Michal Dawson Connor performs his arrangement of spirituals that he has researched from the era of American slavery Feb. 28 at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. He joins Community Voices to share his passion, reflect on his time performing in "The Lincolns of Springfield" here, and share how the Los Angeles wildfires affected him. Connor has published a book on his research, The Slave Letters.
Randy Eccles: This is Community Voices on 91.9 UIS. I am co-host Randy Eccles, and we are joined by Michal Dawson Connor, who is performing Friday, February 28, 7 p. m. at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Michal, welcome to Community Voices. How are you today?
Michal Connor Dawson: Oh, I am so great, Randy. So nice to speak with you. I'm really looking forward to the concert in Springfield.
Randy Eccles: You've been here in Springfield before, what was your previous, performance,
Michal Connor Dawson: Two years ago, it was “The Lincolns of Springfield.” This wonderful show that Terry Cranert and his wife, Becca Cranert, produced and wrote about the life of our illustrious president, Abraham Lincoln. Then last year, last summer, we did it for a month again. The people of Springfield are so warm and loving and embraced us.
Randy Eccles: I'm hopeful that anybody who saw that understands that you're going to be here again and have a chance to see you. But you won't be doing that production. What should people expect or anticipate?
Michal Connor Dawson: I'm going to be singing music, songs, reminiscences of the slaves in America. People call these songs spiritual. I've spent the bulk of my life arranging these songs. You'd get the melody because they were all done a cappella. Because the workers were out in the fields. I added a piano accompaniment, usually in a 19th century style, but I've woven in different hymn tunes or popular songs of the time or musical things that make your ears prick up and say, "Huh, isn't that interesting?"
Randy Eccles: This performance is called Echoes of the Spirit, Sacred Melodies of the Heart.
Michal Connor Dawson: Yes, that's it. These songs were definitely born of the spirit and the heart. It was a difficult time in the life of our country. These are my ancestors. My great grandmother's mom was a slave. Her name is Amanda Wiggins. She lived in Virginia, and she came to live with us. She was 96 years old when she passed. She came to live with us, and she taught me so many of these songs. Straight from the mouth of someone who'd actually been there. It thrills me. Of course, at the time, I didn't know what she was doing, but she was sowing these seeds in my brain and in my heart so that one day when I was a much older man, I could sing these songs to a wider audience.
Randy Eccles: It's not just singing. You've done a lot of research into this...
Michal Connor Dawson: A lot of research. This glorious thing we have called the Smithsonian Institute has amassed, not just the African American Museum but, all the others, the Library of Congress. They have tens of thousands of letters that the slaves wrote. Once they got free, they would send them back to their masters and mistresses. I published a book, just a small one. It's called The Slave Letters available on Amazon. These are in their crude way because my ancestors were illiterate. Because it was illegal to teach a Black person at the time to read or write. You could be, and it was the law of the land, you were going to be jailed, imprisoned if you taught a Black person to read or write. I'm so proud to be a part of this story. It's an amazing story. It's a story of persistence, dogged determination, and ultimately leaving behind these beautiful songs that I'm proud to sing now.
Randy Eccles: A lot of this is, as you were saying with your great grandmother, is oral tradition, the way it was passed down, there was so much lost because people weren't able to write it down.
Michal Connor Dawson: Exactly, If it hadn't been for enterprising white people in the end of the 1700s, the beginning of the 1800s, who would collect these songs, they would go along and collect these songs and preserve them. I have one right in front of me. I'm in my living room. This one says, "Originally published in 1867, Slave Songs of the United States, compiled by William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, Lucy McKim Garrison." It's a wonderful book. This is hailed as one of the very first original collections of African American spirituals. There are no other spirituals. No other race has a group of songs called spirituals. People might say, "This is a white spiritual." No, there's only African American spirituals.
Randy Eccles: Earlier you were saying an emancipated slave, or an emancipated person might write back to their plantation, or master. Did they feel connected? Why would they write back to somebody who had enslaved them?
Michal Connor Dawson: Do you mind if I share one of these letters with you?
Randy Eccles: That'd be great. Thank you.
Michal Connor Dawson: Talk about catharsis. They would write because they were all family together, even though they were mistreated and abused, starved, whipped, raped. This letter is from Hannah Grover to her son Cato.
Caldwell, June 3rd, 1805.
My dear son Cato, I long to see you in my old age. I live at Caldwell with Mr. Grover, the minister of that place. Now my dear son, I pray you to come and see your dear old mother or send me $20 and I will come and see you in Philadelphia. And if you can't come to see your old mother, please send me a letter. And tell me where you live, what family you are with, and what you do for a living.
I am a poor old servant, and I long for freedom. My master will free me if anybody will pay enough for me.
I love you, Cato. You are my only son.
This is from your affectionate mother,
Hannah Grover
She's still a slave. And she's writing this to her son, who is a slave somewhere else, or he's a freedman, we're not sure.
There are hundreds of these. Some of the slaves wrote back, "If you'd only treated me like a human being, I would have worked for you free forever. All I asked for was a little bit of kindness." It's really heart breaking to hear. It's great that so many got free, but there were the majority who didn't get free, and their lives were ruinously horrible.
Randy Eccles: The tragedy of family separation is well illustrated by that letter and I'm sure by so many others.
Michal Dawson Connor: Absolutely. The thing that brings me back time and time again, thinking about my ancestors, thinking about these people who have my blood, is they were able to make lemonade out of lemons in the best way possible. We don't know their names. We don't know their faces, but we have their heart. We have their songs. They will last forever. These songs, that's what draws me to them — their timelessness, their simplicity, and yet their complexity, their sophistication.
Randy Eccles: What would the public recognize from any of these spirituals? Are there any, for lack of a better term, 'hits' out of this group?
Michal Connor Dawson: Oh, yes, yes. Michael Row Your Boat Ashore. That's one of my favorite ones. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. I sang that last night in a concert. It's just the audience. They want to hum along, but they know their neighbor will hit them.
(sings acapella) "Swing low, Sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home. Swing low, sweet chariot. Coming for to carry me..."
What is better than that song,
Randy Eccles: Is that something they'll be able to hear at the Hoogland?
Michal Connor Dawson: Oh, yes. I will be singing that at the Hoogland. I'm thrilled to be in this town that I love. I've spent the last two years there. When I'm there, I sense the place is thick with beautiful spirits wandering the streets. The place has not been changed in a long time and there's these old buildings. Talk about echoes from the past. When I was singing that song, it's called Bind Up the Nation's Wounds in The Lincolns of Springfield, I told my friends this and they laughed at me. Some of them understood. I sensed my people, long dead, their spirits cramming into that theater, so they could hear what one of their own was doing. It's a song about opening our hearts and binding up the wounds that have plagued this nation from the beginning. The divisions of racial separation and hatred. And yet, I believe, Randy, these songs can bind us together. These spirituals. You asked about some of The greatest hits, — Go down Moses. There is a Balm in Gilead. It's such a great song. Go down Moses, as I'd never sung it before, until COVID. I wrote this arrangement of it, and it's just thrilling for me to have these songs inculcated in my soul.
Randy Eccles: If somebody would like to hear your music before the event, where can they find it?
Michal Connor Dawson: it's on Spotify. It's on Apple music. It's on my website, which is MichalDawsonConnor. com. And I have a fair number of pieces on there, live performances that I've done. One of my favorite songs is Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen.
(sings acapella) "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. Nobody knows..."
That's one of my favorites.
Randy Eccles: It's impressive to hear you sing it. Thank you so much for that.
Michal Connor Dawson: I know you didn't ask me to sing, but do you see how excited I get?
Randy Eccles: Anybody else who has the opportunity to hear you and get to see you in person on Friday, February 28, 7 p.m. at the Hoogland, really gets a wonderful opportunity. I'm glad you're coming back to town. Anything else you'd like to leave us with?
Michal Connor Dawson: One of the greatest spirituals that exists is He's Got the Whole World in his Hands. You're going to hear that in Springfield, and I will ask the audience to sing it with me. Please come out and support this incredible theater complex. Gus Gordon has done a remarkable job bringing live theater and music to the world. The Hoogland in Springfield. I'm just one in his arsenal of musicians, and I'm proud to be one.
Randy Eccles: A little bit more on your background, it looks like you spent some time everywhere, from Pittsburgh to Switzerland. You said you're in L. A. right now.
Michal Connor Dawson: Yes, I've made Los Angeles my home.
Michal Connor Dawson: In fact, I live in Altadena, and I just got through a very difficult event. The fires.
Randy Eccles: Are you okay?
Michal Connor Dawson: They singed the back part of my house. It's a wonder that I'm still alive. I'll take it, but there's great guilt with my house surviving when so many didn't. The town is ruined right now, but we're strong. We will come back. I'm in Los Angeles now. I spent several years in Germany working. I was in a production of Porgy and Bess, and I did some solo concerts all over small towns in Germany. I traveled to Japan, so far, I've had four trips there with the Roger Wagner Chorale. I'm one of their soloists. Remarkable organization, it was started in the forties, before I was thought of, and they're still going.
Randy Eccles: You've performed on Broadway several times too.
Michal Connor Dawson: Yes, I was on Broadway. I was in two separate shows. Ragtime. I was in Showboat also. I was an understudy in that one.
Randy Eccles: Did you sing Old Man River?
Michal Connor Dawson: I did. Every night. That's one of the songs that's near and dear to my heart. It's not a spiritual, but it should be one.
Randy Eccles: We look forward to seeing you back in Springfield. Thanks for spending some time with us today on Community Voices.
Michal Connor Dawson: Thank you so much. I so appreciate your time, Randy.
Randy Eccles: Michal Dawson Connor, thank you so much. We'll look forward to seeing you on Friday, February 28, at 7 p.m. at the Hoogland.
Michal Connor Dawson: Fantastic!
