Words can have more than one meaning and when it comes to the spirituals and other songs that African Americans have sung from times of slavery to the present day, those words didn’t always mean what was on the surface.
“What makes music uniquely African American?” is a question that Damien Sneed has been asked by his students at Howard University and The Juilliard School.
“I think it has to do with the lyrical content and the struggle,” said Sneed, an Augusta native and graduate of John S. Davidson, who presented a short Black History Month program at Augusta Prep on Feb. 21
A song like “Wade in the Water” which he presented with Anitra McKinney speaks of Heaven, but Heaven, in the context of enslaved people, didn’t mean a place after death. It spoke of somewhere north of the Mason-Dixon Line or Canada, where freedom would lie.
Friday’s program was short but varied as he and McKinney presented works such as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, “Habanera” from the opera “Carmen” and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” with members of Augusta Prep’s chorus. He also provided a nod to his high school alma mater where he attended with Jeannie Williams, Augusta Prep’s director music with a short song called “DFA.”
“Follow the Drinking Gourd” is another song with multiple layers of meaning as it referred to the Big Dipper constellation, which served as a guide in the night sky for enslaved people seeking their freedom.
Sneed, who furthered his studies after high school at universities including Howard University, the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University; New York University, where he earned a Master of Music in Music Technology, the Manhattan School of Music; and the University of South Carolina where he received a doctorate in Orchestral Conducting in 2023, has won a 2020 Dove Award and a 2021 NAACP Image Award.
He’s worked with a star-studded list of performers including the late Aretha Franklin and Jessye Norman, Wynton Marsalis, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Ashford & Simpson and many others as well as served as music director for several Grammy Award–winning gospel artists, including The Clark Sisters, Richard Smallwood and Donnie McClurkin.
He has two recordings scheduled for release in 2025 – one in the spring and another later this year.
He is scheduled to perform at Charleston’s Spoleto Festival June 2. Also he is working on scheduling a full concert in Augusta, but no date has been set yet, he said.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
