What made reading Richard’s 500 page autobiography worth it was his own reflections on the man that raised him at the end. The Reverend C.L. Smallwood was the Baptist preacher who along with his mother Mabel, raised him to play for his church. They planted the seeds of a pathbreaking composer, whose music brought and BRINGS people together across race, class and nationality.
His autobiography is not strictly chronological. When he talks about his school he is perfectly linear, but the discussion of his music sometimes makes him go back or skip forward in time.
In his fourth chapter “My Song,” Smallwood writes “my music became my escape and my refuge from the growing fear and the uncomfortable feelings I had toward my father” (37). He self identifies as a true astrological Sagittarius when he writes: “I had my bows and arrows with the suction cup tips” (37).
The autobiography reminds me of terms I’ve heard in the church often: your earthly father and your Heavenly father. All of Richard’s music was about praising our Heavenly father, and living a life that pleases our Heavenly father. That means knowing on this earth that there are no such things as monsters because monsters become crutches or excuses humans tend to use as an excuse not to take the steps needed to grow up.
In his sixth chapter he mentions a pianist he saw in the fifties who influenced his playing style: Little Lucy Smith, of the Roberta Martin Singers. He dedicates a song from his last live recording (that I attended on 8/24/14) to Little Lucy Smith called “Only A Look.”
His childhood was defined by the movement of his itinerant preacher father who moved his family from DC to New Jersey to Philadelphia back to DC.
He makes a point in the tenth chapter that is true for everything he says before and after: “God was placing people in my life to bring me to my destination” (121).
One of those people was his piano teacher named Bernard Barbour. His parents would send Richard to Mr. Barbour for lessons and when they didn’t have the money to pay him, wouldn’t send Richard. However, when they were short Mr. Barbour’s money, Richard writes that he would reply: “Don’t you dare keep Richard home because of that! Send him right on to lessons. I’ll be waiting” (98). After Mr. Barbour said he could take him no further in piano, Richard enrolled as a high school student in the Junior Preparatory Department at Howard University.
In the same chapter he mentioned God placing people in his life, he brings up a high school classmate who told him that Donny Hathaway would be performing at Howard University. That would be the beginning of a ARTISTIC IMPRINT that Donny Hathaway would leave on Richard. The high school classmate who told Richard about Donny is Julius James who was Minister of Music of my church, Saint James House of Prayer that I attended.
This photo is of the McKinley Technical Senior High School Class of 1967. From the “Classic Black and White” Facebook page. Julius James is in the back row, third from the left, and Richard Smallwood is to his right.
Richard’s autobiography makes clear that it takes a village to raise a composer and he is intentional about DOCUMENT each individual part of that village who made his success possible. Mr. Barbour brought him to Ms. Anne Burwell who emphasized in Richard the need to sight read music and not simply play by ear. He writes that his “Ear Training and Sight Singing Teacher” was Mrs. Evelyn Davidson White who was “a Gestapo taskmaster” (134,5). Mrs. White paid him a high compliment when she called him and said that Richard and his choir “became the music.” When he entered Howard as a Piano major and a voice minor, his instructor was then chair Professor Thomas Kerr whose class he failed during the second semester of his sophomore year because he didnt study nor practice: he partied (169). Kerr gave him an ultimatum to either change majors from Music, or go to “summer school, learn a complete recital by memory, pulling from…the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Contemporary and perform it” (174).
He writes that hearing the music Edwin Hawkins inspired him “to finally take writing music seriously” (161). He founded the Celestials on Howard’s campus and visited music labels with demo tape casssettes for label execs to play. He tells of him and Wesley Boyd going to Blue Note Records, whose exec was George Butler. Butler told Richard “This music is great and I’m loving what I’m hearing but it’s so far ahead of what people are doing right now, that no one is going to get it” (185).
His autobiography shows us that the dedicated artist is the trendsetter in the music industry.
Another Gospel recording artist who influenced him is Andrae Crouch whose 1978 album “Live in London” influenced Richard’s sound. He said that watching the Hawkins singers at Constitution Hall in the late seventies was a profound influence on him and he remembers crying and making a decision to become a Gospel artist, despite the fact that throughout the seventies, he said he could not get a record deal. In his twenty third chapter, he writes that he “was promised every kind of record deal known to man,” and that “record execs would say they were interested and I’d never hear from them again” (284). Richard writes that Edwin encouraged him when he told him “there’s no reason why you can’t” be a recording artist.
His first record deal came from Bob McKenzie at Benson Records in Nashville. He said he felt like a “late bloomer” to get a contract at 33, when his classmates seemed to be progressing much faster than he was, and he shared: “Don’t ever compare or judge your progress or lack of it by anyone else’s journey” (297)
He describes feeling humiliated when the label said that songs he wanted to record were not good enough. In 1982 his debut album was released and it led to bookings across the country. In his twenty eighth chapter, he writes how Benson was no longer interested in its Black music, then abruptly invited Richard and his singers back under their label. Richard the artist, knowing his worth, writes: “because Benson had found to be in breach of contract, I was able to leave and I walked. It was not long before I signed with Word Records” (330). While in Nashville he tells the story of how he and Bill Gaither and Gloria Gaither wrote “The Center of My Joy” (331).
The Singers’ next three albums were “Textures” (1987), “Vision” (1988) and “Portrait” (1990). In his thirty second chapter, he discusses putting together the choir now known as Vision, names each member and where they came from. At this time in his life, he was dealing with his mother’s failing health and the foster kids she took in needing more emotional support, and began feeling overwhelmed. These feelings birthed him composing “Total Praise.” The song comes from the lyrics of Psalm 121 which says “I will lift up mine to the hills from whence cometh my help.” Richard describes his own emotional state the best when writing his most popular song talking about the scripture:
It was comforting to me and I wanted to develop it musically into a song that asked for God’s help. However the more I worked on it, the more it kept going in the direction of a praise song. Praise was the last thing I felt like doing. I kept tugging in the opposite direction, but it was like the song was already written and I was just receiving it (368).
“Total Praise” catapulted Richard into national and international popularity. In his thirty second chapter he writes that he’s heard it done “in French, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Samoan, as well as other languages” (374). The thirty third chapter is titled with a phrase Richard has written and spoken often in interviews: “my gift made room for me.” His song “Total Praise” on his first album with Vision titled “Adoration” was making room for him. After getting a phone call from a friend, Richard said he got inspiration for the title song of his second Vision album from a dream. The second Vision album called “Healing” features the UNFORGETTABLE songs “Come Before His Presence” with soloist Debbie Steele-Hall, “Holy Art Thou God” with soloist Vanessa Williams, and with “Be Open” with duet by Charrisse Nelson McIntosh and Darlene Simmons.
.In the thirty fifth chapter called “The Secret,” Richard’s mother reveals to him the identity of his biological father, when Richard was in his fifties. He writes she shared this news days before his live recording for his seventh album. This explains why in the piano interlude section of the 2001 Live recording, one can hear Richard’s mother cry “Hallelujah” in the audience. She must have been relieved to release the burden of that secret. Richard writes: “she told me of a loveless marriage where she was little more than a trophy wife, never touched” (398). Of his step father he explains why he was abusive: “he was angry about me being someone else’s and took it out on me” (400). In 2002, Richard writes that he was diagnosed with clinical depression.
In the thirty sixth chapter, he writes that he delivered his initial sermon called “How to Survive A Babylon Experience.” All of his music deals with surviving in a Babylon Experience. He writes “even though I was taught in Divinity School, I really learned how to structure a good sermon by listening to Pastor Hicks. He influenced me greatly” (409). At the funeral service for Richard, Pastor Hicks that the work of Richard reminds us that “excellence is not elitism. It is stewardship.”
In his thirty seventh chapter titled “Revelation” he details his fourth album with Vision entitled “Journey: Live In New York” that features songs by Kim Burrell, Kelly Price, Chaka Khan, the Hawkins Singers, and the original Smallwood Singers. After the 2005 recording in New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The most captivating is the powerful worship song “I’ll Trust You.” The thirty eighth chapter is titled “The Last Voice She’ll Hear” because Richard was the last voice his mother heard before she passed on December 1, 2004. After his mom passed, he said his brain “was on shutdown” and his “comprehension level was close to none.”
The thirty ninth chapter shows that he has a vivid spiritual imagination. He attributed his negative feelings to a spiritual entity with a cat’s head and a snake’s body. He describes himself fighting this creature which represented his fear and depression. Richard said “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!! My fear was gone and all I was left with…was anger” (455). The duel between Richard and this snake-cat felt like reading a battle in Beowulf. At the end of this chapter, he writes: “everything is spiritual” (458).
The fortieth chapter describes his inspiration for his fifth project with Vision, a studio album called “Promises” (2011). Of his inspiration, Richard writes: “no matter what the media says or its naysayers say, or whats going on in politics, God is still in control” (464). The theology of Richard and of his pastor H. Beecher Hicks is not a theology where God condones, Jim Crow or neocolonialism. In the theology of Richard’s music and lyrics, when one reads “God is in control,” one assumes a God that will take vengeance against one’s enemies. Thats why one of the most memorable songs is “Unbroken Promises” and the song he composed for Donny Hathaway’s daughter Lalah, called “Praying For Peace.”
In his forty first chapter he describes a vivid dream with his stepfather where they were walking down a street together and the two of them are hearing music and are walking together to find its source. They locate the music in a church and sit down together. The stepfather was reaching down to pick him up at the end of their time in the church and Richard politely replies “I’m fine, Daddy.” He writes that immediately after this he starts “to cry uncontrollably” (478). It is this dream of his stepfather that humanizes Richard’s perception of his father to the extent that he writes: “I do know I am healed of the emotions that had me bound and troubled for so long. There was healing in that music that I experienced. My bitter feelings about my stepfather were gone” (479).
In the forty second chapter he visits the plantation on land owned by his maternal great-grandfather James Cain.
The forty third chapter details how he prepared for his last live recording “Anthology” in Largo, Maryland in 2014, which I attended. He wrote that Warren Shadd provided “his amazing 9’3″ grand piano that was absolute heaven to play. It became my favorite piano, hands down” (494).
He elaborates one last time on the “healing” of emotions about his father:
One of the things I had to accept after having that vision in 2010 is that I actually loved my stepdad…Even as messed up as he was, he still established some great churches around the country, many of which are still flourishing. I’ve sat and pondered the idea of him never being in my life. Suppose my mother had not married him and she had raised me in Durham. Would I be who I am today? He insisted I learn every major hymn in the old Baptist Hymnal. He insisted I learn every major hymn in the old Baptist Hymnal. I believe there is purpose in everything.
Reading Richard’s reflections on the abuse at the hands of his father was humbling to read. However what makes his writing about it remarkable is that at the end of the autobiography he enumerates all the ADVANTAGES he experienced as a result of being raised by Reverend Smallwood. He is able to reconcile his resentment with his success as a world renowned composer. He exhibited the WISDOM, which is virtue popularly associated with the astrological sign of Sagittarius. He applied knowledge about everything that happened in his life and he did not allow the reader to see Reverend C.L. as only a monster.
I remembered one thing about the photos Richard shared of his biological father, Robert. He was pointing to a vinyl record cover with the face of Paul Robeson.
Both Robeson and Richard Smallwood were artists whose music was not easily accepted by the music industry. Robeson’s music suffered an industry boycott because of his political views. Richard describes an invitation to the White House while Obama was President that was rescinded because of his association with Jeremiah Wright. Jacquie Luqman’s forthcoming book We Need More John Brown Christians calls on Christians to make their faith more relevant. We thank Richard Smallwood for bringing Gospel music into the twenty first century and reminding us that despite whatever shenanigans pulled by Republicans or Democrats, “God is still in control.” -RF.