Eliza Jane Wiley was a former slave here. Richard Shacklett, my father, took this photo in 1944. Eliza was 102 years old at the time.

It was about 1940, only moments before he arrived to the flashing lighted marquee. And now he stood alone as the orchestra began to play. The stage lights were on him, his hands clammy and his heart pounding, and he was terrified. There were ghosts in his head screaming, “Go back to the fields. Go back into your shell. This is all made up. What do you think you are doing?” But he wanted to be seen and heard like the white man, so he began to sing, singing loud and with volume, swaying back and forth. A stunned, primarily white audience roared with excitement, clapped, and rose to their feet. It had happened. Right there in a darkened theater under the bright stage lights, a shouting gospel singer from the cotton fields of the South crossed racial lines and sang his heart out . . . amazing! He was confident, experiencing no stage fright. The world would finally hear and be influenced by this man’s extraordinary musical style. The lights came up, and he had won a great victory. Now, he was free from his legacy of slavery. Finally, his songs could be heard, be known and appreciated. Or could they?

The tone and power of America’s musical influence speaks volumes around the world. Our music is America’s gift to all. Within each song piercing the human soul, there is an embedded story projected from the rural life of America across the ages—the rustic cabins, the tall, weathered mountains and the spiritual laments rising from the fields. Throughout the decades, the cross-pollination of styles has become so commonplace in our music that we are not able to hear or discern the original, individual ingredients. If we put our hearts and souls on the line and dig deep into the history of these styles, we will discover the roots of our creative inspiration crossing the decades. The picture that appears is fascinating. For the next three months, we will begin to trace these musical styles which seized the imagination of Americans in the 20th century, creating blues, jazz, country and rock ’n’ roll styles enjoyed by a worldwide audience.

Until the middle of the 20th century, Middle Tennessee was isolated and remote, a rural area rich in folk culture steeped in the Southern tradition. Most of the people of Murfreesboro, like those in many Southern towns, lived near farms close to cotton fields and cornfields where rural life and its music began. That music would become the centerpiece not only of our culture locally but for regions all across America.

Let’s explore the slave songs and their lyrical influences, which were riveting and bewitching, giving your goose bumps goose bumps. These songs came from the marginalized existence of the slaves and their everyday, back-breaking life as field hands from early spring through late fall. Slave songs, with their laments and protests, were a genuine byproduct of their desperate living conditions, coded with meaning only they truly understood. These musical styles would evolve as a precursor to the rise of jazz and blues and even the protest songs of the 1960s civil rights movement.

A description documented in Slave Songs of the United States from the University of North Carolina vividly describes the convergence of the European and African influences in the Negro spirituals:
The most peculiar and interesting of their customs is the “shout,” an excellent description of which we are permitted to copy from the N.Y. Nation of May 30, 1867:
. . . the true “shout” takes place on Sundays or on “praise” nights through the week, and either in the praise-house or in some cabin in which a regular religious meeting has been held. Very likely more than half the population of the plantation is gathered together. Let it be the evening, and a light-wood fire burns red before the door of the house and on the hearth . . . But the benches are pushed back to the wall when the formal meeting is over, and old and young, men and women, sprucely-dressed young men, grotesquely half-clad field-hands—the women generally with gay handkerchiefs twisted about their heads and with short skirts—boys with tattered shirts and men’s trousers, young girls barefooted all stand up in the middle of the floor, and when the “sperichil” is struck up, begin first walking and by-and-by shuffling round, one after the other, in a ring. The foot is hardly taken from the floor, and the progression is mainly due to a jerking, hitching motion, which agitates the entire shouter, and soon brings out streams of perspiration. Sometimes they dance silently, sometimes as they shuffle they sing the chorus of the spiritual, and sometimes the song itself is also sung by the dancers. But more frequently a band, (consisting of a fiddle or banjo) composed of some of the best singers and of tired shouters, stand at the side of the room to “base” the others, singing the body of the song and clapping their hands together or on the knees. Song and dance are alike extremely energetic, and often, when the shout lasts into the middle of the night, the monotonous thud, thud of the feet prevents sleep within half a mile of the praise-house.

By 1860, there were roughly 4,000,000 slaves in America. It is documented in Carlton Sims’ book A History of Rutherford County that by 1850, out of the total population of 29,122 in Rutherford County, the slave population was 11,978. From 1810 to 1860, the number of blacks had increased more than 400 percent, rising to 12,527 compared to the white population of 14,743 living in Rutherford County. Our county, supported by slave labor, was one of the leading corn and cotton producers in the country during this period. Consequently, there had to be some distraction from the back-breaking, sun-up-to-sundown hard labor. One might wonder what musical activities engaged the slaves such as singing and dancing here in Rutherford County and Murfreesboro.

From The Annals of Rutherford County Vol. 2 by John C. Spence:
. . . A Negro in his servitude was happy and contented, when he had a kind benevolent master to look after his wants . . . They were provided good cabins for themselves and the families, slavery and freedom, words little understood by them. They were possessed of light hearts, light minds and moderate wants in everything. A Negro’s heaven, allow him to have a wife, a few miles from home to visit of Saturday nights, a truck patch of his own, a few dollars, pocket money for Christmas spending, then a Banjo, fiddle or some article for music. He was rich and happy . . .

It has been said that that the African American slaves literally had to sing to keep their sanity. Songs with hidden meanings infused every part of life. From their capture in Africa to their servitude in America, slaves were forcibly forbidden to use any instruments. One has to marvel at the creative adaptation to clapping and jumping as well as stomping rhythmically. The slave call-and-response melodies were adapted to spirituals, field hollers and work songs, becoming a cultural influence on every aspect of American music today.

A moan or groan in the music expressed the pain, an emotional expression communicating the real story, a cry for freedom and a better way of life. Despite their exceedingly grim conditions as slaves and even after the Civil War, many continued to share their dreams musically, setting the process in motion for freedom which would continue in song through the 1960s Civil Rights movement.’

In August of 1829, news from North Hampton, Va., reached Rutherford County: a slave uprising had been initiated by a slave named Nate Turner. This insurrection spread panic all across the community. All the slave owners, bent upon retaining control, formed a patrol with guards making continuous rounds night and day, ensuring that the rebellion did not spread here. Soon news reached Murfreesboro that Nate Turner had been caught in Virginia and was subsequently hanged.

Here is the firsthand account of the reaction by the slaves in the community once word reached them:
The cloud removed, the sun gradually assuming his usual brightness, the people were more cheerful. The Negroes were not looked after with the same distrust. They were going singing, whistling and loud laughing . . .

Perhaps hidden in their anxious emotional response to this incident were the seeds of emancipation messages. Noted here after the war, emancipated slaves by the wagonloads found shelter in the old city jail, the old Presbyterian Church on Vine and the buildings and grounds of Union University, located on the grounds of present-day Central Magnet School on Main. This migration of slave refugees to Murfreesboro constituted a demographic metamorphosis from whites to blacks immediately following the war. The majority of blacks made up 52 percent of the population. This created a need for religious expression, which played a crucial role in the formation of independent churches. These churches created an outlet for their desire to express their faith in song and dance. Communal religion allowed for former slaves to build social bonds and strengthen family relationships that had been broken through slavery. In August of 1865 here in Rutherford County, 1,136 former slaves had obtained legal marriage certificates by the Freedmen’s Bureau, authorized agents of the U.S. government giving civil sanction to slave marriages. By the 1880s as did former slaves in our community and across America, they came together to form families and a complex network of churches, schools and businesses which included creative expression in music, a visible precursor of America’s popular music.

As in the past, and as history continues to repeat itself, it seems that under a veneer of prosperity, we have become a nation in bondage—slaves to old habits, old attitudes and old practices. Each one enslaves the human spirit, keeping us from the freedom to be all that we could be. The symptoms are evident in a faithless population where depression and fatigue are pandemic. Happiness is simply a lost ideal shrouded in compulsive and obsessive behavior.
Over and over day by day, in our exhaustion and self-indulgence, we recognize that something is wrong, but we have no clue how to change it.

America has created a society of imbalance in the midst of massive responsibilities, its people faltering on the verge of collapse. Much of our musical expression reflects our enslavement, riddled with bombastic melodic idioms. It is disjointed and confused both musically and lyrically, reflecting the pain of our broken world.

There is a way back! Amidst all this despair, we must seize this moment of opportunity and make a decision to change one soul at a time. Coming out of a time of this ruin and personal bondage, we must face the truth about ourselves and our society, realizing that our situation has become unmanageable. We must come out of denial and name those things that keep us enslaved. No longer can we cover up or excuse or blame. Acknowledgment is the first step back, one that will galvanize our actions into a positive direction both personally and corporately. Your feelings may disagree with this decision for change, but soon your feelings will catch up with your decision in a positive way.

It may be as simple as the realization that you have been a slave to anger, complaining, or even a critical spirit. These negative reactions waste precious time and energy. If you make a decision to change, just like the slaves of long ago, you partner with God to become an agent for change in your family, your community and even beyond. God will give us the strength and courage to make those necessary changes in our life. Otherwise, the myriad of choices simply confuse without God’s leading. Suddenly, we are a little bit freer and more energetic, able to share this good news with others. Our planet will be all the better, and all the more peaceful for it.