Witnessing the Como Mamas, the amazing gospel group from Como, Mississippi, on stage will transport you. No matter if you see them at a festival or a concert hall, where you wind up is in church. 

They sing the old hymns of the Black Baptist church. When the Como Mamas’ first album, “Get an Understanding,” came out on the Daptone label in 2013, Fredara Hadley, an African American musicology professor at the Juilliard School of Music, raved about it in a review for Black Grooves. 

“It is the music that my grandmother and her prayer band sang at the side of countless sickbeds,” Hadley wrote. “It is the sound the older ladies at St. James Missionary Baptist Church in Riviera Beach, Florida, sang every time the doors of the church opened. I know this music.”

Ester Mae Wilbourn stands in front of her home just after its new tin roof was completed.

It is music that will raise the faith of anyone who hears it. But faith without works, they say, is dead. 

Music Maker has supported the Como Mamas for several years through our Music Development and Sustenance programs, and last year, when the group’s lead singer, Ester Mae Williams, ran into some hard times, Music Maker had to put some work behind our faith in the Como Mamas.

Last year, Wilbourn moved after a divorce into a home her family had left to her, but bringing the home up to snuff was another matter entirely. We first got a new tin roof installed on the house, and recently we learned that the builder we hired had finished his work on a brand new kitchen for Ester Mae. The next project on the list is to get Ester Mae’s septic system repaired.

“Working with Music Maker has shown me the love that people have for artists,” Ester Mae told us recently. “Even all across the world when audiences didn’t speak the language, I could feel the love of the music. I truly feel in my heart that Music Maker cares for the artists, and you all show us so much love and caring.”

That love Ester Mae speaks of — the magic that happens when an artist on a stage connects with an audience — comes from people like you, the donors and supporters of Music Maker. And until the pandemic lifts and we can put our partner artists on the road again and the magic of live music returns, we must still meet the needs of these precious musicians. 

Please consider a donation to Music Maker to help us do this work.

— Tim Duffy

Ester Mae’s new kitchen.