For much of his adult life, the Rev. Pearlie Brown stood at the same busy intersection in downtown Macon, Georgia, and sang the old spirituals, worksongs and early gospel hymns that his grandmother taught him. His grandmother had been born into slavery and lived to be 100 ... and the songs Brown sang were often much older still.
Brown, who had been blind since birth, was recorded in 1961, at the height of the folk music boom, and the results are both haunting and startling -- just Brown and his guitar, singing songs like “Another Child of God Gone Home,” “How About You” and this mesmerizing version of the ancient spiritual, “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.” Brown died in 1986 at the age of 71.
MUSIC: (2412) Rev. Pearly Brown, It’s a Mean Old World to Live In LP, “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning,” Side 2, Track 4 (March 24, 2024)
I’m Robert Darden … “Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” is produced by KWBU and the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University Libraries.
