Sips from the Sipp focusing on the history of Southern Black Education and specifically the Utica Institute, a rural school in Mississippi. Hosted by Jean Greene, co-director of the Utica Institute Museum, we cover the history and heritage of our HBCU.
Episode 42: Season 2: Gospel Music in the Black Church Tradition - Curtis Shears
In this episode, host Jean Greene welcomes Mr. Curtis Shears, a lifelong Utica area native whose musical roots stretch back to stomping feet and acapella harmonies in an old wooden country church. Raised in a family of eleven siblings — nine of whom came through Utica Junior College — Curtis was singing from the time he could stand on a step stool in the choir loft. His journey took him from Morningstar Baptist Church to Hinds AHS, where he studied under Dr. Bobby Cooper before earning a music scholarship to Tougaloo College, all while remaining deeply anchored to his home community. Along the way, Dr. Cooper's mentorship, Opera South productions, and a student-run gospel choir that brought down the house at every campus assembly shaped him into the vocalist and music leader he is today.
Curtis also shares the remarkable story of his nearly four-decade membership in the Mississippi Mass Choir, which he joined at its founding in 1987 at the invitation of Frank Williams of the Jackson Southernaires. What began as a local rehearsal grew into a global ministry that has performed in Spain, Japan, and before the Pope — and whose debut album stayed on the charts for 45 weeks. True to his Utica roots, Curtis has never stopped bringing those experiences back home, most recently through the Utica Community Choir, which he helped revive as an ecumenical gathering of voices from churches across the area. For Curtis, every stage he has stood on — from rural Mississippi to international concert halls — has carried the name of Utica with it.
To support Sips from the Sipp and the Utica Institute Museum (http://www.uticainstitute.org), visit our Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/uticainstitute) to become a member!
Support Sips from the Sipp (http://www.patreon.com/uticainstitute)
29 Apr 2026
Episode 41: Season 2: Gospel Music in the Black Church Tradition - Maurice Morgan
In this episode, host Jean Greene sits down with Mr. Maurice Morgan Sr., a gospel guitarist and songwriter whose extraordinary journey took him from a sharecropping family in Wilson, North Carolina, to playing alongside some of the most celebrated names in gospel history — including Willie Banks, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and the Canton Spirituals. Rooted in a grandmother who shouted in the kitchen and a grandfather who played gospel on a scratchy radio in the fields, Maurice grew up steeped in the music before he fully understood it. His career carried him across the country and eventually overseas, performing in Germany and Switzerland with the Five Blind Boys, until gospel music did what it so often does in this podcast — it led him straight to Utica, where a convoy of gospel groups, a white Jeep, and a woman named Angela James changed the course of his life.
Now settled in Utica and recently celebrating his debut solo album Rightful Heir (https://music.apple.com/us/album/rightful-heir/1765164424), Maurice reflects on what gospel music has meant across a lifetime of playing — its power to carry hope to people in hard circumstances, the difference between singing words and singing from the spirit, and the way every great artist develops a signature sound that is entirely their own. Like the guests before him, he has turned his attention to mentoring the next generation, offering his gifts freely to upcoming groups, community funerals, and church programs throughout the area. The episode closes with a shared sense of wonder that a small town like Utica could draw someone with Maurice Morgan's résumé — and keep him.
To support Sips from the Sipp and the Utica Institute Museum (http://www.uticainstitute.org), visit our Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/uticainstitute) to become a member!
Support Sips from the Sipp (http://www.patreon.com/uticainstitute)
22 Apr 2026
Episode 40: Season 2: Gospel Music in the Black Church Tradition - Frank McGriggs
In this episode, host Jean Greene welcomes Mr. Frank McGriggs, a Utica native whose love of gospel quartet music has followed him from childhood church rehearsals to the battlefields of Iraq and back home again. Mr. McGriggs traces his musical roots to age 13, when Mrs. Kathleen McGriggs recruited him into the Traveling Voices, instilling in him not just harmony and technique but a lifelong ethic of service — always take care of home first, and never pass up a benefit program for someone in need. That foundation carried him through military service, where he founded the Voices of Reason in Iraq, and eventually led him into a career in education, where he came to see teaching and gospel ministry as deeply intertwined callings.
The conversation turns to the role of gospel music as a source of hope in a community that has absorbed significant loss — the grocery store, the sewing plant, the bank, the high school — and how quartet music in particular has served as both comfort and continuity for Utica. Mr. McGriggs reflects on the cycle of mentorship that sustains the tradition, noting that just as Mrs. Kathleen once found him as a teenager, he has since taken young singers under his wing and given piano lessons to keep the music alive for the next generation. The episode closes with a shared conviction between host and guest that gospel music, rooted in the spirituals and carried forward through groups like the Utica Southernaires, the Sensational Chosen Voices, and the Voices of Reason, will never die in Utica as long as there are people committed to passing it on.
To support Sips from the Sipp and the Utica Institute Museum (http://www.uticainstitute.org), visit our Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/uticainstitute) to become a member! You'll receive exclusive bonus features including early access to all podcast episodes!
Support Sips from the Sipp (http://www.patreon.com/uticainstitute)
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