Topic: Origins - Ring Shout
Ring shouts may no longer follow Protestant ceremonies in African-American churches, but many churches allow special music at the ends of services. George Nesbitt led the singing "after the preached word" at Trinity Missionary Baptist Church north of Charleston, South Carolina, in 2013.
His version of "Right Now Jesus" was borrowed from one by Henry Dixon that in turn was based on the variant by Inez Andrews discussed in the post for 27 August 2017. The seven-minute video began while he was singing and ended before the music stopped. Six rows of pews were between the altar where Nesbitt sang and the camera.
Dixon’s recording used a choir to repeat key phrases while he sang the opening chorus five times. By the time the Goose Creek church video began, Nesbitt was singing the chorus and a couple seated women were clapping as were a few women in the choir. On the second iteration, two other middle-aged women stood in front of their pew bench. One swung her arms while the other clapped.
At the end of the first minute, others were standing to clap and Nesbitt bent forward a little while he sang, then straightened. After another half minute, he began to shift from diagonal to diagonal but remained in place.
Fifteen seconds later, the drums became louder and he started using vocables. One of the standing women was patting her thigh. Half a minute after that, on the other side of the church, a man in a dark suit, who might have been an usher or deacon, stood. Either the bass drum changed to a dull thud or a wood block was used [1] to play double time, while Nesbitt’s torso moved up and down. He may have been bending his knees, but it was impossible to see anything below his waist. [2]
As the wood block became louder, the choir sometimes could be heard. More often, the camera microphone only picked up Nesbitt’s vocables. He bent more, and his shifts to the left and right were more pronounced. He soon began waving his free hand, then let it swing.
At about the half-way point in the video, three women walked in front of the camera, and began double clapping. He leaned forward forty-five degrees from his hips, while the usher moved to the edge of the altar to clap. Twenty seconds later, the sound of the block was more pronounced and Nesbitt had one hand on his hip. The other man turned to face the congregation and bent his knees in synch with Nesbitt.
A bit later, the woman who had been waving her arms at her sides, raised them over her head. He stayed tilted forward from the hips as he sang. Occasionally he was silent, so only the drums and hand claps could be heard. The woman began shifting her weight from foot to foot.
After almost five minutes, everyone was double clapping, including women in the choir and the usher. Nesbitt’s arms were bent at the elbows and his body tilted further forward as it rose and fell. Around the sixth minute of the video, he was standing again, and the tambourine played by a woman in the chorus could be seen by the camera.
Then, he set the mike down, and moved toward the center where he was lost from the view of the lens. The wood block, tambourine, and clapping were continuing with no singing when the video stopped.
The camera’s view was limited, but the increased sounds of clapping suggested others in the church had joined the polyrhythm. The women in front of the camera were dressed in Sunday clothes and probably were wearing nylon hose and shoes with low heels that constrained their ability to move. [3] It was impossible to know what was occurring on the other side of the center aisle.
During the singing, a man stood behind the pulpit. He joined the clapping early, bringing one hand down on the other, then switching hands between claps. Later he moved from left to right from the waist.
Performers
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Vocal Soloist: George Nesbitt
Vocal Group: Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ [4]
Rhythm Accompaniment: hand claps, tambourine, wood block, drum
H. E. Dixon
Vocal Soloist: Henry Dixon
Vocal Group: Truth Tabernacle Choir
Instrumental Accompaniment: organ, synthesizer
Rhythm Accompaniment: drums, cymbal, hand claps
Credits
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
"a song by Pastor H.E. Dixon" [5]
H. E. Dixon
(C) OPHIRGOSPEL
Notes on Lyrics
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Language: English
Phrases: right now Jesus, it’s a needed time
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: open-ended
Verse Repetition Pattern: repeated one verse, with some comments
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
H. E. Dixon
Language: English
Phrases: right now Jesus, it’s a needed time
Vocabulary
Pronoun: we
Term for Deity: Jesus
Special Terms: none
Basic Form: prelude-denouement
Prelude: five repetitions of "it’s a needed time" chorus
Transition: three verses that listed reasons we needed Jesus against repetitions of "it’s a needed time;" ended with a repetition of the Prelude chorus
Denouement: repeated the phrase "it’s a needed time," followed by the Prelude chorus
Ending: none
Unique Features: none
Notes on Music
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Opening Phrase: Inez Andrews
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: repetition with variations in rhythm
Singing Style: Nesbitt began singing, then only repeated phrases that were hard to hear from where the camera’s microphone was located.
Solo-Group Dynamics: the choir began by repeating "needed time," then stopped and let the instruments support him.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: organ maintained a continuo; toward the end, when no one was singing, it played the melody with a strong rhythm.
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: it took over the functions of the chorus as a continuo for the organ and soloist, and then was all that was heard.
H. E. Dixon
Opening Phrase: Inez Andrews
Tempo: moderate
Basic Structure: tripartite. Organ introduction was followed by synthesizer and drums; the drum beat pattern changed with the same instruments in the second part; hand claps and musical interlude occurred before third part with same instrumentation as second.
Solo Singing Style: occasional use of guttural pronunciations; he made interjections like "tell it" to begin lines.
Group Singing Style: generally timbraic harmony; at the ends of verses the choir used diverging chords.
Solo-Group Dynamics: the group sang one phrase over and over. Dixon began by singing with them, then began to start a little before or after with slightly different words.
Vocal-Instrumental Dynamics: remained constant
Vocal-Rhythm Dynamics: changes in rhythm demarcated segments
Notes on Performance
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
Occasion: church service
Location: Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, Goose Creek, South Carolina
Microphones: Nesbitt had a hand-held microphone with a cord.
Clothing: the women in the choir were dressed in black. Nesbitt was wearing a red shirt and black vest.
Notes on Audience
H. E. Dixon
Some applause at end.
Notes on Performers
Trinity Missionary Baptist Church was on Old State Road in Goose Creek, South Carolina, north of Charleston. Nesbitt and Dixon were from Huger and Cordesville. The communities were about five miles apart of the edge of the Francis Marion National Forest, and about 35 miles from Goose Creek. [6]
The area was not part of the Goose Creek community that dominated South Carolina trade and politics in the early years, but a bit upstream. Men probably grew indigo and rice, until the introduction of flood irrigation. The land probably was just beyond the area that could be flooded, and land owners either planted cotton or other less-commercial crops.
The State Road was opened in 1747 to connect Charleston with the capital at Columbia and Scots-Irish settlements in the interior. It served as the route to the frontier for those immigrants from the British Isles who arrived by ship. [7] No doubt the traffic may have supported small farms and local tradesmen.
The early slaves would have come from the same shipments as those that supplied the coast. Many may have left the area with emancipation after the Civil War. Much of the area reverted to forest that was logged at the end of the nineteenth century. [8] African Americans were the primary timber workers in those years, [9] and ones who stayed in the area would have been hired. They might have been joined by those from the coast and islands were rice was no longer a commercial crop. [10]
There were indications a Nesbitt Plantation had existed in the area of Huger, but its location was unknown. A Nesbitt family cemetery survived. [11] George Nesbitt remained a common name in the area.
Goose Creek was incorporated in 1961 as a navy town. [12] The first dates on Trinity Missionary Baptist Church’s website were from the 1990s when Idelphia Salley was pastor. [13] The choir sang for church services and was available, for a price, for "your next: Choir Anniversary, Gospel Concert, Birthday Celebration, Service, Revival, etc." Its photograph showed four men and ten women. [14]
The man who uploaded the video, Tyre Singleton, played with the choir in 2013 when the video was made, [15] and performed for the Johnson Temple Church in Huger on 14 May 2017. [16] He posted more videos of music from other local churches.
The songwriter, Henry Dixon, was from the Saw Mill section of Cordesville. In 1973 he received a prophecy that led him to organize the Truth Tabernacle. He performed with some members of his choir for other events, and was available as an evangelist. In 2007, he began selling CDs. [17]
Availability
Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir
YouTube: uploaded by Ty Singleton on 20 May 2013.
H. E. Dixon
Album: Pastor H. E. Dixon and Truth Tabernacle. "A Need It Time." Sweetwater Series, Volume 1. 2011. CD.
YouTube: uploaded by Music Video Distributors Inc. on 17 September 2017.
End Notes
1. Ty Singleton uploaded a video of in which a woman was using a drum stick to beat a small wooden box or block. ("Homegoing Celebration for Aunt Jackie." Uploaded to YouTube on 11 July 2013.)
2. LanGuide TV posted a video of "Brother George Nesbitt singing at Trinity Baptist Church." He was surrounded by a group of men, but it sometimes was possible to seem him move. (Uploaded to YouTube on 1 January 2018.)
3. The women who were dancing in Keith Johnson’s video wore slacks and tops to the concert. They either wore athletic shoes or were free to take off their shoes to move. Johnson’s video was discussed on 23 September 2018.
4. The choir won two organs in the McDonald Choir Showcases in 2013 and 2014. ("Trinity Missionary Baptist Church Inspirational Choir." Church website.)
5. YouTube notes for Trinity Inspirational Mass Choir.
6. Distances from Huger to Goose Creek, and from Huger to Cordesville calculated by Distance Cities website.
7. "Old South Carolina State Road." Family Search website sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
8. Al Hester. "Prelude to a National Forest: Cooperative Forestry in the Lowcountry, 1901-1918." 26 June 2001. United States Forest Service website, "History of the Francis Marion Ranger District."
9. Logging, saw and planing mills were the major industrial employer of Blacks in the Southeast from 1880. William Jones said, 83,000 were working for such mills in 1910. Indeed, he said "before World War II, no other industry employed more African Americans." (William Powell Jones. The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2005. 1.)
10. Charleston began losing its rice markets in the Civil War when new supplies were developed in Asia. By the end of the century, rice was being grown less expensively in Louisiana and Arkansas with Artesian wells pumping from the aquifer; few growers were left in South Carolina.
11. "Berkeley County SC Cemetery GPS Mapping Project" listed Nesbitt Gardens and Nesbitt House Plantation, but said it had no location information for them. (South Carolina Genealogical Society website) A man named George Nesbitt, Junior, was buried in Nesbitt Gardens in 2016. (His obituary. Tributes website.)
12. Wikipedia. "Goose Creek, South Carolina." It noted, "most of the Naval Weapons Station Charleston is in Goose Creek."
13. "Church History." Trinity church website.
14. Trinity church website, choir page.
15. Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr. "Not the Average Church Choir." The [Summerville, South Carolina] Gazette website. 14 February 2018.
16. "Johnson Temple Church." Facebook. 16 May 2017.
17. "About Henry Dixon." Facebook.
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