JONES BESSIE

Mary Elizabeth "Bessie" Jones (February 8, 1902 – July 17, 1984) was an American gospel and folk singer credited with helping to bring folk songs, games and stories to wider audiences in the 20th century. 

Growing up in the Gullah-Geechee traditions of rural Georgia, Bessie Jones absorbed music through her family. Her mother played autoharp. All the men in her family played guitar or banjo and made their own instruments out of wood. It was primarily her grandfather, Jet Sampson, who taught her about slavery and “the old ways.” Enslaved as a child and brought West from Africa, he taught her the songs of his times, which she was determined to share with future generations.

She taught the children in her community the stories, games, dances and spiritual music she’d inherited—history that was theirs, too. When she met folklorist Alan Lomax on his journey through the American South in 1959, she saw a way to communicate her lessons and the little-known history of African Americans and slavery to further reaches. In 1961, she traveled to New York City so Lomax could record her biography and body of music. The recordings are preserved in the Alan Lomax archive.

In 1963, she teamed up with a group of singers to form The Georgia Sea Island Singers. Over the next several years, they toured extensively, performing in clubs and concerts and at festivals around the country, including Carnegie Hall, Central Park, the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife festivals and the Newport Folk Festival.

At home, she continued to sing with the Spiritual Singers Society at public and private gatherings. She also participated in a prayer band that traveled during the Civil Rights Movement, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Beulah, Mississippi. It was during these years that she worked on her book 'Step It Down,' published in 1972. In 1973, she released her first solo album, 'So Glad I'm Here', followed by 'Step It Down' in 1975. Throughout the 1970s, she remained active singing with the Georgia Sea Island Singers and performing at inaugurations, in schools and at festivals throughout the country.

She was awarded many of folk music's premiere honors, including a 1982 National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship and the Duke Ellington Fellowship at Yale University.