Amena Brown :
(silence).
Amena Brown :
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of HER With Amena Brown, and Ooh, y'all I am so excited. Okay. Y'all know on this podcast, I talk to you and tell you that we are in a living room together and ooh-ee, we are welcoming founder of the Philharmonic Gospel Singers, musician, songwriter, singer, choir director, Peggy Britt, to the podcast today. Peggy, thank you so much for joining me.
Peggy Britt:
Wow. I'm really geeked about having this conversation with you guys. Just happy to be here.
Amena Brown :
We are so happy to have you and I have already watched through Voices of Fire, and I do want to give a plug to all of you. Not only is Peggy Britt, all of those things I just named, but you will see her as one of the leaders and judges for a new show on Netflix called Voices of Fire, very inspirational and musical. And I'm a person who sang in choir growing up, so I loved everything about this and learned a lot too. So you definitely want to check this out on Netflix. We need some feel-good stuff to watch right now, and this show is definitely falling in that category. Okay. So first of all, tell us, what was the experience like for you being a part of Voices of Fire?
Peggy Britt:
Every time I'm asked that question I get goosebumps, because Bishop Williams, and I go back many, many years, and to have had a person of his caliber and to have known all the people that he's known throughout his career as a musician, very great musician, as a matter of fact, and for him to hand pick me out of all the people that he knows to share what I shared with the show was, like I tell you, I get goosebumps when I think about it because how did that happen? How do I explain that? And so to have that opportunity to work alongside Bishop Williams, and of course, Pharrell, and Larry George, and Patrick Riddick, man, one of the highlights of my life. Absolutely one of the highlights of my life.
Amena Brown :
One of the things I loved about watching this show is how centered it was in the location of Hampton Roads. When you watch other shows where different singers are being brought in for a competition, typically there's a tour element where the judges go to different cities. And I really loved that it was very centered in the community there, in people who may travel and do other things all over the country, but the music and the people who wanted to come and be a part of this, that was very central to the location of Hampton Roads, and I really loved that. And speaking of Hampton Roads, you were not only featured in Voices of Fire, but you are a gospel legend in your own right. Can you talk about what are some of your earliest memories where you realized music, and in particularly gospel music, was something that you loved, that you wanted to be a part of?
Peggy Britt:
Well, I'm sure you're using the word legend very loosely, but thank you anyway. I grew up taking piano lessons and I was mentored by a great lady in those early years, her name was Antoinette Watkins, and my mother knew that I had that talent for music and she was musical, and so we got into that whole thing and I went on to win contests and played for my high school choir, the whole track. And I went on to college, and believe it or not, when I went to college, I was a biology major.
Amena Brown :
Wow.
Peggy Britt:
Because I thought that I was going to become a pediatrician, but I still cling to that music. I was playing for my church in all of this, and the next thing I know I'm playing in the hall at Norfolk State University, and somebody heard me playing the piano and they said, "Hey, this girl, she needs to be in the music department." I was still a biology major, mind you, but at that time they gave me a full music scholarship, I said, well, okay, Hey, they're going to pay for it, I'm going to do it. And it went on from there. And just this whole musical journey has been phenomenal for me. I've done a couple of nationally released recordings and had a great choir here called the Philharmonic Gospel Singers, Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Sometimes you go find stuff and sometime God sends you stuff.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
God sent me those people. And that's how I grew up in the gospel music industry until I heard Richard Smallwood.
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
I did not understand how I was going to be able to navigate between my classical training and my church life, so to speak, and when I heard him and the Smallwood singers and the Union Temple Choir back in those days, from DC.
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
I said, okay, yeah, I can do this. I can combine those two things to come out to something that is wonderful. And so he was my inspiration for collaborating my classical training with my church/ gospel background. When I was growing up, which was a lot of years ago, we had a young choir in church and we wanted to sing gospel music, do you understand that they didn't want us to sing that gospel music. I was in a very traditional Baptist church, teachers, lawyers, doctors, blah, blah, blah. But Hey, after a while they knew that that was going to be a part of our music culture. So yeah, it was quite fun, quite fun.
Amena Brown :
I love hearing you talk about this because it's making me reminiscent of my own time growing up in church. My grandmother and my great-grandmother, they were a part of a Pentecostal Holiness Church. So my early gospel roots were very Andrae Crouch, James Cleveland type of sound.
Peggy Britt:
Wow.
Amena Brown :
And my grandmother was like, you play the piano very early on, played for churches when she was teenager and into her early twenties age, so she was the one directing the youth choir, which was really the only place you could sneak in, maybe a couple of those things that the regular choir wasn't going to sing, but you could get a couple of those hits in, at that time were really current gospel music and how much it taught me about harmony and singing together, it's like, I could still listen to some of that music today and cry my eyes out.
Peggy Britt:
Oh, absolutely.
Amena Brown :
... because it's so beautiful and so timeless, and so jamming, there were some jams too.
Peggy Britt:
Absolutely. You can go back to that music and not just reminisce, but even be blessed by it right now.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
... because it was just so heartfelt, and it just went right to you. So yeah, I get what you're saying.
Amena Brown :
So as the founder and leader of the Philharmonic Gospel Singers, that meant you had to pick and choose which singers did people... How was the process at that time for you? Did you audition singers similarly to how it was in Voices of Fire, or were they people you knew? Because what I'm really trying to get to, Peggy, is I want you to tell us how do you know if somebody is a good singer?
Peggy Britt:
Fortunately, when I was forming the Philharmonic Gospel Singers, the standard was so high that I didn't have to audition because the people that were talented enough to be in it were attracted to it. And so very seldom did I have to audition anyone, I would from time to time if I wasn't sure, or if I didn't know them, but most of the time it would be people that I knew could hang in there with us. You know what I mean?
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
I guess from watching the shows that come on now, where they have the auditions and the America's Got Talent and The Voice and American Idol, and all those kinds of things, there is an intangible that is just there.
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
Because you can have all the tangibles, you can have the articulation, you can have the breathing, you can have the technique, you can have the runs, you can have all of that, but there's an intangible that you only know it when you see it, I can't even describe it, but when I hear it and I see it, I know it.
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
And everybody else in the room knows it.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
So it's not quite as easy to describe as you might think, at least not for me, but I know it when I see it, and as I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking about a lot of the people that came through my choir, because some came and stayed a long time, some came for a season and left and moved and did other things. But that intangible is just undeniable. And you know when you see it, you know it when you hear it, it's like, and I hate to keep alluding to these kinds of things, but it's like when the judges on The Voice turn their chair around.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
They know, and all the time, listen, all the time, in my opinion, it's not the best voice, if you will, but there's something in that performance, and in that moment that lets you know, Hey yeah, this person's got what, they call it, it, they got it. Yeah.
Amena Brown :
That's exactly the word I was thinking of. And in my black church tradition growing up they would have also said it was anointed, or it was the anointing, right? Uh-huh (affirmative). You would bring up [crosstalk 00:10:30].
Peggy Britt:
What'd you say?
Amena Brown :
... that word because that meant... Or in some other settings I've been in musically, they would say it was the soul, it was a soul that a person brings.
Peggy Britt:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amena Brown :
The way that they bring themselves to the music that it's not just the technical notes and different things like that, that's important too, but it's how much of themselves and their soul do you feel? Which we definitely feel, I know I did watching Voices of Fire. I also need to talk to you about something else, Peggy, and I need to talk to you about your hair, because let me tell y'all something, the singers in Voices of Fire are wonderful. Okay. And the people who are judging and leading this, they're wonderful, but you really need to tune into Voices of Fire so you can see the performance of what Peggy Britt is doing with her hair. Every scene you were in, I was like, come on Peggy, come on. Yes honey, express yourself today. Peggy, talk to us about how you use your hair as a part of your fashion and expressing yourself because your hair was showing out. You understand?
Peggy Britt:
My God, today. Listen, it's so funny you said something about my hair because I remember years ago, my natural hair is quite thin and you could blow on it and whatever style was in it would just fall apart. So I've often wished my hair were something else, but I'll tell this story and then I'll explain to you. I came into a church one day and just coming in to sit down and the choir had gotten such a reputation that you could hear the undertones of people calling my name when I would come in, I never quite understood that, but anyway, "There she is, it's her, that's her." And guess what? Guess what they said after they said, "That's her, that's Peggy Britt, and she got her hair done." I wasn't even offended, I was not offended at all because hair just wasn't my thing. It wasn't my thing.
Peggy Britt:
And then six years ago now I went through a bout with cancer and lost my hair, and it didn't make that much difference to me because I never was that concerned about hair. So I just wore my head for a little while. And then somebody says, "Well, after cancer, it's going to grow back thicker, and it's going to grow back longer, that's going to be another texture," and blah, blah, blah, blah. But what they didn't tell me was that I would have to go to the beauty and supply store to get all that hair that they was talking about.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
So, I just love playing with it, and a friend of mine, the guy that used to do my hair, great friend of mine named David, shout out David, told me years ago, you should try the platinum look, blah, blah, blah. I scale myself up to that because at one point I had started coloring my hair, the hair that was there, blonde. And then I said, well, let me try this platinum look, and I liked it so I just play around with it and whatever I'm feeling that day, that's the girl I grab.
Amena Brown :
I love that. And y'all, y'all have to check out the show because there is a scene where you're watching Peggy see which girl she wants to wear that day. I love to hear that. And for all of my people listening, I love to get a chance to hear from someone who's a cancer survivor, and I'm glad we're talking more about that. I'm glad that we have you here to tell us some more of these stories, but honey, your hair was, let me tell you, I applaud. It was also Voices of Fire to me.
Peggy Britt:
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Amena Brown :
So I wanted to ask you some gospel music, rapid fire questions, because with your work with Voices of Fire, as well as the work that you did with the Philharmonic Gospel Singers, you have shared stage with a lot of gospel greats and had a chance to travel and do some of those amazing things. You might've said a little bit of this earlier, but I'd love for you to articulate this even more so here. What is the first gospel music artist that made you love gospel music that you can remember?
Peggy Britt:
Richard Smallwood.
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
Hands down, Richard Smallwood. And today, whenever Richard is somewhere close to me I'm going to see him, as a matter of fact let me tell you how he impacted my life. I was teaching school, I have been teaching school for about four years here, teaching music in Chesapeake public schools. And I knew that I could pursue that close to home at Catholic University, in Washington DC. And I think one of the reasons why I chose Catholic University in Washington DC was because that's where Richard was. Richard was at Union Temple Baptist Church. They had made, I don't know, a couple of CDs by that time, and I said, that's where I want to go, because that's where I want to go every Sunday morning. Believe it when I tell you, Oh my God, I was in heaven, at that church where pastors Wilson were at that time, it was Union Temple Baptist Church, and you had to get there an hour early to make sure you could get a seat.
Amena Brown :
Ooh.
Peggy Britt:
And Richard was there, and I met him then and we've communicated ever since then. He never forgets the time that I spent there, but I was there and on Sunday mornings it was like, I couldn't even believe it. The singers that he had in one church, most of the time you got to gather people from a whole lot of place. Yeah. So that solidified what I was going to be able to accomplish, or attempt to accomplish with what I had as talent and give to the gospel music world.
Amena Brown :
That is so wonderful. One of the things I love about music in general, but in some ways I love it especially about gospel music that I can think of times I was around certain musicians, or in a choir under a certain choir director, and that when my time ended in that choir, my ear was better [crosstalk 00:16:59].
Peggy Britt:
Yeah.
Amena Brown :
... and I had improved, just in my sense of music even from being around the musicians there, and being around the different people that directed our choir, and you don't always pick up on that, even if some of the churches that some people may be a part of where the music is that wonderful until maybe you have moved on and you're like, Oh my gosh, I learned so many things just in my exposure to how that could sound, how beautiful and amazing it could sound.
Peggy Britt:
And the business that I'm in now, I'm still doing music, but I am also a financial professional, I help families make and save money, and let them know what to do with retirement, and all those kinds of things, I love, I absolutely love what I'm doing. I really do have a passion for helping people in that way. But we were taught this by our leadership in that setting, that three things that will make a huge difference in your life. The books that you read, the associations that you have, and the big events that you attend, all three of these things are going to make a big difference in who you are becoming. And of course, the books that we read as one of the major books that we read, or the major book that we read, of course, in the gospel music industry, because we have to connect the message that we as lyricists write to the message, is the Bible, and it's not the only one, but of course that's a great one.
Peggy Britt:
And the associations that we have, like you're saying, when you hang around people, listen to this, some of y'all are not going like this, when you hang around people that are better than you, they make you better.
Amena Brown :
That's right.
Peggy Britt:
Ask Scottie Pippen.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
He hung around Michael Jordan and that made him better, and the big events, the big events that we in gospel music attend are the conventions, the church services, the seminars, all those kinds of things. So all of those things play a big part of who we are becoming. So I agree with you, being around people that are better than you is not intimidating, it's what's called iron sharpening iron.
Amena Brown :
Yep.
Peggy Britt:
You get better by hanging around people that are better than you.
Amena Brown :
What is one gospel album that you return to the most?
Peggy Britt:
Oh my goodness. I don't think I could answer that unequivocally because there are different seasons [crosstalk 00:19:31].
Amena Brown :
Sure.
Peggy Britt:
... that different artists have impacted me. When I first started to do gospel music as a female who also played keys, who also directed the choir, who also wrote the music, there's a lady named Myrna Summers who, Oh man, and I tell Myrna this today, we're friends today. I said, at one time I thought I was trying to be you until I found out I had to use my own voice, because Myrna was already doing Myrna, so why would I do that? But I had to start somewhere. Do you understand what I mean?
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
So what I'm saying is different seasons, at one time, of course it was James Cleveland, and then at another time it was Walter Hawkins, and then at another time it was Donald Lawrence.
Amena Brown :
Oh, yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
Donald, if you're listening to this podcast, I have a song that I need you to produce, please, sir. Thank you. I just want you to know.
Amena Brown :
Yes.
Peggy Britt:
Yeah. And of course Richard, Oh, man, I told Richard this, I emailed him, I said, listen, I don't know what place you were in spiritually, when you wrote this right here, this song, he has a song on, I think it's on the anthology called Faith or Hebrews 11, one of the other, Ooh, boy, takes me out every time. So different ones. I can't name just one.
Amena Brown :
I think that's right. I think what you said about the seasons is so right, because there are different seasons of time where I will gravitate towards, certain gospel artists, and I think even though I grew up listening to gospel music, I had a return to that in the last several years of my life. And some of those songs, we learned in the choir, but I didn't really know the artists that made them.
Peggy Britt:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amena Brown :
I just heard our choir director teaching us the parts. And so then by the time music became even more accessible and now we can pull up anything on our phones and stuff, then I would discover, Oh, I didn't even know I was listening to that person, or that I knew that song, or that I knew that they'd written that. So I think that's so powerful about gospel music. I feel like I am hearing, even from a lot of my friends, whether they would consider themselves church people or whether sometimes even they would consider themselves Christian people, they return to this music because it brings hope to them, and it brings inspiration to them, which I think is so beautiful.
Amena Brown :
I wanted to ask you, why do you think it's important for us to maintain and continue on the gospel music tradition? That was one of the things I thought was really beautiful in the show that yes, a choir is being built, but the choir is being built to sing gospel music. And there were some singers that were very familiar with that, and there was some singers that weren't, so watching all of you work with them on some of the stylistics of what would be involved. But why do you think that this tradition is important for us to continue on so that other generations will know this music as well?
Peggy Britt:
Wow. As we watch different genres emerge in the whole music panorama, we have to keep making room for the generation that is with us. At one time there was just traditional, and by the time the Hawkins came along, it was traditional and contemporary, and now it's traditional and contemporary, and hip hop gospel, and there are so many different genres that are inclusive, and the generation that is with us now with their expression of the same message, it's not just for me. It's not just gospel music, it's also the gospel message because unless we're delivering that message, it might as well be any other kind of music like inspirational, and there's nothing wrong with that, listen, I'm not decrying that at all. But what I'm saying is, it's important for us to make sure that every generation gets to express themselves through this thing called gospel music, so that the message is not lost. If you watch the ongoing times, the message has not changed even though the method might have changed.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
And so as long as the message is pure, let them rap it. Who cares? Let them do the hip hop thing. Listen, if Shirley Caesar can rap, come on somebody.
Amena Brown :
Well. And she does rap [crosstalk 00:24:27].
Peggy Britt:
You know what I mean?
Amena Brown :
... that's true. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
So let's get up off of the now generation, let them express it as long as it's pure and true to the message. So it's important to keep that tradition alive, to make sure that people have an avenue of expression. I was so glad when the arts were being returned to the liturgical setting, I'll put it that way [crosstalk 00:24:51].
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
... So glad to see the dance come back and the spoken word even in all of that, because all of that is an expression of creativity that has come from the fact that we belong to a creator, if you will. So yeah, let it come back. As long as the message stays pure and people get to understand what we're trying to convey.
Amena Brown :
Yeah. I think that's so powerful. I think one of the beautiful things about gospel music and its tradition, and that gospel music is this tradition born in the black church as well. I think there are these ways that we get to hold onto that message, it makes me think a lot of my great-grandmother and she was not a woman who got a chance to do all of the education I'm sure that she wanted to do working in the farm and in the fields at that time. But she held onto that message, not in a book, she held in her hand, but in the music that she knew and the hymns that she had learned and those things, she didn't know how to read music and all of those things, but she held onto her faith through the music that she knew. And she passed that on.
Peggy Britt:
Wow. What you just said is so powerful, especially about hymns because the hymns, as we know it, I'm involved with this gentleman named David Allen who has an organization called Hymns For Him, where he's really on a mission to preserve hymn singing in the church, which because of the influx of recorded music, many churches have abandoned, unfortunately. And I think there's a place and a time in our settings where all of the genres can be celebrated [crosstalk 00:00:26:40].
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
... and can be a part of our worship experience. And your grandmother hanging on to that hymn book was like, it's the next best thing to a Bible because there's so much theology in those hymns that if you lost your Bible and had your hymn book, you probably could survive. Do you know what I mean?
Amena Brown :
Right.
Peggy Britt:
So you're absolutely right. She was hanging on to that because there's so much rich theology in there that her relationship with the Lord was definitely solidified through those words of those hymns.
Amena Brown :
Last question I want to ask you, you have had a chance to share stage and work with such amazing singers, as well as being an amazing singer and songwriter yourself. If you could do your own version of Voices of Fire, except you could choose any gospel great, whether they are living, or they have passed on, if you could imagine yourself putting together your own additional gospel singers group, who would be some of the gospel greats that you would want to join you?
Peggy Britt:
Along with, and when I tell you this, I don't think I am overstating what you're asking me. Along with people that were song leaders in my Philharmonics, those were some of the greatest things I've ever had the opportunity to work with, and one of them, Damon Parker is a part of Voices of Fire, and that's one person. Oh, man, that's a hard question, man. Okay. Y'all ain't going to like this. I would have Marvin Winans. I would have Yolanda Adams. I would have Chaka Khan.
Amena Brown :
Ooh.
Peggy Britt:
I would have Donny Hathaway.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
Yeah. Those are the first that come to mind. I'm sure there are others. Yolanda Adams, man.
Amena Brown :
What a voice.
Peggy Britt:
Yeah. Marvin Winans just knows what to do. I heard one comedian say that Marvin Winans could sing the ABCs and we'd fall right out.
Amena Brown :
You ain't told a lie. You ain't told [crosstalk 00:28:51].
Peggy Britt:
Do you know what I mean?
Amena Brown :
... it's the truth.
Peggy Britt:
And then he did it, and it's so funny. Chaka Khan is my all time favorite singer ever.
Amena Brown :
Yes.
Peggy Britt:
All time, hands down. Love her. I want to meet her so bad, she came to do something in the [inaudible 00:29:07] and I was trying my best to meet her, and they would not let me meet her I was [inaudible 00:29:11]. But anywhere [crosstalk 00:29:13].
Amena Brown :
Chaka, if you listening, we need you to connect with Peggy Britt, okay.
Peggy Britt:
Chaka, if you listening sweetie [crosstalk 00:29:16].
Amena Brown :
Come on Chaka.
Peggy Britt:
... we need to talk.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
I need to let you know how you influenced my life. Yeah and Damon Parker, man, just a great... You were asking me earlier about, okay, how do you know that's a great singer? He got it.
Amena Brown :
Yeah.
Peggy Britt:
He got it.
Amena Brown :
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peggy Britt:
And he got the whole package. He got the notes, he got everything. But of course he gets that from his mom, he and his mom, and his sister, and his brother were all a part of my choir.
Amena Brown :
Wow.
Peggy Britt:
Oh wow. It's correct. So man, those are the first names that come to mind. I'm sure there are others. I know that there are others, but we on a time schedule.
Amena Brown :
Well, I thought that answer was good. Just those names, and you, I would see that together. I would sign up for that, I would buy a ticket for that. Peggy Britt. Thank you so much for joining me here in our living room for HER With Amena Brown. Thank you not only for just sharing your story with us, sharing your music with us, but thank you for just the legacy that we are getting to know more about you, and know more about gospel music. So folks, if you are listening to this, you need to go and watch Voices of Fire on Netflix. It is wonderful and feel good and amazing. I sat back on my couch and act like I was a judge too. They didn't ask me, but I act like I was a judge too. And of course it is starring Peggy Britt and many other greats, but it is also starring Peggy Britt's hair, and you do not want to miss that, honey. Okay. Peggy, thank you so much for joining us.
Peggy Britt:
Thank you, Amena, and love to all of you guys who are listening. And I know that as you have seen the show that it has been a blessing to you because that's what we intended, not just about the show, but of course of it being inspirational to anybody who watched and again, Donald and Chaka, if you're listening.
Amena Brown :
Yes, Donald. Yes, Chaka. Thank you so much. I am so happy that Peggy Britt joined us. I hope you enjoyed our conversation. I hope it inspires you to check out some gospel music if you haven't already, and if you're already a lover of gospel music, maybe you will find one of your favorite playlists and take a listen to some of your favorite gospel artists. Make sure you check out the Voices of Fire series on Netflix. It is a fantastic inspirational show that you can watch with your whole family, I know we've got the holidays coming up, some of us, I know that's different because we're in a pandemic, but some of us that will be in smaller groups with our families, it's hard to find something that you can watch with you and your grandma and your parents and everybody of all these different generations in the same room. Voices of Fire is that. So make sure you check that out.
Amena Brown :
You can also follow the show at Voices of Fire on Instagram, and don't forget, you can get all this and other info from any of the episodes in the show notes at amenabrown.com/herwithAmena. And I hope you're already following me, but if you're not, I would love to be your friend. You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Amena Bee.
Amena Brown :
For this week's Give Her A Crown, I want to shout out LaVelle Hall Wilson. She was my first choir director at my church growing up. She was kind and she was strict. She made sure we sang in tune, on pitch, and that we enunciated every word. She encouraged me to have a love for inspirational music. And through the choir, she taught all of us that we should each use our voice for good and that we could do even more good when we lifted our voices together. LaVelle Hall Wilson, Give Her A Crown. HER With Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions. As a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.