I don’t know, maybe it was those weeks that we spent with Mama Tomp during the summer that led us to believe that we could sing.  For the one week during the summer that we would spend with my maternal grandparents in North Carrollton, Mississippi, my sisters and brother and I became a traveling mini-choir. Our tour consisted of Mama Tomp’s friends’ houses around town. There were no roadies; our only equipment was our beautiful, melodic voices. I laugh at that notion. . . .

Tomp and Mama Tomp went to a Baptist church that sang some hymns that we rarely sang in our little Methodist church in Star, so we would have to brush up on her chosen song...

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