The Front Porch and Center for Cultural Vibrancy present The Legendary Ingramettes of Richmond, VA, Saturday, August 1st at 5 pm.

Six decades of music, sixty-five years of song, generations tied together through the force of will of a matriarchy of powerful Black women. This is the African-American gospel group The Legendary Ingramettes, founded by Maggie Ingram (who passed away in 2015) as a way to keep her family together through hardship.  

Inspired by the Black gospel male quartets of the 1940s and 50s, now known as Richmond, Virginia’s “First Family of Gospel Music,” The Legendary Ingramettes bring roof-raising harmonies and explosively powerful vocals, all driven by the voices of women backed by a rock-solid house-shaking rhythm section.

Richmond, Virginia, has long been celebrated as a “Gospel town” for its legacy of vibrant Black gospel groups and choirs. Among the city’s generations of countless groups, the Legendary Ingramettes have become beloved cultural icons in the community. Music is one of many forms of ministry they have practiced, and the one they are most famous for. The storied group was originally formed by evangelist “Mama” Maggie Ingram, a single mother who steadfastly taught her five small children to accompany her as her “Ingramettes.”

Born Maggie Lee Dixon on July 4, 1930, on Mulholland’s Plantation in Coffee County, Georgia, she grew up 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. While still a teenager, she met and married a young field hand and itinerant preacher, Thomas Ingram, and together they had five children. Thomas eventually moved the family to Miami, where Maggie developed as a performer and joined the popular local group called the Six Trumpets.

Thomas left the family in 1961, leaving Maggie Ingram alone to raise the children. In a desperate effort to keep her family together, Ingram followed a calling to move the family to Richmond, Virginia, a harrowing journey in the pre-civil rights South. Upon their arrival, the family was taken in by the local Church of God In Christ. The local social service agency found Ingram employment as a housekeeper in the home of Oliver W. Hill Sr., the prominent civil rights attorney who had represented the Virginia plaintiffs in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

It was in Richmond that the Ingramettes took flight, soon sharing the stage with the likes of Shirley Caesar, Clara Ward and many others. Ingram composed numerous local hits before signing with the storied gospel label Nashboro Records. All the while, the Ingramettes refused many offers to join secular groups, including, most famously, James Brown.

Ingram developed Alzheimer’s in her later years, and gracefully passed the leadership of the group into the capable hands of her oldest daughter, Almeta Ingram-Miller, before Maggie’s passing in 2015. A scintillating singer in her own right, Ingram-Miller is now backed by sister-in-law Carrie Ingram Jackson, Maggie’s goddaughter Valerie Stewart, and Jaccarri Woodson, and a rock-solid band of Patrick Newby on keyboards, Calvin “Kool-Aid” Curry on bass, Kenny Heath on drums, and Kenneth Curry on guitar.

Together, the Ingramettes continue to bring the spirit of a Sunday morning service to the stage, enthralling audiences at such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center, National Folk Festival, and countless others across the United States. Before Covid struck, the group toured Serbia and Bulgaria with the U.S. State Department and released Take a Look in the Book, their first recording since Ingram’s passing. In 2020, Almeta and Carrie were presented with honorary doctorates (D.S.M.) from Higher Learning Bible Institute International Seminary, just as Ingram had received from Virginia Triumphant College and Seminary in 2011, a remarkable achievement for a woman with only a third-grade education. The Ingramettes were honored with the NEA’s 2022 National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor the United States bestows on traditional artists.

Photo credit: Pat Jarrett

Text: Jon Lohman

This is a seated indoor show. Seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 4:30 PM. Music starts at 5 PM. For more information, check out our FAQs!