Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir

In 1992, Linda Tillery came across a treasure trove of field recordings of traditional African-American music. Within months, she assembled the Cultural Heritage Choir to perform spirituals, work and play songs, field hollers and other slave tunes in the folk tradition.

"I did not know what I was searching for," she says, "but I knew it would have an historical as well as an educational focus. I also knew that it would enable me to feel more complete as an artist and as a human being. I stumbled upon it and I knew right away that it was right for me."

Today, the Cultural Heritage Choir-featuring Rhonda Benin, Elouise Burrell, Melanie DeMore and Emma Foster-Fiege-is one of the most vital performing groups in its field, bringing traditional forms of African-American culture to the stage. Solidly rooted in the past, all the way back to the Gullah culture of the South Carolina and Georgia Sea Islands, the Choir has a powerful vision of the future as well. In addition to songs and chants delivered through such stylistic forms as call-and-response, multi-layered harmonies, and repetitive verse, the Choir's repertoire includes intoned sermons, folk tales, polyrhythmic percussion and dance.

A San Francisco native and a pioneer of women's music long heralded for her powerful R&B, jazz, pop and gospel singing, Tillery says that putting together the Cultural Heritage Choir to perform spirituals and other forms of "survival music is like putting on a pair of shoes that were made just for you by the best cobbler in the world: they are comfortable, they are one with your foot, and you can walk all over God's heaven."