Hallelujah Singers

Marlena Smalls organized The Hallelujah Singers in 1990 to preserve the melodies and storytelling unique to the South Carolina Sea Islands. Within a short time, this ensemble has become a national art provider, offering cultural enrichment by preserving and celebrating the heritage of the Gullah culture, whose language and traditions have been indelibly linked to Western African heritage.

Through their performances, interwoven with music and narration, The Hallelujah Singers present a miniature dramatization of some of the unique personages, rituals and ceremonial dimension that played an important part in shaping the Gullah culture and how it's influence has lived on in the broader music and culture today.

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To date, the group has recorded four CD's featuring the African rhythms of the Gullah culture. The first recording, Gullah - Songs of Hope, Faith & Freedom, produced in 1997, features plantation melodies and spiritual songs. In 1998 Marlena Smalls released Joy - A Gullah Christmas. The 1999 production, Carry Me Home, features Gullah melodies that span the period of history between the 1860's and the birth of the blues in the 1920's and in 2003 the released Juba, a timeless legacy of African rhythms.

As Gullah Ambassadors, The Hallelujah Singers have traveled extensively throughout the United States teaching and entertaining in schools, auditoriums and festivals as part of their Fa Da Chillun' Outreach Program. The Singers have performed for United States Congress, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the South Carolina State Legislators. Other performances include Chicago's world famous Ravinia Festivals, Washington D.C. Kennedy Center, the Spoleto USA Festival in Charleston, SC and the 2004 G-8 Summit.

International movie audience became familiar with the group from their appearance in the Academy Award winning motion picture, Forrest Gump starring Tom Hanks, with Marlena Smalls appearing in the coveted role of "Bubba's Mama". The Hallelujah Singers have appeared on TNN's Crook and Chase Show, NBC's The Today Show and on ABC's Good Morning America in which Marlena led host Spencer Christian through 300 years of Gullah heritage.

All of this work has not gone without notice. Marlena Smalls and The Hallelujah Singers have received many accolades for their work in preserving the melodies and stories of the Gullah culture. The group has been designated a Local Legacy of South Carolina by the U.S. Library of Congress, as part of the library's Bicentennial Celebration. Other awards include The South Carolina Folk Heritage Advocacy Award, The Alpha Kappa Community Service Award, The Rockford (Illinois) Mayor's Award and selected as the South Carolina Ambassadors of the year 1998.

HISTORY OF GULLAH

Gullah is a culture and a language developed in West Africa and brought to the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. Experts consider Gullah, an Angola-based word meaning "a people", to be the purest form of African culture alive among African-Americans today. The Gullah language is a Creole blend of West African and European dialects. Most of the Gullah vocabulary today is of English origin, but grammar and major elements of pronunciation come from a number of West African languages, such Ewe, Mandinka, Igbo, Twi and Yoruba.

The West African's knowledge of rice cultivation made him specifically desirable to the plantation owners in the South Carolina Low Country where rice had become the foundation of many fortunes. Many of the Low Country plantations were remote and isolated from the mainland. Often the plantation owners left day-to-day operation to an overseer or foreman while they themselves remained in the comfort of their city homes. As a result, the communities on these isolated plantations were less influenced by Euro-American culture and were thereby able to retain much of their "African-ness".

With the end of the Civil War, the former plantation residents slowly took ownership of much of the farmland in the South Carolina Low Country, which for the most part, had been abandoned by the owners. The isolation of this region further aided in the preservation of their unique culture.

Today, the indelible link West Africa is obvious in many of the customs, crafts, and even the recipes of the people of the South Carolina Sea Islands. Much of the music we know today can be traced back to the songs and stories of the Gullah people of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands. Combining the African rhythms, call-and-response singing style, and European melodies, the framework of American Music was born. Sweet Grass baskets, commanding a handsome price in the markets of Charleston, are made by using a unique West African technique quite different form the traditional European weave. Food such as rice, yams, and okra all have West African/Gullah roots.

MARLENA SMALLS

Marlena Smalls is a versatile and dynamic entertainer, educator, singer and actress. She began singing at the age of 11, in Ohio, and furthered her education at Central State University. A sacred music vocalist, Marlena also ventures into gospel, contemporary, jazz and blues.

She has performed for such dignitaries as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Marian Wright Edelman, and US Secretary of Education Dick Riley, former SC Governor David Beasley, and current Governor Jim Hodges. Mrs. Smalls recounts her performance for the Queen of England as her most memorable along with a performance at the Frankfurt Opera House in Frankfurt, Germany.

Marlena has worked with film producer Joel Silver, and Academy Award winners Tom Hanks, Demi Moore, and Glenn Close. She has also performed with the likes of recording artist Melba Moore, Freda Payne, and Academy Award winner Walter Hawkins and the Hawkins Family.

In 1990, Marlena founded The Hallelujah Singers to preserve the Gullah culture of the South Carolina Sea Islands. She also founded the Gullah Festival in 1985 in Beaufort, South Carolina, which now attracts ten of thousands of visitors annually, and was inducted into South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in June, 2004.

Her television and film credits include many productions for PBS, SCETV, and GPTV. International audiences saw her as Bubba's mom in the Academy Award winning motion picture Forrest Gump.

CREDITS

AWARDS

1998 South Carolina Ambassadors of Tourism

South Carolina Folk Heritage Advocacy Award

Alpha Kappa Community Service Award

Rockford (IL) Mayor's Award

South Carolina Black Hall of Fame

FILM & TELEVISION

NBC The Today Show

ABC Good Morning America

CBS This Morning

TNN The Crook & Chase Show

Paramount Pictures Forrest Gump (Starring Tom Hanks)

SCETV Multicultural: The Hallelujah Singers

PBS God's Gonna Trouble The Water

SCETV/GPTV Voices of the Gullah Culture:

The Hallelujah Singers

Discovery Channel The Travelers

DISCOGRAPHY

1997 Gullah - Songs of Hope Faith, and Freedom

1998 Joy - A Gullah Christmas

1999 Gullah - Carry Me Home

2003 Juba

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award

Junior Olympic Sponsor

Beaufort Youth Activities Sponsors

Rockford, IL Youth Recreation and Senior Citizen Center

Keene, NH Woodward Senior Citizen Home

Singers image

PRODUCTIONS

NUTTIN' BUT de BLUES

An exciting historical account of the blues form plantation blues to folk blues, which
is the birth of Mississippi Delta Blues, Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll as we
know it today. This most popular performances gives a presentation of personal
blues favorites, `Stormy Monday', `Summertime', and Etta James classic, 'At Last'.

JUBA

This performance brings to life the true meaning of Juba, "a little bit of this and a

little bit of that". Travel with the performers as they carry you through a musical

time line of plantation shouts, field cries, spirituals, blues, jazz and gospel.

GULLAH CHRISTMAS

Warm your heart with an old-fashion Gullah celebration of the yuletide season.

Join us as we present Christmas stories, plantation carols and spirituals, preparing

young and old for the holidays.

FA DA CHILLUN

An Educational Outreach Production which introduces young children to the

Gullah culture, through music, storytelling and recollections of cultural history.

Ainad Shriners' Temple

609 St. Louis Avenue

East St. Louis, IL

April 11 & 12, 2008

7:00 p.m.

BHR08 donations are tax deductable and secured through
the P & P Cross Culture Services a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.