Biography
4 October 1942, Albany, Georgia, USA. Bernice Johnson Reagon, a leading member of Sweet Honey In The Rock, had been active in the civil rights movement in her home-town of Albany before singing with the SNCC Freedom Singers in 1962. By the end of the 60s she had moved on to the all-female, all-black group the Harambee Singers, using her time to collect field recordings of black American songs. Her work as the director (later curator emerita) at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. prepared the ground for her 1975 solo release, Give Your Hands To Struggle. 1972’s River Of Life/Harmony: One was typical of her energy and intelligence. Taking the concept of harmony and ‘what voices are supposed to do’ as her theme, this single-voiced but multi-tracked recording of gospel spirituals and civil rights protest songs was an impressive accomplishment, right down to the extensive and informed sleeve notes documenting the relevance of each song to the...
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