February 06, 2002
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Grammy Award-winning a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock will perform on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 7:30 p.m. at Langford Auditorium on the campus of Vanderbilt University.
The performance is the final event of Vanderbilt University’s 2002 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Series – “Music, Memory & The Movement: The Sounds of Liberation.”
Tickets for the concert are available through Ticketmaster. Tickets are $15 general admission. Students with I.D. may purchase $10 tickets in person at the Sarratt Student Center box office on Vanderbilt’s campus, or at any local Ticketmaster Ticket Center. The student discount is not available by phone or on the Internet.
Formed in 1973 by singer, composer, scholar and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon, Sweet Honey in the Rock draws from the Black church, jazz and blues and has African-American, African and Caribbean influences. The group’s performances blend lyrics, movement and narrative to relate history, expose injustice, encourage activism and speak out against oppression and exploitation. One member interprets the lyrics in American Sign Language.
The group takes its name from a gospel song first recorded in 1927 in Memphis, Tenn., by blind sanctified singer Mamie Forehand. Forehand titled her song, “Honey in the Rock”; however, random congregations soon added “sweet” to the song’s title and the song has since been known as “Sweet Honey in the Rock.” The song is based on a sacred parable that tells of a land so rich that when you cracked the rocks, honey flowed from them.
Sweet Honey in the Rock received a Grammy in 1989 for their work on the Smithsonian Folkways/Columbia recording “Vision Shared: A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly.” Their latest recording, “Still the Same Me,” a collection of songs for children, recorded for the Rounder Record label in 2000, also received a Grammy nomination.
Contact: Princine Lewis, (615) 322-NEWS
princine.l.lewis@vanderbilt.edu