This edition of JAMinc Presents features Richmond’s First Family of Gospel Music, the Legendary Ingramettes. Founder Maggie Lee Dixon grew up in Georgia working the cotton and tobacco fields with her parents. She developed a great love for the church and gospel music, teaching herself to sing and play the piano at the age of four. She met and married a young field hand and itinerant preacher, Thomas Ingram while still in her teens, and eventually moved the family to Richmond where Maggie was employed as a housekeeper in the home of civil rights attorney Oliver Hill.
In Richmond, the Ingramettes found their wings, soon sharing the stage with the likes of Shirley Caesar, Clara Ward, and many others. The Ingram family matriarch would take her last breath in the summer of 2015 leaving her legacy in the worthy hands and voice of her daughter Almeta, who continues to grow their mission of love through music.
In 2022 they were awarded the prestigious Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts, and as part of JAMinc’s school outreach program, we took the Ingramettes to perform for the students at Mary Munford Elementary School in May of 2024. We’ll hear that stirring performance during the first half of today’s show and during the 2nd half, some moving tracks from their Live From Richmond album recorded in 2011 when Mama Maggie was still very much with us.
