Last week, a Mississippi girl singing “Mississippi Girl,” which was a hit for another Mississippi girl, Faith Hill, wowed the judges on the NBC show “The Voice.”
We will be watching to see how Holly Brand, a 22-year-old from Meridian, fares as the show progresses.
By now we’re accustomed to Mississippians having success on these shows. In September the trio “Chapel Hart” – two sisters and a cousin from Poplarville – made it to the final five on another NBC show, “America’s Got Talent.”
Music is in Mississippi’s DNA, The list of great Mississippi singers goes on forever. If you’ve ever wondered why, the answer is simple: Church.
Great singers often get their start by singing in church, and since Mississippi is one of the most church-going states in the country, the sheer volume of singers improves the odds that some will go on to great things.
By far, the most memorable singing performance I ever experienced came in a church service when I was about 12 years old.
Our little Baptist church was blessed with an inordinate number of people who thought they could sing and a few who actually could. One of the former was a teenager named Rusty. I will not divulge his last name for reasons you will soon understand.
Our Sunday morning service always followed the same script – a few hymns, followed by announcements, then the choir would sing a song while the collection plates went around. Just before the sermon, there was something listed in the church bulletin as “Special Music” with the name of the singer and song.
There were no auditions. Anybody could sign up to sing the Special Music. One Sunday, Rusty’s name appeared in the bulletin for that purpose.
This was in the early 1970s, when Contemporary Christian music was just getting started. Unlike previous church music, which was accompanied live by the piano or organ, Contemporary Christian songs were backed with full orchestration, which meant the singer was accompanied by the taped instrumentation. Think of it as a precursor to karaoke.
Rusty was an odd, clumsy kid who nobody seemed to pay any attention to. Yet like anyone, Rusty wanted to be liked and appreciated. The Special Music was going to be his big chance to change all that.
Rusty clutched the sides of the pulpit as the guy running the tape turned on the music and stringed instruments began the prelude. Right on time, Rusty began to sing, bleating off-key the first few lines of the song. We had heard worse, so it was what followed that made the performance memorable.
Rusty abruptly stopped singing. He had forgotten the lyrics. He stood there trying to remember them as the orchestra played on. Finally, the guy stopped the tape.
Usually, when the Special Music turns out to be not-so-special, the congregation will distract itself by reading the bulletin, looking up the Bible passage that the sermon is going to be based on or fumbling through purses for a peppermint.
This time, all eyes were glued to the frozen figure at the pulpit.
If it had been me in that situation, I’d probably have cut my losses and told the congregation, “I’m sure y’all know this song so I won’t go on. I just wanted y’all to get the gist of it” and beat it out of there.
Not Rusty. This was his big chance and he wasn’t going to give up.
This, folks, is how legends are made.
I think what happened next was Rusty’s attempt to buy some time until the lines came back to him.
“Satan doesn’t want you to hear this song,” he told us. (I remember thinking Satan had plenty of company as far as that goes) “So I ask you to please join me in prayer … I rebuke thee, Satan, and through the power of Christ I cast thee out. Amen.”
I thought, “I gotta give it to him. I’d never have thought of putting it on the devil.”
While Rusty was rebuking Satan, somebody had scrounged around and found the song lyrics and gave them to Rusty. The man at the tape machine fumbled around for a while, trying to back the tape up to where Rusty had left off. Finally, the orchestra resumed and Rusty croaked right on through to the end without a hiccup.
When it was over, I remember thinking, “That was pretty cool. I think Rusty should do the Special Music every week!”
He never sang the Special Music again, though.
I guess, like Marian Anderson singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, once was enough.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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