Bishop Dready Manning

Bishop Dready Manning (born 1934) is an American guitarist, harmonica player, singer, and songwriter who plays gospel music infused with Piedmont blues elements. He is also the founder of St. Mark Holiness Church in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina and a North Carolina Arts Council Folk Heritage Award winner.

Biography

Dready Manning was born in 1934 in Northampton County, North Carolina, in the farming community of Gaston.[1] He grew up in a family of sharecroppers who grew cotton, peanuts, and corn. In their free time, Manning’s parents invited local blues musicians into their home to play guitars and harmonicas. When Manning was seven years old, he began learning how to fingerpick guitar.[1] His skills improved over time and by his teenage years Manning had earned a reputation as a master of blues guitar and harmonica.[2] His style was influenced by Piedmont blues musicians such as Blind Boy Fuller, Brownie McGhee, and Buddy Moss.[1]

As a young bluesman, Manning played in clubs and sold moonshine. According to his wife Marie, he was "out of hand."[1] In 1962, around age 30, Manning came down with a mysterious illness that caused unstoppable bleeding from his nose. His family and neighbors, who were members of a local Holiness church, prayed over him, using the Christian ritual of laying on hands.[2]

When Manning heard their prayers, he felt the bleeding stop. "I had a converted mind right then... I knew that the Lord had worked a miracle."[1] From that day on, he disavowed the blues and pledged to use his musical talents to serve God.[2]

He and his wife, known as Mother Marie, founded St. Mark Holiness Church in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.[2] Manning began composing sacred songs, performing for prayer meetings and revivals, and releasing gospel recordings. With his wife and their six children he developed a distinctive gospel sound by the late 1960s.[1] Marie Manning sings powerful old-time gospel while Bishop Manning plays hard-driving guitar. Along with their five children they formed the Manning Family gospel singers.[3]

Manning has also been a long-time host of a Sunday morning radio show on WSMY in Weldon, North Carolina.[3]

Bishop Manning’s grown children now take the lead when he performs with his family, but Manning continues to play at St. Mark Holiness Church and St. Mark Mission in Scotland Neck, North Carolina. Manning is credited with keeping an older gospel tradition alive.[1]

Bishop Manning and his wife Marie have been invited to perform throughout the United States and Europe, but the needs of their parishioners have kept them rooted to their home county.

Folk Heritage Award

In 2003, Bishop Manning won a North Carolina Arts Council Folk Heritage Award.[4]

The Award "recognizes individuals throughout North Carolina who have demonstrated long-time contributions and commitments to the cultural life — and, in particular, the artistic expressions — of their local communities."[5]

It is awarded to North Carolina’s "most eminent folk artists" in order to "deepen awareness of the rich and diverse cultural traditions of people in North Carolina."[6]

Bishop Dready Manning Day

Mayor Drewery N. Beale, mayor of Roanoke Rapids, NC, proclaimed April 8, 2003 "Bishop Dready Manning Day" in that city. The Proclamation listed six celebratory clauses that document Manning's history and contributions.

Recordings

Bishop Manning has recorded several gospel 45s on his own Manning, B.L.M., Peatock, and Nashbrand labels. Some of these were reissued in 2011 in a set by Fat Possum Records’ Big Legal Mess subsidiary called Converted Mind. In the 1970s, Manning recorded for Memorial Records and Hoyt Sullivan’s Su-Ann imprint. Through the Music Maker Relief Foundation, he recorded the album Gospel Train.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "Bishop Dready Manning," Charlotte Folk Society, Accessed 28 March 2014, Available at: http://www.folksociety.org/2011_12/BishopManning.shtml
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Scott Sharpe, "The Bishop Rocks the House," The News & Observer, 16 March 2003.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Steve Leggett, "Bishop Manning," AllMusic, Accessed 28 March 2014, Available at http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bishop-manning-mn0001731971
  4. ↑ "N.C. Arts Council Folk Heritage Award Recipients," The News & Observer, 20 April 2003.
  5. ↑ Folder NF-3355, Manning, Bishop Dready, Proclamation of "Bishop Dready Manning Day," in the Southern Folklife Collection Artist Name File #30005, Southern Folklife Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  6. ↑ "The North Carolina Heritage Award," N.C. Arts Council, Accessed 28 March 2014, Available at: http://ncarts.org/economic-development/folk-traditional-arts/heritageaward/>