the newspaper: There have been 23 different members of Sweet Honey in the Rock over the years. I’ve been in several musical groups, and have discovered that there’s a lot of interpersonal negotiation that has to happen.
Carol Lynn Maillard; There sure is. But I wasn’t around during most of that stuff [the time in the 90s when group members cycled through]. When I was initially in the group, there were four of us. There wasn’t a lot of shifting around in the early days. And we’ve been fairly stable now since 1992. We just try to pick the right people who are compatible, and who have a commitment to making sure that things happen.
tn: You work within a huge variety of musical traditions. How do you decide which songs to sing?
CLM: First of all, Sweet Honey’s been around for such a long time, and [so] there is a really large repertoire that we pull from. We try to keep much of that music alive and useful, [though] sometimes things fall from the wayside. [Occasionally] we try to build on a particular genre. Sometimes we have a theme that we’re trying to address. We might be looking to children’s material, for example, if we’re putting together a children’s album. …. An issue might come up – for example, we have a song called “We are A Nation” that we actually all wrote together to address the Arizona immigration policies and to encourage dialogue on immigration reform, because we felt the laws were so unfair.
tn: I saw “We Are A Nation” on YouTube – it’s great.
CLM: Oh thank you! I think it’s a really powerful, tremendous piece … I love the tune and I love the video. I’m really proud of the effort we put in to make that happen.
tn: Did that come together quickly?
CLM: Yes, it did. I’m thinking it was a process of about a month and a half, or maybe two months from the time that we all started trying to write it … to working with the person [who produced] the track. We actually put the video together on the same day that we recorded the song in the studio.
tn: Wow.
CLM: It really put us to task. We had to be really aware of our purpose and really be focused to get it done on time.
tn: I guess that’s what happens when you need to respond in a timely fashion to something.
CLM: Yeah. It really pressures you – you don’t have room to languish. You can’t think “oh, I like this, maybe I don’t like that.” And then we were all writing together, which is not something that we normally do. Like I said, we may have different reasons for writing songs, or [one of the group members] may hear something and go, “Oh, I’d really love to do this with Sweet Honey,” and then they bring it to the group. Each person has their own method for putting a song together … so coming together to write was really challenging.
tn: You’ve done some arrangements for the group, and Ysaye Barnwell has done some. Do the group members have particular musical responsibilities?
CLM: No. We all have to bring in material. Different people have different [interests] and different ways of writing. That’s why an album will have a range of styles – it won’t all be R&B, it won’t all be spiritual, or all be jazzy. We respect however [the group members] hear the music.
tn: You mentioned that you try to keep a lot of your pieces alive and useable. Are there songs that’s you’ve continued to sing through the whole 40 years of Sweet Honey in the Rock?
CLM: I can’t say there’s anything we’ve done over the whole 40 years, but since the 80s, there’s quite a bit of material that we continue to use. “Oh Lord, Hold My Hand,” for example – I can’t quite recall if we did that in the very beginning, but it feels to me like it is. “Ella’s Song” became something we started singing in the late 70s, and we’ve done a new arrangement of Ella’s Song, to freshen it up. We’ve done that with other older pieces, too. Sometimes there are pieces where we think, we are not going to go through that ever again – because, you know, you need a certain voice or a certain feeling or whatever.
tn: What made the group decide to start doing sign language interpretation with your performances?
CLM: In the mid-70s, the women’s rights movement had a lot of energy. Events were very family-friendly. … And there was wheelchair access and access for people with any kind of disability, to make sure people could come. And there was sign language interpretation, in order to make sure that anyone could enjoy a cultural event. Sweet Honey was very impressed by that. One day when Bernice [Johnson Reagon, founder of the group] went to church, and Ysaye [Barnwell] was there and signing the service as well as singing. We were looking for another member at that time, so Bernice invited Ysaye to join the group, so we could have a sign language interpreter. Ysaye decided she really wanted to sing, and not sing and sign, since doing both was too insane, and she knew Shirley [Childress Saxton], who was also in the sign community, so Shirley joined the group.
tn: What has that meant for your involvement with the deaf community?
CLM: We have a wonderful deaf audience. It’s always a surprise. Sometimes there may be just two or three [deaf or hard of hearing] people there, sometimes there’s a whole section. But they’re always welcome, Essentially, in deaf culture, people have a tendency not to come to hearing events, because they’re not interpreted for them. But because our message is for fairness and equality and social justice, it’s important that [all members of] the audience can get the message and emotion.
tn: Has there been a really standout moment for you, with Sweet Honey In The Rock?
CLM: One of the things that I really enjoyed was 4 of us had the opportunity to be in the film Beloved, and that was marvelous for us. We were part of the 30 women leading the song at the end of the movie. And also, being invited by Michelle Obama to come to the White House to perform from some middle school children. Michelle had already come to see us in Chicago, she and some of her friends and some of her kids. And connected with that was the time that we met Senator Obama at an event. He was a junior Senator and he was the keynote speaker and we were the entertainment. When [Senator Obama] came in, he walked by us and said hello. I gave him a bag of cds, and he said, these are for me? And I said, yeah. And he said, Like I don’t know Sweet Honey? And we said, well, we don’t know what you know! And then we got up on the podium he said, and they think I don’t know who they are, and he started singing Ella’s Song. So our music is in their home, and their hearts and their consciousness, and that tells us a lot about the kind of people that they are.
Sweet Honey in the Rock performs at Koerner Hall Friday, February 10 at 8PM. Tickets: www.rcmusic.ca
