Shirley Mae Springer Staten
— S I N G E R S O N T H E F R O N T L I N E S —
Singers on the Front Lines is a series of interviews with singers working to promote wellbeing, social justice, and sharing the gift of song with vulnerable communities. Subscribe (below) to receive notifications of future posts.
“As we all are experiencing this distance that has been presented to us, we want to find as many ways as possible to connect to our own humanity. Music can make that connection. Music has the ability to penetrate and touch us in so many ways. “
—Shirley Mae Springer Staten
Shirley Mae Springer Staten is the Executive Director of Keys to Life Alaska, a non-profit organization founded in 2015 to empower, create and strengthen an inclusive community through rich arts and cross-cultural experiences. Keys to Life Alaska runs the Hiland Mountain Lullaby Project which brings together teaching artists and prison inmates to create lullabies for the children of the inmates. Over a span of 13 years, hundreds of teachers benefited from her integral role in coordinating their participation in Alaska Native culture camps for the Alaska Humanities Forum Cross-Cultural Immersion Program. For five years, underprivileged students in the Home Base After School Program (which Shirley Mae envisioned, procured funding for, and directed) found themselves writing and publishing books, learning musical instruments, making professional videos and even traveling to Ghana, Africa. Shirley Mae planned, developed and coordinated over 2,000 Cultural Performances at the 1995 NGO International Conference which 36,000 women attended. The impacts of Shirley Mae’s work in Alaska are far-reaching and long-lasting: from the at-risk student who became a teacher instead of quitting school, to incarcerated mothers who expressed their vulnerabilities and love for their children through music, to scores of travelers who experienced places like Cuba, Africa, and Russia on trips she designed and coordinated.
SB: I’d like to start by asking you about the Hiland Mountain Lullaby Project, where you work with women in prison and bring in teaching artists, to create lullabies for the inmate’s children. Tell me more about that.
SMSS: Well, I was listening to the radio on a Saturday morning, as I was waking up, I heard this woman say, “I can do something for my child, even from prison.” At one point, I thought, “Well, what is this?” The woman was at Reikers Island Prison. The project was being facilitated by Carnegie Weils Institute. Sometime around August, I cold-called Carnegie and got this young lady on the phone and said, “I’m interested in bringing a lullaby project to Alaska”. She said, “Well, you have to talk to Manuel, he’s not here right now, he’ll be back . . . ” He was in Spain. When he returned he phoned me. We spoke extensively about the project. I had a relationship with Hiland Mountain Correctional Center since my arrived in Anchorage in 1981. I would perform one-woman shows and storytelling events. After our conversation Manuel said, “Why don’t you come to New York, and we’ll train you to do this lullaby process?”
So, I went to New York and saw the mechanics of how lullabies were developed. The teaching artists (musicians) brought in a group of women from several homeless shelters. The teaching artists work one-on-one with the women to help develop a lullaby. These women came in making comments like; “I don’t know to write no lullaby.” The teaching artists helped them to craft a song, using the Carnegie Lullaby workbook to develop it. One important component in the lullaby book requires the mothers write a letter to her child. These mothers were asked to imagine their child finding this letter 20 years into the future, and the question they needed to answer was; What are your hopes, dreams and aspirations? Some of the women had [written] the letter [before] they arrived, and the musicians sat with them to methodically go through the letter. They circled keys words, repeating phases and find a common theme. They started with the melody, saying to the women, “Let’s talk about when you’re sitting with the child, or your child is ready to go to sleep. Do you hum her a tune? And what does that sound like?” I could see the process, [and] the wheels began to turn [seeing] these amazing musicians sitting one-on-one with the mother. At the end of a six- or seven-hour session, they had a chorus. Maybe they had a chorus and a verse. They had a melody. I watched women jumping around the room, because now she’d written a song. At the end of the six-hour process the musician and mother performed their piece of work. They sang together, sometimes with the mother overjoyed with tears. It was just explosive. I was so excited.
I returned to Anchorage with great anticipation. I went to Hiland to explain the project and get approval, and I developed an organization called Keys to Life, a non-profit to host the lullaby project. The first Hiland Mountain Correctional Center Lullaby Project was performed in September 2016. Seventeen musicians were invited to collaborate with seventeen mothers at Hiland. I rewrote the lullaby workbook a little bit because my vision of how it would work in a prison was a little bit different Carnegie model.
SB: How so?
SMSS: Hiland Lullabies is developed a little different from the Carnegie model. There is an interview process at Hiland and selecting mothers to participate, Each year, we actually produce a CD that is mailed to child. There is a community concert at the Correctional Center. As I began recruiting inside Hiland two things were important: Include Alaska Native women who were housed there away from their village. Mothers from villages come to prison, the children are left behind. I wanted the music to go back to the village, to the child, so that meant that I needed to produce a CD.
Secondly include some long sentencing women who would be at Hiland to help recruit mothers in the upcoming years.
SB: I think the beauty of the CD is that the underlying message to the kids is, ‘You’re not alone. There are other kids like you.’ You know, a whole CD of lullabies written by parents. It’s beautiful. Very powerful.
SBSS: Let’s say if I’m sending it to you and you’re in Selawik, Alaska, which is a small village, that child will get a single CD in addition to this. Only for that child, because, again, when that child puts the CD in, I’ve had the engineer go to the prison, record the mother’s voice, and the mother says, “Hi Jennie, this is mommy. I wrote this song especially for you.” And then it goes into the song. Because the mother is not recording, the musician is recording. So, it’s an individualized CD.
SB: It’s an amazing project. My original thinking about the ‘front lines’, was singers working on the front lines of humanity, sanity, anxiety. To me, this prison project and the community music work you do, is what I would call the ‘front lines’. And so, what does that phrase make you think of, when I first wrote to you about it, or when you first saw it? What does ‘singers on the front lines’ mean to you?
SMSS: I like the phrase because it feels very present. Music has always been in my life. But as you were talking about music on the front lines – paralleling that with a Biblical scripture about music as soldiers out front – If we think about the civil rights period, which is the period I grew up in, music was the front line. It was a way of galvanizing people, of giving them energy to step into that space [where] they didn’t know what was going to happen. Yet, the music was the driving force to bring them together, and to fight for social justice. In the lullaby project, I can see the [social justice] threads running through it. The lullabies song aide our community members to see incarcerated mothers and fathers as humans. Again, I can trace music back to my heritage. In the 60s, let’s look at how music was used. I can also trace music back to slavery, example of Harriet Tubman used music as a way to draw slaves to freedom. Definitely, that was the front line. It galvanized people, and moved them forward – sometimes they didn’t know what they were moving forward to – but they knew that the music would carry them to that next space. They trusted – the part that’s so exciting about it – they trusted the music. That God was in the music and “God will take care of you,” I can almost see how the front line would [parallel] with faith. You’re using faith to step out, music to step out on the front line of faith.
SB: Yes, that’s beautiful. I also think about the songs that were, that embedded instructions for slaves to go north – Wade in the Water, Follow the Drinking Gourd . . . a lifeline. It was really a lifeline.
SMSS: Yes. In thinking about just that terminology, so many images bubble up for me, in terms of the forefront. You can say front lines, or forefront.
SB: Coming to more recent movements, and movement building, what do you think happened to the music? Because it doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of Black Lives Matter, or the Me, Too movement. I don’t know, do you see that? That somehow music is not quite in the forefront of these movements.
SMSS: I think it is, but I think it is there in a subtler way. I’m thinking about these young women gathered and were singing this song, [I Can’t Keep Quiet. These were young women – 20, 30. And they were all gathered around this particular song, and it became a hit song. I think it’s there. I think we’re not hearing it. I was invited to go and sing for [a women’s] rally two or three years ago, and I sang one of my mother’s songs, “I ‘ain't gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around.” And the audience just came with me because I was inviting them to come with me. I think it’s there, it just doesn’t feel like it’s in the forefront. But I think it’s still there. You know, I sing this song that was sung at the 1996 women’s conference in Beijing, “Keep on Movin’ forward, I’m gonna keep on movin’ forward.” I know a number of women’s groups that have taken that as an anthem to move forward in their journey for equality. I think it feels like we’re not hearing it. And I think maybe I’m hearing it because I want to hear it. [laughs]
· [insert audio clip of song]
SB: Yeah, interesting. I’m also thinking, again going back to the civil rights movement in the U.S., and the labor movement, the workers movement, and Pete Seeger – there seemed to be a convergence that spanned racial divisions, where the music was coming from different directions and merging. Do you think that’s accurate to say?
SMSS: Yes. Folk music, and music from the civil rights era, it aligned with itself. The strong messages from those music pieces were the same. And so, again, talk about music being on the front lines, I think music is that single unifier. It brings unification on so many levels because it touches people’s heart, and gets them out of their head. Of course, it can be used for other things, like going to war to take another’s life, you know.
SB: Well, that speaks to the power of music. The fact that it gets used as a propaganda tool, or it gets used to unite armies to be in lockstep to go into battle. So, are you going to use your force for good or for evil? And how we harness that power for the good of all? If we draw this front lines parallel to, not just the lullaby project, but all the work you do, what’s happening on your front lines? And, in general, and in this COVID-19 period? What are you seeing in your work?
SMSS: [Recently] I’ve emailed out 3 different lullaby songs from the 2016 CD. I stated in the email, I believe there is one fundamental truth that never changes; The power of music to bring comfort in despair and link us to our humanity and the power of music to bring us together. I was taken aback by the immediate response. Within 24 hours, I received 32 comments. Very surprised, I said, Oh my God! This was a clear indication to me that music, and certainly this lullaby music, is still connecting people. There were great comments such as: “Well, I’m going to send this on to somebody who lives in Colorado.” The tentacles of their comments spread like tumbleweed, which was exactly what I wanted. People can relate to the music, although it’s written by some woman who’s sitting in a jail cell. They feel the connection to the words. As we all are experiencing this distance that has been presented to us, we want to find as many ways as possible to connect to our own humanity. Music can make that connection. Music has the ability to penetrate and touch us in so many ways. Music, storytelling any of the arts can transcends and brings us back to ourselves.
SB: Beautifully said. Is there someone right now who’s really inspiring you? Another singer on the front lines, or someone you’ve been working with, someone you’ve been watching?
SMSS: Besides listening to the lullaby music, I am re-inspired by that whole production. So much of the work is taking care of the logistics – writing grants, figuring out what products to develop. It’s the small minutiae, the details . . . I’m not singing!
SB: Ironic, yes!
SMSS: As I pull up a lullaby song that Marie Meade, an Alaskan Native Yupik, who co-wrote the song with another Alaskan Native, an Inupiat woman from the village of Little Diomede. This mother has been released from Hiland and doing well. These women collaborated on the song, “No one, no one can make me feel the way that you do. I’m sorry that I hurt you. Now I have eyes to see. No matter what happens, in my heart you’ll always be. ‘Cuz no one, no one can make me . .” I can enjoy it. I’m listening to Marie Meade’s voice. The context of the music is in this small, little prison, but the expansion of the message is beyond those walls. And that’s very exciting. That’s my front line now. It’s out of the walls of Hiland, out of the walls of Anchorage, and moving out into the world where people hear, “No one, no one can make me feel the way that you do.”
SB: There are so many of us around the world. This energy – I have to believe that if we know about each other, there’s some sort of force field we can create, consciously, that can push, elevate the awareness of music for the power and respect of the power that it really has.
SMSS: I think people know it, but acting on what they know, that becomes a challenge. Last year, I invited long serving sentencing women at Hiland to write lullabies for the newbies coming into the system. I wanted them to share what they know about life. I wanted them to plant seed to help curve the recidivism. Two years ago, men at Hiland wrote lullabies for their children. I have to think about how this music impacts not only the children, not only the mothers, but how this music impacts our community, too. Approximately 250 individuals attend the concert. This lullaby music is powerful. Audience members have a rare opportunity to see the inmates a mothers and fathers who love their children. This is a common dominator that we all share. In our post evaluation audience members respond; “Oh my God. She loves her children.”
SB: Right, it took that moving experience . . .
SMSS: I am thinking about developing a community choir to sing lullabies that we’ve already written. We’re into our fifth year. Have [the choir] sing the songs, and then have the women in prison, and bring them together for the concert. The exposes the project and the power of music goes beyond the prison walls.
SB: That’s so needed, to connect the community.
SMSS: My mantra is, “Open doors and open hearts greets me with kindness everywhere I go.” That’s my mantra. There’s more to do. I don’t know what the ‘more’ is right now, except it’s coming. It’s greeting me. And I’m open to it.
SB: Is there anything else you want to say about the role of music, especially in these times, these uncertain times we’re in now?
SMSS: I think ‘these times’ is . . . irrelevant. We can take any time, in terms of the power of music. At the beginning of our conversation, I was speaking about the power of music during the civil rights movement. The power of music as it relates to my culture. Music that was sang by the slaves as a means of hope. I was in Ghana many years ago. I was standing at a slave castle, looking out at the ocean in the middle of what that called “Door of No Return.” As I stood there, I could imagine my ancestors in the belly of those ships, sailing to a place unknown. I have to believe they sang songs as a measure of strength to endure the hardship. So, I think ‘in these times’ in any time. We take what we know about music, and how music re-claims our souls.
SB: That’s so, so true. What is it about singing, specifically? And do you think there’s something about the voice, the human voice?
SMSS: So, I cannot sing. I grew up in a community where black folks could really sing. And I was told, “Sit down, and don’t sing. ‘Cuz you can’t sing.” Because I don’t sound like Aretha Franklin. I am not invited to sing with groups I’m working with now. I don’t care. Singing to me isn’t about sound great or being a very good singer. It’s about feeling that vibration that’s inside of your body. Feeling that vibration come out into this manifestation of a voice, and that giving you pleasure. That’s singing. It doesn’t make any difference if I’m on key. It doesn’t make any difference if I know the fifth from the third from the second, [music intervals] . . .I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference if somebody is singing to me, and somebody says, “They are tone deaf.” I don’t [often] quote the Bible, but I will quote this – the Bible does not say, “Make a Beyonce noise.” It does not say, “Make an Aretha Franklin noise.” It says, “Make a joyful noise.” And if singing and the vibration that happens in your body while you’re singing bring you joy, sing. I like the sound that I make, and how that feels inside of my body. I can get up in the morning and I’m thinking, ‘Ugh, I gotta’ go to work, I gotta’ go to work.’ And then I will start with one of my mother’s songs, “I’m so glad I’m here. I’m so glad I’m here.” And I feel myself lightening up. “I’m so glad I’m here.” Hey, it changes my mood.
SB: You said the group you’re in doesn’t invite you to sing. But I’m going to invite you to sing. I want people reading this interview to hear your voice. Would you be willing to sing a song for me, for us?
SMSS: Oh yeah. I feel like I want to sing something that my grandmother, [who raised me], or my Uncle Floyd, would have sung because that music grounds me, and it’s where I came from. Let me think of one we would have sung in the fields as I working with my grandmother.
Don’t you wanna go to that land
Don’t you wanna go to that land
Don’t you wanna go to that land
Where I’m bound, where I’m bound
Don’t you wanna go to that land
Don’t you wanna go to that land
Don’t you wanna go to that land
Where I’m bound.
Nothin’ but joy in that land
Nothin’ but joy in that land
Nothin’ but joy in that land
Where I’m bound, where I’m bound
“The Bible does not say, “Make a Beyoncé noise.” It does not say, “Make an Aretha Franklin noise.” It says, “Make a joyful noise.” And if singing, and the vibration that happens in your body while you’re singing, brings you joy, sing.”