Celebration of Bluffton’s Gullah influence is sweet music to today’s ears | Opinion

Luke Peeples could hear things the rest of us couldn’t hear.

And now, 30 years after the beloved Bluffton eccentric passed away , he is helping us see things we need to see.

The quiet, smallish, virtuoso musician from a family of 11 boys all named for apostles saw plenty where others saw want.

He saw — and heard — the beauty of the Gullah culture that infused the South Carolina Lowcountry of the 20th century. He appreciated the character of families then not far removed from slavery.

Peeples didn’t try to co-opt the culture or make money off of it. He documented it in the best way he knew how — through musical compositions.

We need to see what he saw today, as Gullah land ownership shrinks and customs fade in a fast-food world of cookie-cutter neighborhoods.

His unusual talents will be celebrated in Bluffton at 6 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 25, when the Historic Bluffton Foundation presents “ A Gullah Spirituals Concert Celebrating the Music and Life of Luke Peeples ” at the Campbell Chapel AME Church at 25 Boundary St.

The famous Hallelujah Singers and members of choirs from Campbell Chapel AME, First Zion Baptist and St. John Baptist churches in Bluffton and Tabernacle Baptist in Beaufort will perform with pianist Lea Smith under the direction of Marlena Smalls .

Smalls organized the Hallelujah Singers “to preserve the melodies and storytelling unique to the South Carolina Sea Islands,” and they have won many awards as they have taken this special gift to the world.

Peeples himself was expected to command the world stage as a pianist. He first turned heads as a 4-year-old when he walked to the family’s new piano and played note for note what he had heard his aunt play.

Peeples was not expected to work in the family store in the rustic wooden building known today as The Store, where Babbie Guscio helped establish Bluffton’s cool vibe before we knew what a vibe was.

But after graduating with honors from the Atlanta Conservatory of Music, Peeples did come home. The children of an out-of-the-way village on the May River grew up thinking it was normal to hear Beethoven when walking down Calhoun Street.

Peeples was known to have perfect pitch and an ability to hear musical notes in everything from church bells to bleating donkeys.

He listened outside Gullah churches and praise houses to the songs piercing the night, and he would transcribe and translate the music and lyrics of this oral tradition.

The concert will feature his works “Dolphus’ Lament,” inspired by waterman Edward “Dolphus” Blake who worked the river alongside an old dolphin he called Willie, and “Trus’in in duh Lawd,” inspired by his close friend Celia Cheney Ferguson Carroll, known as Maum Celie. It incorporates the musical notes of a braying donkey, Atlas.

Only one public concert of his works was ever held during his lifetime. All his papers ended up in bags in a closet at his sister’s home, and in 2014 the music and stories held in that dark corner were shared with the world by two nieces in the book, “A Gullah Psalm.” An exhibit from that collection will be displayed at the Historic Bluffton Foundation’s Heyward House, and the book has been reprinted for sale there.

Pastor Gwendolyn Green of St. John Baptist Church will speak at the concert, as will Fred Hamilton, Emmett McCracken, Allyne Mitchell and Ellen Malphrus.

Malphrus will discuss Peeples’s poetry. His poems were often published in The Island Packet, and, like his musical compositions, they are complex. He gave his godson, the late Tommy Heyward, a Christmas poem titled “Than Fiction Yet Stranger, This.”

Event organizer Sylvia Sparkman Coker said the poetry and all of his music reveal how strongly the Gullah culture affected Peeples.

“He recognized very early on the rich, rich cultural texture of the Gullah around him,” she said. “He was impressed by their faith and their resilience. It was really powerful to him, and he wanted to capture it. It’s a great part of history for us to remember.”

Today, more than ever, we need to hear what Luke Peeples heard, and see what he saw.