When she is singing, everything goes away for Sally Windhorn. The barred windows and razor wire are gone. The football field-sized compound of maximum security Metro State Prison, where she’s spent the last three years of her life, could be big as the sky.
“No one is around. I don’t see anything when I’m singing,” she said.
Windhorn, nearing the end of her sentence for theft by conversion, and 31 other singers in Chaplain Susan Bishop’s choir have been busting out a lot lately, with gospel tunes to sooth the soul or take the spirit flying.
Thanks to Indigo Girl Emily Saliers, the women are sharing their musical freedom on a new CD, “Voices of Hope.”
The CD is a first for a Georgia prison choir, said spokeswoman Kristen Stancil.
Grammy winner Saliers sings a duet with Windhorn and adds her voice to other cuts on the CD.
“This has been one of the most rewarding and thrilling projects I’ve been involved in,” Saliers said.
She provided financial backing and helped Bishop develop the project. Bishop was a divinity student of her father Don Saliers at Emory University and reached out to Emily Saliers with the CD idea.
Bishop has spent more than 25 years as a prison chaplain. She has always loved directing choirs and is known for demanding excellence.
“Some [people on the outside] do not value the arts,” she said.
But working in a choir provides discipline, learning, teamwork and study. And it helps the singers spiritually as well.
“The music is alive. It can create transcendent moments ... transport you out of the ordinary circumstances of your life,” she said.
She took the choir to sing at a prayer breakfast attended by prison Commissioner Brian Owens. The choir travels occasionally with guards to perform. He was impressed enough that he wrote on a napkin “Recording studio, Metro State Prison,” and pushed it across a table to her.
Bishop took up the challenge. When the choir was later performing at Emory’s Cannon Chapel, she had already made her contact with Saliers and the recording equipment was waiting for them.
The choir and Saliers performed Wednesday in the prison’s gym to debut “Voices of Hope.” It contains classical songs, such as “Joyful, Joyful,” traditional gospel such as “King Jesus Will Roll All Burdens Away,” and contemporary hymns, such as “Perfect Praise.”
About 60 of the prison’s 1,000 inmates and a few dozen guests listened to four songs and shared cake and punch. Saliers pulled back a purple cloth to unveil the CD, which was mounted in a picture frame with a photo of the women in their robes.
Proceeds from the sale of the CD will help pay for a program that brings children to visit their mothers at the prison.
Vanessa Williams, a choir member serving a life sentence for murder, said it is stunning to realize what they have pulled off.
“When you look around on the inside, and you are doing something for others on the outside, you can’t describe the feeling,” she said.
Bishop said, “God has work for us to do, no matter who you are, no matter where you are.”
Go to http://www.cccgeorgia.org/ and click on the “Voices of Hope” request down the page to buy the CD for $15.
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