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The men dress in white barber’s jackets like those which once distinguished house servants. The women wear white or black dresses with aprons that represent working in the fields and kitchens. These are the uniforms of the singing and praying bands from the Tidewater area of Maryland and Delaware, which keep alive a tradition that dates back to the dark night of the soul for African-Americans caught in the bondage of slavery.
Using only their hands and feet as instruments, these bands follow a “call-and-response” singing style, where the band captain calls out a phrase which the members sing back in unison. It is punctuated with fervent prayer – appeals for God to deliver them from their troubles and bring them to a believer’s reward.
As part of its annual camp meeting last month, Coolspring United Methodist Church, near Snow Hill, resonated with these sounds of a bygone era. Coolspring is one of a dwindling number of congregations on the Eastern Shore which hold to the tradition of singing and praying bands.
Hand-held fans fluttered on the muggy September afternoon as rising intonations of song and prayer spilled out of the church’s open doors. A cluster of uniformly dressed people first lay on the altar to entreat God’s mercy, then rose up to sing, starting in a low moan:
Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body that day.
Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body that day.
Just as soon as Gabriel blow,
I’m gonna get up in the mornin’ and go.
Their volume increased as they sang in the spirit of long-ago travail. It was a reminder of a people’s yearning to worship God and be free from worldly cares.
Symbolically akin to Israel’s march out of Egypt, the band concluded by slowly making its way down the center aisle in a joyful procession, with men on both sides facing one another and women in the middle, clapping and repeating the chorus. They emerged through the front doors, went around the building and back in, all the while singing with the determination of a deeply realized faith.
Jonathan David, a professional folklorist, #has written a book about the region’s singing and praying bands, Together Let us Sweetly Live. While attending Band Day at Coolspring, he described this 200-year-old tradition as “under the radar” for most folklorists and historians.
He first learned about the bands when working in the early 1980s for the Delmarva Folklife Festival. His job was to research Eastern Shore storytelling, folk art, crafts and music. Drawing on written historical accounts, David traced the term “prayer band” to John Wesley, who used it to refer not to musicians but a society of devout people who banded together to pray.
America’s Second Great Awakening commenced around 1800 with huge camp meetings from the frontier to the east coast. “The prayer meetings originally sponsored the camp meetings, and prayer meeting groups would come from all the other churches and participate,” David said. This eventually led to the singing and praying bands.
By the mid-19th century, these bands were found all over the United States. After emancipation, former slaves formed singing and praying bands in numerous churches in Baltimore, Annapolis and on the Eastern Shore. Eventually, as the tradition began to wane, people from these areas combined to form the bands which remain today.
The call-and-response singing style is one expression of “helping,” a custom in African-American churches in which congregations will sometimes travel for many hours to support one another’s activities. This sense of mutual aid was common when working in the fields or performing other farm chores, and it naturally spilled over into church life. It produces a sense of unity when, David said, the people “get on one accord.” The result is forgiveness and fellowship.
Although similar singing took place in the rural South, the Tidewater singing and praying bands preserve what David considers “real folk music” as opposed to commercial folk music. He explained why it is important to keep this tradition alive.
“Our understanding of spirituality always comes from our own personal histories. And this is something that comes from a deep history in the black community. It would be a shame not to honor that.”
While this observance deeply impacts older church members, the younger ones consider it “old-timey stuff,” he said. How will this tradition continue into the next generation?
“I understand that the young people of today may not be thrilled with the singing and praying bands and may not want to be in them,” David responded.
“Many of the younger people do not seem to join the bands until after their parent dies, and then they realize, ‘Oh, I can’t let it go at my church.’ So they take over.”