Marlena Smalls presents The Hallelujah Singers
Marlena Smalls founded The Hallelujah Singers in 1990 to preserve the Gullah culture of the South Carolina Sea Islands. She is available for lectures and storytelling as well as with the beautiful voices in her group in stage performances. She founded the Gullah Festival in 1985 in Beaufort, South Carolina, and today the annual Memorial Day event attracts more than 20,000 visitors. Marlena began singing at the age of 11 in Ohio and studied at Central State University. She is a sacred music vocalist, also singing gospel, contemporary, jazz and blues. Her programs for schools, reunion and meeting groups incorporate lecture, music and Gullah storytelling. Inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2004, Marlena has performed for the Queen of England and many U. S. and international dignitaries. She has worked with film producer Joel Silver and Academy Award winners Tom Hanks, Demi Moore and Glenn Close. In addition to many productions for PBS, SCETV and GPTC, she is known to international audiences as Bubba's mom in the Academy Award winning motion picture Forrest Gump.
The Hallelujah Singers were organized to preserve the melodies and storytelling unique to the South Carolina Sea Islands. The ensemble is a national art provider offering cultural enrichment through preserving and celebrating the heritage of the Gullah culture with language and traditions indelibly linked to West African heritage. Performances weaving music and narration present a dramatization of unique personages, rituals and ceremonial dimension which played an important part in shaping the Gullah culture and its influence on the broad musical traditions. The Hallelujah Singers travel extensively as Gullah ambassadors, teaching and entertaining in schools, auditoriums and festivals in their Fa Da Chillun Outreach Program. They have performed for the U. S. Congress, the South Carolina legislature, in Chicago s Ravinia festivals, the Kennedy Center, the Spoleto Festival and the G-8 Summit. 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, the Elizabeth O Neill Verner award (Governor s award for the arts) and were named as the South Carolina Ambassadors of the year in 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 today s Gullah vocabulary is of English origin with grammar and major elements of pronunciation from a number of West African languages such as Ewe, Mandinka, Egbo, Twi and Yoruba. The West African s knowledge of rice cultivation made him specifically desirable to the plantation owners in the South Carolina Lowcountry where rice had become the foundation of many fortunes. Many Lowcountry plantations were remote and isolated from the mainland. Often the plantation owners left day to day operation to an overseer or foreman while they remained in the comfort of their city homes. As a result, the communities on the isolated plantations were less influenced by Euro- American culture and were thereby able to retain much of their African ways. With the end of the Civil War, the former plantation residents slowly took ownership of much of the farmland in the South Carolina Lowcountry, which had been primarily abandoned by the owners who fled. Today the indelible link to West Africa is obvious in many customs, crafts and foodways of the people of the South Carolina Sea Islands. Today s music can be traced to the songs and stories of the Gullah people. The framework of American music was born from African rhythms, call-and-response singing style and European melodies. Sweetgrass baskets, specific to the Lowcountry Gullah culture, are made with a West African weaving technique unlike a traditional European weave. Foods such as rice, yams and okra reflect the West African heritage.
The Hallelujah Singers Productions Nuttin But de Blues An exciting historical account of the blues from plantation blues to folk blues which is the birth of Mississippi Delta Blues, Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll. This popular performance presents such favorites as Stormy Monday, Summertime, and Etta James classic At Last. Juba The performance of a little bit of this and a little bit of that travels through a musical timeline of plantation shouts, field cries, spirituals,blues, jazz and gospel. Gullah Christmas This old-fashioned Gullah celebration of the yuletide season is a heart-warming presentation of Christmas stories, plantation carols and spirituals. Fa Da Chillun An educational outreach production which introduces children to the Gullah culture through music, storytelling and recollections of history. Four recorded CDs feature the African rhythms of the Gullah culture. The first recording, Gullah Songs of Hope, Faith & Freedom, was produced in 1997 featuring 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 1860 s to the birth of the blues in the 1920s. In 2003 Juba was released featuring a timeless legacy of African rhythms.
The Hallelujah Singers Credits NBC The Today Show Film & Television ABC CBS TNN Paramount Pictures SCETV PBS SCETV/GPTV Discovery Channel Good Morning America This Morning The Crook & Chase Show Forrest Gump Multicultural: The Hallelujah Singers God s Gonna Trouble the Water Voices of the Gullah Culture: The Hallelujah Singers The Travelers Discography 1997 Gullah Songs of Hope, Faith and Freedom 1998 Joy A Gullah Christmas 1999 Gullah Carry Me Home 2003 Juba Awards Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award South Carolina Ambassadors of Tourism 1998 South Carolina folk Heritage Advocacy Award Alpha Kappa Community Service Award Rockford Mayor s Award South Carolina Black Hall of Fame Governor s Award for the Arts Elizabeth O Neill Verner Award
Simply Marlena Marlena Smalls solo 2009 Marlena sings the blues. Marlena sings jazz. Marlena tells stories. Marlena lectures on the history and heritage of Gullah. Marlena customizes a program to meet the needs of your audience, your budget and your schedule.