Marlena Smalls

presents

The Hallelujah Singers

Marlena Smalls founded The Hallelujah Singers in 1990 to preserve the Gullah

culture of the South Carolina Sea Islands. She is available for lectures and storytelling as well as

with the beautiful voices in her group in stage performances.

She founded the Gullah Festival in 1985 in Beaufort, South Carolina, and today the annual

Memorial Day event attracts more than 20,000 visitors.

Marlena began singing at the age of 11 in Ohio and studied at Central State University. She is a

sacred music vocalist, also singing gospel, contemporary, jazz and blues. Her programs for

schools, reunion and meeting groups incorporate lecture, music and Gullah storytelling.

Inducted into the South Carolina Black Hall of Fame in 2004, Marlena has performed for the

Queen of England and many U. S. and international dignitaries. She has worked with film

producer Joel Silver and Academy Award winners Tom Hanks, Demi Moore and Glenn Close. In

addition to many productions for PBS, SCETV and GPTC, she is known to international audiences

as Bubba's mom in the Academy Award winning motion picture Forrest Gump.

The Hallelujah Singers were organized to preserve the melodies and storytelling unique to the

South Carolina Sea Islands.

The ensemble is a national art provider offering cultural enrichment through preserving and celebrating

the heritage of the Gullah culture with language and traditions indelibly linked to West African heritage.

Performances weaving music and narration present a dramatization of unique personages, rituals and

ceremonial dimension which played an important part in shaping the Gullah culture and its influence on

the broad musical traditions.

The Hallelujah Singers travel extensively as Gullah ambassadors, teaching and entertaining in schools,

auditoriums and festivals in their Fa Da Chillun Outreach Program. They have performed for the U. S.

Congress, the South Carolina legislature, in Chicago’s Ravinia festivals, the Kennedy Center, the Spoleto

Festival and the G-8 Summit.

The group has been designated a Local Legacy of South Carolina by the U. S. Library of Congress as part

of the library’s Bicentennial Celebration. Other awards include the South Carolina Folk Heritage

Advocacy Award, the Alpha Kappa Community Service Award, the Rockford (Illinois) Mayor’s Award, the

Elizabeth O’Neill Verner award (Governor’s award for the arts) and were named as the South Carolina

Ambassadors of the year in 1998.

History of Gullah

Gullah is a culture and a language developed in West Africa and brought to the Sea Islands of South

Carolina and Georgia. Experts consider Gullah, an Angola-based word meaning “a people,” to be the

purest form of African culture alive among African Americans today. The Gullah language is a Creole

blend of West African and European dialects. Most of today’s Gullah vocabulary is of English origin with

grammar and major elements of pronunciation from a number of West African languages such as Ewe,

Mandinka, Egbo, Twi and Yoruba.

The West African’s knowledge of rice cultivation made him specifically desirable to the plantation

owners in the South Carolina Lowcountry where rice had become the foundation of many fortunes.

Many Lowcountry plantations were remote and isolated from the mainland. Often the plantation

owners left day to day operation to an overseer or foreman while they remained in the comfort of their

city homes. As a result, the communities on the isolated plantations were less influenced by Euro-

American culture and were thereby able to retain much of their African ways.

With the end of the Civil War, the former plantation residents slowly took ownership of much of the

farmland in the South Carolina Lowcountry, which had been primarily abandoned by the owners who

fled.

Today the indelible link to West Africa is obvious in many customs, crafts and foodways of the people of

the South Carolina Sea Islands. Today’s music can be traced to the songs and stories of the Gullah

people. The framework of American music was born from African rhythms, call-and-response singing

style and European melodies. Sweetgrass baskets, specific to the Lowcountry Gullah culture, are made

with a West African weaving technique unlike a traditional European weave. Foods such as rice, yams

and okra reflect the West African heritage.

The Hallelujah Singers’ Productions

“Nuttin’ But de Blues”

An exciting historical account of the blues from plantation blues to folk blues which is the birth of

Mississippi Delta Blues, Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll. This popular performance presents such

favorites as “Stormy Monday,” “Summertime,” and Etta James classic “At Last.”

“Juba”

The performance of “a little bit of this and a little bit of that” travels through a musical timeline of

plantation shouts, field cries, spirituals,blues, jazz and gospel.

“Gullah Christmas”

This old-fashioned Gullah celebration of the yuletide season is a heart-warming presentation of

Christmas stories, plantation carols and spirituals.

“Fa Da Chillun”

An educational outreach production which introduces children to the Gullah culture through music,

storytelling and recollections of history.

Four recorded CDs feature the African rhythms of the Gullah culture. The first recording, “Gullah –Songs

of Hope, Faith & Freedom,” was produced in 1997 featuring plantation melodies and spiritual songs. In

1998 Marlena Smalls released “Joy –A Gullah Christmas.” The 1999 production, “Carry Me Home,”

features Gullah melodies that span the 1860’s to the birth of the blues in the 1920s. In 2003”Juba” was

released featuring a timeless legacy of African rhythms.

The Hallelujah Singers

Credits

Film & Television

NBC The Today Show

ABC Good Morning America

CBS This Morning

TNN The Crook & Chase Show

Paramount Pictures Forrest Gump

SCETV Multicultural: The Hallelujah Singers

PBS God’s Gonna Trouble the Water

SCETV/GPTV Voices of the Gullah Culture: The Hallelujah Singers

Discovery Channel The Travelers

Discography

1997 “Gullah—Songs of Hope, Faith and Freedom”

1998 “Joy—A Gullah Christmas”

1999 “Gullah—Carry Me Home”

2003 “Juba”

Awards

Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award

South Carolina Ambassadors of Tourism 1998

South Carolina folk Heritage Advocacy Award

Alpha Kappa Community Service Award

Rockford Mayor’s Award

South Carolina Black Hall of Fame

Governor’s Award for the Arts – Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award

“Simply Marlena”

Marlena Smalls solo 2009

Marlena sings the blues.

Marlena sings jazz.

Marlena tells stories.

Marlena lectures on the history and heritage of Gullah.

Marlena customizes a program to meet the needs of your audience, your budget and your schedule.