Tag: All Day Singing

Dinner on the grounds – Ambrosia on The Glory Road.

By Anita Garner

Desserts from the church ladies

Homemade food was a  highlight of every All Day Singing With Dinner On The Grounds. Tables were made of planks laid over sawhorses then covered with oilcloth, then the rows of sawhorse-tables were loaded with every Southern specialty from the best home cooks in the world.

At the end of many of these tables were stools that held washtubs filled with tea with big blocks of ice floating on top and tin dippers attached with string to the handles.

Find a picture.  Find a story.  If that’s not a rule, maybe it should be. I’m surrounded by boxes and files and albums and scrapbooks.  It’s the backbone of much of what’s becoming The Glory Road., the stories, the stage play and now the book.  A photo turns itself into a scene.

That’s Mother (Sister Fern) on the left in this picture. She’s changed from her performing dress made of clingy jersey into something cooler, and she’ll change back again after dinner, the midday meal in the Deep South. She’s  probably complimenting that church lady next to her on her fine contribution to this bounty.

I was off in search of my favorites.  Somebody mistakenly put Ambrosia over there on a table with all the fruit salads when to my mind Ambrosia was a world apart from ordinary food. It was the Alpha and Omega,  the beginning and end of every dinner spread laid out at every Singing, every Revival, and every Sunday afternoon potluck at every stop on Route 66.

Mother was partial to Jell-O and she’d choose from a whole table full of it, some of it made in intricate molds, some studded with fruits, and other bowls of the red and green and orange jiggly stuff were filled with mysterious chopped items. She loved them all.

Leslie Ray headed for the chicken wings, the potato salad, then the table with all the breads – biscuits, risin’ rolls and cornbread. Daddy piled up a plate with  barbecue and beans. He wandered the grounds balancing his plate and a Dixie cup of sweet tea, in search of the cook responsible for his favorite barbecue. Reverend Raymond Jones could talk beans with anybody til closing time.  One of us had to hunt him down when it was time for the family to be back onstage.

Find an old photograph. Write some notes.  I don’t want to miss a memory.  They’re gifts that come and go when they please.

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Church Ladies cook their way into heaven on The Glory Road

Bogalusa, Louisiana 1955, a church under construction.

On the left, back row, are Brother Ray and Sister Fern Jones, Daddy and Mother.  In the front row are deacons and farmers in their Sunday clothes, but it was the women in the back row holding everything together. Church Ladies helped raise my brother and me

Pioneer pastoring is what Daddy was good at. He conducted tent revivals, found followers, raised funds, built churches, grew congregations and then we moved along, back to the revival circuit where Mother sang for large audiences.  Whether we were criss-crossing the Deep South or settling in one town for a while, church ladies were the constant.

At any gathering, an All-Day Singing or a regular Church Supper, the food was magnificent.  Giant pots of soup and covered dishes with treasured family recipes, biscuits and risin’ rolls and cornbread and Jello molds and tables of baked goods and washtubs full of sweet tea at the end of each table.

Daddy’s sermons mentioned how we need to work down here to gain our rewards up in heaven.  He told churchwomen they were earning extra stars in their crowns with their fine cooking.  I gave an extra star to the ambrosia. Leslie Ray picked the platter of crispy chicken wings and deviled eggs on the side. Daddy hugged a woman over a pot of pintos with ham hocks. Mother, owner of the family’s most ardent sweet tooth, always started with dessert first.

Our Church Ladies didn’t have  Costco or Crock pots, but they turned out food that fed multitudes of believers  with plenty to share with backsliders.

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Here’s Mother with a song that surely has some Church Ladies in it.

Fern Jones/The Glory Road
When I Meet You

On The Glory Road – The Music Moves

By Anita Garner

While Daddy was a young man attending shape-note singing lessons taught in a country church by traveling sheet music salesmen, Mother was lying about her age to sing in honky-tonks.  When they got together, things got interesting.  They mixed her Saturday night and his Sunday morning sound and made a whole new thing.  After WWII they moved their music out of  churches and took it on the road.

I hope you’ll follow along each week as I  post updates from The Glory Road projects.  It began with short stories and essays, next a stage play (a story for another day) and now a book manuscript. My goal is to help preserve the music and these glimpses of American history.

Early recordings blended Mother’s honky-tonk alto with Daddy’s hill country tenor.  Years later, their recordings have been re-mastered, re-released and are heard everywhere, on television, in movies, on the radio, on streaming services and everywhere music is available.

Here’s an excerpt from the book manuscript.

 All Day Singing With Dinner On The Grounds.

Kousin Karl took the stage and the crowd shook off their post-dinner torpor, ready to be entertained.  He welcomed everyone back and made a few announcements, ending by reminding us there’d be plenty of food left out there at suppertime.  After the crowd rustled and scraped and quieted some, he hollered,

“Ladies and gentlemen – THE JONESES!”

Daddy called out the key to the pickup band. A piano player started off and the crowd laughed as they caught on to what was happening.  Brother Janway eased in from the side, chasing the first piano player away.  He bounced around, playing some boogie woogie first, then slid into the intro to the familiar song Daddy and Mother were about to sing.

Daddy paced and grinned, guitar strap slung over one shoulder, strumming as he walked over to the piano shaking his head, pretending to be shocked at Brother Janway’s antics.  The two buddies always had fun up there and their schoolboy foolishness had everyone smiling.  

When Mother joined Daddy onstage, he moved over next to her and leaned in so close it looked like he was about to kiss her, then he stepped away again, always in motion before returning to share the mic with her. They started off on one of Daddy’s favorites, with Mother taking the lead and him singing harmony.

       By and by, when the morning comes

       All the saints of God are gathered home

       We will tell the story, how we’ve overcome

       And we’ll understand it better, by and by

Daddy was always a crowd-pleaser yet it appeared to be accidental. He never held onto a note any longer than he had to.  When she sang she laid every ounce of emotion she could muster into a note before sending it out to the audience.

Here are Sister Fern and Brother Ray singing “By & By” from their first album, “The Joneses Sing,” recorded in the 1950’s.

On lead guitar, fellow evangelist, Brother Gene Thompson

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