Singing and Praying Band in Kent Co., MD

From the Maryland Eastern Shore: photos from fieldwork on the Delmarva Peninsula in 2001: Mt. Olive AME Church, Kent County. The event was a reunion during revival week, and a visit from another Maryland church.

This particular event was a special song service, a revival of an old practice that had died out on the Shore in living memory, but has continued in a few congregations in Maryland on the western side of the Chesapeake: the "singing and praying band." It is a special worship service that includes ceremonial aspects that are surprisingly similar to the well-documented "ring shout" of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands.

Many Black congregations and communities on the Eastern Shore are among the oldest continuous Black communities in the United States. This service took place only a few miles from the plantation where Harriett Tubman came of age as a slave.

There are also families on the Shore who trace their ancestry to colonial free Black communities. Some in the Virginia counties claim descent from Black families who had never been enslaved, but were, back in the 17th Century, formerly-indentured servants who themselves owned slaves.

I was hired to document the event by the Kent County Arts Council. I also have digital and analog audio, and video footage. For more information see my website.

Good morning, central Virginia!

Hey all:

All of a sudden with a lot of time on my hands . . .

I will be spending a lot of time in coming weeks getting my own archival files and folklore collections in order. In particular, I'm going to begin digitizing all my old Hi-8 video footage from fieldwork in Tennessee and Maryland's Eastern Shore. Also, some VHS footage from North Carolina and Georgia. Then I'm going to start posting highpoints of the video on YouTube, and embed mp4s on my website, formerly the site of the Southern Council for Folk Culture.

And playing guitar.

That picture of me playing the old 12-string dobro is, by the way, from last year's Spirit Walk in Charlottesville. I'm in character as 1920s cowboy singer Billy Vest, who hailed from Afton, Virginia, and recorded on Columbia Records back in the day. He had an amazing story. He met and played with Jimmie Rodgers; the Carter Family; Gid Tanner, Riley Puckett and the Skillet Likkers; Darby and Tarleton, and was even in the movies with Gene Autry and played in his band.

Normally I wear my boots inside my pants. And that 1970s leather pimp jacket from Mexico I'll never wear ever again, I promise. Mostly because it got rained on and shrank, which didn't improve its looks any.