained fluid and which still exists to this day.  As the most powerful female voice during her tenure in the group, Bessie served as the groups de facto front woman, handling the majority of lead vocal work. When the group traveled to New York in 1960 to record their music, Jones was credited on twelve of the album’s sixteen tracks. 

Join the Band was recorded by ethnomusicologist and field recorder Alan Lomax to preserve the work that had previously only been available first hand. The Georgia Sea Island Singers, specifically Jones, helped spread Gullah culture and the folk and gospel stylings of the region to a much wider audience. On the album opener “You Better Mind” Jones enters alone, singing just one line before receiving the raspy support from her backers. Jones’s voice is on show, but it is the layered harmonies and hand clapped metronome that carry the acapella songs; the sense of community involved in the music gives it authenticity and echoes the bonds felt between the music and Gullah culture as a whole. The songs performed by the group feature allegories and themes designed to uplift the slaves who once sang them as their only creative outlet. Below, listen to “Daniel In The Lion’s Den”, helmed by Jones.

The tone of the Singers is most often a positive one; despite the themes and their devastating origins, Join The Band is an encouraging effort. There exists a jovialness within the vocals even as the lyrics being sung appear disheartening. Jones’ voice is deep and graveled which makes it inherently dreary, but in execution she manages to overcome this fact. On “Sometime” (which fans of Moby may recognize), she is juxtaposed with two younger voices repeating the title in call and response. The Georgia Sea Island’s male singers are equally responsible for lightening the mood, with tracks like “Join The Band” and “Hop Along, Let’s Get Her” led by John Davis. Davis hollers as much as he sings, and his tracks give a feeling of a Georgia Sea Island Singers performance rather than an in-studio recording session. 

Although Jones and Davis have long since passed on, the Georgia Sea Island Singers still travel, and their legacy of their music lives on. During the peak of their prominence, the band performed at Newport Folk and at the presidential inauguration of former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter in 1977. Generations have passed since slavery was abolished from the American South, but there are cultures and customs which preceded that time that survived oppression and still live on. The impact of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers is larger than just music. Through the songs and stories they shared, the struggle and history of a region and its people won't soon be forgotten.