For me growing up, it was nothing but gospel.

And you know, we all go through what we go through.

We can listen to what we listen to.

But when you listen to gospel in the Delta, it's very soulful and spiritual.

Those hymns like This Little Light of Mine All those songs keeps you going.

That was led by vocalist Kiara Robertson, one of our former music majors at Coahoma Community College, who now attends Mississippi Valley State University.

I am Dr. Rolando Herts, Director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University, and Executive Director of the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, a cultural heritage development partnership with the National Park Service.

The Spirit of the Blues Project has helped to create physical and virtual spaces for understanding how the blues, spirituals, and gospel music collectively interpret African American life and culture as a sweeping story of human survival, tenacity, endurance, and brilliant creativity.

Gospel music and the blues share a unique relationship, reflecting two sides of the same coin.

Many African American singers have performed in both fields.

African American theologian James Cone has written, "The blues and the spirituals flow from the same bedrock of experience, and neither is an adequate interpretation of black life without the other."

He travels the world playing the blues, and today he'll play some gospel for us.

Will you please give a big round of applause to welcome a man of spectacular class, Mr. Jontavious Willis.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

Hey, if y'all back there, y'all don't mind, a few of you all help me out, just a little bit I'm gonna sing this a cappella.

A few of the songs I won't be able to tell you the history about, but I can tell you about the general consensus I have came up with by going through many revivals and spending many time a lot of time with my grandparents who introduced me to the gospel at an early age.

I currently play blues at 98%, 99% of my shows and rarely do gospel songs.

I grew up on gospel.

That's when I was three years old and I started singing in church with my grandparents and a little Baptist church in Greenville, Georgia, a little small place in West Georgia.

So the first time that I'd sang gospel was in my family church in Bourbon, Mississippi.

It was a family choir and I always as a kid watching them sing in the choir, just trying to mimic everything they do and hearing my aunties sing.

For me growing up, it was nothing but gospel.

And you know, we all go through what we go through.

We can listen to what we listen to.

But when you listen to gospel in the delta, it's very soulful and spiritual.

Those hymns, like This Little Light of Mine, all those songs keeps you going.

I think about everything that I've been through.

I think about everything that I've gone through, I'm going to go through, and I have to try to encourage myself in that song.

And so when I'm singing, I'm singing to not only the audience but to myself.

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine.

Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome to the stage the conductor, director, and producer of the Coahoma Community College Concert Choir, Dr. Kelvin Towers.

One is often remiss about the significance of a genre of music if there is not some understanding, even if so brief, of the history and context of its development.

African-American gospel music, or in the black community, gospel music, is one such musical art form which spans its development from the deeply rooted Negro spirituals to the resonant sounds of soul and the rhythm and blues.

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

We'll end our presentation with a highly energetic jubilant arrangement by yours truly led by a former CCC and now Delta State University student, Mr. Tae'Angelo Carter, and conducted by our assistant choir director, This Little Light of Mine.

Thank you.

We hope that you enjoyed our presentation.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's give them one more big round of applause.

The Coahoma Community College Concert Choir under the direction of Dr. Kelvin Towers!