Georgia Sea Island Singers
St. Simons Island, GA
Gullah music, dance, and stories

             The Georgia Sea Island Singers, featuring Frankie Sullivan Quimby and Douglas Quimby with Thomas Merrell and Van Merrell, continue the rich African-American performance traditions forged among former slaves on the islands off the coast of Georgia.
              Through songs, dances, and stories, the Georgia Sea Island Singers describe the world of their slave ancestors; like their slave forbears who were not allowed to have musical instruments, they sing a cappella or with only the accompaniment of rhythm instruments like the tambourine. Old spirituals and songs spoke of storms and other events in the lives of the slaves and were used as codes for meeting times and places and as messages for freedom.
              The Sea Island Singers also perpetuate the Gullah language. A mixture of English and African dialects, Gullah is a language of cadence and accents, words and intonations and is unique to this region. Because slave owners wanted to know what the slaves were saying at all times, slaves were forbidden to use their native language. When their owners wanted them to speak English, they disguised it by speaking Gullah. The Gullah "shout" is a rhythmic translation of forbidden drums and the oldest of plantation melodies.
               Frankie Sullivan Quimby was born and raised on the Georgia Sea Islands during the Great Depression. The oldest of 13 children, Frankie is descended from slaves on the Hopeton and Altama Plantations in Glynn County. Many of her relatives still live in the Brunswick area and on St. Simons Island. Her family, who took the name Sullivan after the Emancipation, is one of the few sea island families who can trace their ancestry back to a specific town in Africa, Kianah, District of Temourah, Kingdom of Massina, on the Niger River.
              Douglas Quimby was born in Baconton, Georgia in 1936, where his family were sharecroppers earning as little as $9.25 for an entire year of work. He began singing at the age of four and in 1963 joined the Sensational Friendly Stars, a well-known gospel group. Six years later he became a member of the Georgia Sea Island Singers.

Links

http://www.georgiaseaislandsingers.com/about.html

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