Soul, gospel, and much more
Photo: Pat Jarrett
Sherman Holmes and Cora Armstrong are dear friends and periodic musical collaborators. For this year’s Richmond Folk Festival, they will bring together a stellar group of musicians who recently enthralled the audience at a performance sponsored by JamInc. in the auditorium of Richmond’s Mary Mumford School. Joining Cora and Sherman that night were Richmond’s own Andrew Alli on harmonica, Jared Pool on guitar, and Reverend Almeta Ingram-Miller on vocals. CCV executive director Jon Lohman was so blown away by the performance that he invited the same group to perform at the Richmond Folk Festival. They will perform Sunday along with one of Virginia’s finest bluegrass bass players Jacob Eller for a set we strongly suggest you don’t miss.
Sherman Holmes
Saluda, Virginia
Photo: Pat Jarrett
The year 2015 marked the end of an amazing journey for the Holmes Brothers, a group with humble beginnings on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula who performed a joyous and moving blend of blues, gospel, soul, rhythm and blues, rock ‘n’ roll, and country for more than 50 years. Wendell and Sherman Holmes were raised by school teacher parents who fostered the boys’ early interest in music by playing recordings of traditional Baptist hymns, anthems, and spirituals, as well as blues music by Jimmy Reed, Junior Parker, and B. B. King. Sherman studied composition and music theory at Virginia State University before heading to New York City, where Wendell joined him. In 1979, the duo formed the Holmes Brothers band with Sherman on bass, Wendell on guitar, and Popsy Dixon on drums. With their soulful singing, uplifting harmonies, and unsurpassed musicianship, the Holmes Brothers blended Saturday night roadhouse rock with the gospel fervor and harmonies of a Sunday morning church service. During their remarkable career, the band played and recorded with the brightest stars of the blues and rock ‘n’ roll scene including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, and Van Morrison, and in 2014 received the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor the United States bestows on traditional artists. Sadly, 2015 saw the passing of both Wendell and Popsy, ending the Holmes Brothers’ remarkable run. Despite these devastating losses, Sherman has remained dedicated to carrying on his musical career, collaborating with a range of blues, bluegrass, and gospel artists, and forming the Sherman Holmes Project. In 2017, Sherman released The Richmond Sessions, his first solo recording in his more than 50-year career. The album carries on the spirit of the revered Holmes Brothers by reimagining songs and making them their own. In 2019 Sherman joined the Legendary Ingramettes on an enthusiastically received U.S. State Department tour of Serbia and Bulgaria.
Cora Armstrong
Newtown, Virginia
Photo: Pat Jarrett
Cora Harvey Armstrong is a gospel singer, piano player, songwriter, choir director, and bandleader who was born, raised, and still lives in her tiny hometown of Newtown in King and Queen County, Virginia. For more than forty years she has been a favorite gospel music performer at festivals and celebrations around the country and abroad. She has toured and lectured on gospel music in Asia and Europe, and is a sought after artist, pianist, psalmist and preacher.
Her father was a deacon at First Mount Olive Baptist Church where Armstrong served as minister of music for four decades. Her mother started the Harvey Family singing group, which included Cora and her sisters. “When I was coming up my mother was a real big fan of Mahalia Jackson and the Clara Ward Singers so that’s a lot of the music I heard around the house,” says Armstrong. “She and Daddy both used to sing in the choir at church so they knew all the hymns.” Armstrong’s songwriting was inspired by the verses of her poet grandfather Rev. Watson Harvey.
That songwriting blossomed at Virginia State University (VSU), where she directed the internationally acclaimed VSU Gospel Chorale. An association later in life with another shining light in the state’s gospel community, Rev. Earl Bynum, led to tours of Italy and Japan. In recent years, Armstrong has pursued music full-time and has also become a minister, studying for a master’s in divinity from Virginia Union University. She also released a CD that focuses on her own compositions.
Richmond-born musician and producer Bill McGee has described Armstrong as “Aretha Franklin on piano, Mahalia Jackson with her voice, and Shirley Caesar with her style.” Could there be higher praise?
Almeta Ingram-Miller
Richmond, Virginia
Photo: Pat Jarrett
Almeta Ingram-Miller is an international gospel singer, songwriter, recording artist, and producer who has been singing for more than 60 years.
Born in Miami, FL, her family moved to Richmond in 1961 and quickly became involved in the local civil rights movement. Under the leadership of her mother, Dr. Maggie Lee Ingram, Almeta and her family were instrumental in instituting community days and family visitation at the Virginia Department of Corrections minimum security centers. Almeta continues that community-based work today, as an outreach minister to the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland, Virginia.
In addition to being the leader of the award-winning gospel group the Legendary Ingramettes, Almeta has been a guest workshop facilitator at the College of William & Mary and the University of Virginia for the lecture and performance series on traditional music. She and her family have performed at the Library of Congress for the American Folklife Center’s Homegrown Music of America series, and she was a guest soloist and participant in the University of Virginia’s Department of Diversity and Equity Symposium that commemorated the African American Slave Cemetery discovered on the grounds of UVA. Her other interests include working locally with the Lumpkin's Jail Slave Project in Richmond.
Almeta is a third-generation ordained Baptist minister, graduating from the Evans Smith Institute of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University. In December 2020, she received an honorary Doctor of Sacred Music (D.S.M.) degree from Higher Learning Bible Institute and International Seminary.
Andrew Alli
Richmond, Virginia
Photo: Pat Jarrett
Blues harmonica player Andrew Alli is a Richmond native and a rising star, having recently received a nomination for Best Emerging Artist by the Blues Music Association. Andrew took up music at the age of 20 after being inspired by a busker playing harmonica on the street. Deeply motivated, Andrew committed himself to learning the playing techniques and history of his newfound instrument. He soon fell in love with the blues and began studying all of the harmonica greats including Big Walter Horton, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Junior Wells, Phil Wiggins, and many others. He draws on these great masters while also developing his own unique style. Throughout the years he has toured with Jontavious Willis, Josh Small, and dozens of other young blues musicians both domestically and abroad.
Jared Pool
Richmond, Virginia
Photo: Pat Jarrett
Jared Pool is a multi-instrumentalist who regularly plays mandolin with legendary flatpicker Larry Keel in the Larry Keel Experience among other projects. Jared grew up immersed in traditional American music through attending various fiddler’s conventions and festivals while also studying blues and rock guitar, and later earned a degree in jazz studies from Christopher Newport University. Jared has worked with the Virginia Folklife Program and Center for Cultural Vibrancy for several years on recordings and performances with the Sherman Holmes Project and The Legendary Ingramettes, and served as a musical ambassador alongside Danny Knicely and Aimee Curl on a US Department of State cultural exchange in Cabo Verde, Africa in 2017. When he is not touring, Jared teaches concepts such as technique, tone, improvisation, and music theory to students of all ages.
Jacob Eller
Chilhowie, Virginia
Photo: Pat Jarrett
Jacob began playing bass as a teenager with his Dad in the group Cleghorn. He was soon recruited by Ryan Blevins to play in the band Canebreak based in Berea, Kentucky, but Jacob liked his hometown of Chilhowie better than Berea and moved back to Southwest Virginia. He was one of the founding members, along with Stevie Barr and Amber Collins, of the popular young bluegrass group No Speed Limit. With the creation of The Crooked Road in the early 2000s, No Speed Limit became one of the ambassadors of Virginia’s Musical Heritage Trail and was soon touring the east and west coasts of the U.S., Scotland, and even playing for the new Virginia governor's inaugural concert, the president at Jamestown's 400th Anniversary celebration, and for the Queen of England in Richmond.
Jacob began playing for Sierra Hull & Highway 111 in 2008, including two weeks with Sierra in Japan playing all over the country to bluegrass loving fans of all ages. They played festivals all over the United States and Canada, including Grey Fox in New York, The National Folk Festival in Butte, Montana, Merle Fest in Wilkesboro, NC, and closer to home, Rhythm & Roots in Bristol and The Blue Plum Festival in Johnson City, TN. Jacob has also performed with the Church Sisters, the Honey Badgers, and the Sherman Holmes Project. No matter where Jacob plays, he always takes his signature smile!