In this class, you will experience the joy and power of learning to sing 3- and 4-part harmony gospel music. You will come away with repertoire and stylistic knowledge as well as a much deeper knowledge of the history and cultural context of Black gospel music in southern West Virginia.
Instructor Bio
Xavier Oglesby is a native of Beckley, West Virginia, a city that’s a few hours southwest of Elkins. He was raised in the Black Pentecostal church, and grew up learning gospel music from his family. His father was a preacher, and Xavier sang in the church choir as well as joining in with his mother and siblings at home.
As a young adult, he hosted a gospel music radio show on local radio station WJLS in Beckley, and acted and sang in productions at Theatre West Virginia there.
Among his fellow actors at the theatre was Doris Fields. The two of them performed as husband and wife in a play that ran there for several years.
Later they would be reunited through the West Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Program. Doris Fields had become better known as ‘Lady D,’ performing blues, jazz, and soul songs. So she and Xavier got together in occasional sessions over the course of a year, exploring the commonalities between the blues and Black Gospel music.
“It wasn’t so much me teaching Xavier anything about blues, but we were sort of reminding each other about where we both came from,” Doris told West Virginia Public Broadcasting at the time. “He’s a great gospel singer. He comes from a family of ministers. And he’s a minister himself. But his family has owned juke joints. We don’t see a lot of that distinction that people make, you know, between ‘blues is the Devil’s music and gospel is God’s music.’ It’s all God’s music,” she said.
Doris had grown up in the Baptist church, and among her early influences was Ethel Caffie Austin, a gospel singer and pianist from southern West Virginia who would later lead many inspiring classes at Augusta in its early years.
Since their formal apprenticeship pairing ended, Doris and Xavier have continued performing, documenting older gospel singers in the state, and finding ways to get younger singers fired up about the traditional gospel songs.
Meanwhile, in the spring of 2022, Augusta started up a new project called the Lift Your Voice community choir, where local singers could gather for a string of Tuesday nights and then put on a concert featuring several West Virginia musical traditions. And Xavier Oglesby was the tradition bearer we brought in to teach Black Gospel songs.
After his first session with the choir, many singers lined up wanting to connect with him. Among the comments: “This was the best singing workshop I’ve ever attended,” and “I had chills for an hour straight!”
Xavier is also a voice artist in another sense: he recently narrated voice-overs for the National Park Service’s New River Gorge African American Heritage Auto Tour.
We’re pleased to welcome Xavier Oglesby to the 2022 Augusta Vocal Week, July 17-22!
And we’re also happy to welcome ‘Lady D’ Doris Fields to teach in our Swing Week the preceding week, July 10-15!