‘She lit up the stage’: Friends, colleagues remember acclaimed singer Evelyn Harris

Evelyn Harris, a Grammy-nominated singer, composer and activist who died unexpectedly earlier this week at the age of 75, is being remembered for her stage presence, vocal prowess and spirited activism by those who knew her in the Pioneer Valley.

“She embodied the power that music can have to change people’s hearts and how they think about things and how they process things and how music can bring community together,” said Jason Trotta, executive director of the Northampton Community Music Center, which Harris joined in 2004.

An Easthampton resident, Harris grew up in Virginia, where she sang at Ebenezer Baptist Church and studied music at Howard University. In 1974, she joined the then-new Black women’s a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, which she was a member of for 18 years.

She also co-produced nine of the group’s albums. One of her compositions, “Emergency,” which appeared on the group’s album “Live at Carnegie Hall” and was about South African apartheid, was a nominee for the “Best Contemporary Folk Recording” Grammy Award in 1988.

In 2024, Harris was part of a lifetime achievement and reunion concert at the Kennedy Center as part of Sisterfire, a music festival that celebrates women musicians. 

Kyle Homstead, the technical director and touring sound engineer for Sweet Honey in the Rock, called Harris “a dear friend and professional colleague” who had “incredible vocal prowess and stage presence and discipline and dedication to the craft.”

Homstead recalled a particular show in which Harris performed a gospel set to an outdoor audience of thousands in Easthampton. 

“It was truly magnificent,” he said. “Her full power just shone through, and she quieted the audience and commanded this amazing presence and sang in a way that I think few of us had really heard before. It was a very powerful evening for everybody in the audience.”

In a statement shared through Homstead, Sweet Honey in the Rock member Nitanju Bolade Casel said, “One of the true pioneers of Sweet Honey In The Rock, the timbre of her voice and unique gift for songwriting has always been unmistakeable [sic]! Witty, fun, direct and to the point — Evie’s presence on this planet was (and is) a vibrational lift for us all.”

Closer to home, Harris gave private lessons at the Northampton Community Music Center and directed the all-women a capella chorus the Ku’umba Women’s Choir, which later became the Ujima Singers, a group of BIPOC performers.

“The group was formed around what was great about her,” Trotta said. He and Harris had talked about creating a group for the Black community in the Pioneer Valley, and Harris’ experience made her the right choice to direct it.

Trotta said that what he’s going to miss about Harris includes “her loving spirit, her talent, her generosity.”

“She gave this community so much — was always there for every person, every group, so open and ready to give and ready to share, and I’m gonna miss that spirit,” he said.

Harris was also a member of the faculty at The Institute for the Musical Arts in Williamsburg. In a social media statement, the institute said that Harris gave it “the best she had[,] which was an exceptional musicality steeped in the church and seemingly channeled straight up out of the earth — giving voice to all.”

In 2017, Harris and guitarist/composer John Cabán played together in a tribute concert for their longtime friend Art Steele, who also lived in western Massachusetts and had worked for Sweet Honey in the Rock for more than 40 years. Harris’ collaboration with Cabán led to the creation of the local blues/rock/soul band StompBoxTrio, which Harris fronted.

Singer-songwriter and composer Marcia Gomes, one of Harris’ longtime friends and musical collaborators, said, “Her voice was more than just art. She sang with her whole heart and her love.” Though Gomes heard Harris perform many of the same songs on multiple occasions, each show was a new experience: with any song, Gomes said, “She never sings it the same way twice.”

Gomes recalled seeing Harris perform at a church in downtown Northampton on a very cold day. In her show, Harris sang four songs, and each one got a standing ovation.

“She moved people to tears,” Gomes said. “Tears!”

Besides her skills as a performer, Gomes also hopes people remember Harris as a “wonderful writer, beautiful writer — just beautiful.”

“When she took that pen and added music to it, it was magic,” she said.

Gomes was part of the 2024 Kennedy Center concert honoring Harris. Before the show, Harris was nervous, worrying that, for a lifetime achievement performance, she’d have to perform better than she’d ever performed before.  

“We said, ‘No, Evelyn, you’re already the best you’ve ever been,’” Gomes said. “‘You just have to have fun!’”

Gomes remembers Harris as a dear friend who left a sizable legacy.

“She really helped me find my soul as an artist,” Gomes said. “I miss her, but I’m determined to make her proud.”

In 2022, Harris became a member of the Young@Heart Chorus, in which “she lit up the stage,” said Young@Heart Director Bob Cilman. “She knew how to really set fire to a song.

“With Evelyn,” he said, “every song was a journey.”

Besides her prowess as a performer — “For me, it’s an honor that somebody of that talent would let me direct them,” Cilman said — Harris was also known for the support and encouragement she gave to her fellow Young@Heart members.

“She inspired so many people in the group, and she was such an amazing talent,” Cilman said. “Her real skill was the way she interpreted things. We’re basically a cover band, and to have somebody be able to do what she did with those songs to make me feel like I was hearing them for the first time — that’s just such an enormous skill.”

Now, in the immediate wake of her unexpected death, “It’s a profound sadness that everybody in the chorus feels,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”