Backstage Pass: The Como Mamas

Students are invited to join us for an education program with The Como Mamas on January 22 to hear a powerful Gospel performance and learn more about how these three women have taken their music from a small-town Mississippi church to a worldwide audience.

Born in Como, Mississippi with the spirit in their veins, sisters Della and Angela and cousin Ester Mae express their passion through what’s most familiar to them. Music has filled their lives for more than 50 years, through the church and the uplifting sound of their grandfather’s guitar that pulled them through times of turmoil.

The Como Mamas share the Gospel through powerful and compelling vocals, driving both passion and grace into the words they sing. Such emotional and spiritual intensity conveyed through unaccompanied voices is a rare phenomenon, and therefore has garnered much interest over the past years, especially from New York field recorder Michael Reilly and Daptone Records. After hearing the Mamas sing during his first visit to Como in 2005, the only word Reilly could muster up in response was “wow.” Ester Mae knew immediately that it wasn’t his last visit – “The spirit had spoken to me, and sure enough they came back.” Since then the Como Mamas have released two albums with Daptone Records: “Como Now: The Voices of Panola County, Mississippi” in 2008 and “Get an Understanding” in 2013.

The Como Mamas continue to further their career with Daptone Records who in 2014 partnered with the Music Maker Relief Foundation out of mutual interest to keep this musical tradition of gospel alive.