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.
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 and play an old upright piano in the barn on the plantation 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 in the 50’s, where Maggie developed as a performer and joined the popular local group called the Six Trumpets. Through unfortunate circumstances, Thomas left the family in Miami, leaving Maggie alone to raise the children. In a desperate effort to keep her family together, Ingram followed a calling of God 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 was co-counsel and had represented the Virginia plaintiffs in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.
It was in Richmond that Maggie Ingram and the Ingramettes took flight, soon sharing the stage with the likes of Shirley Caesar, Clara Ward, The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and many others. Maggie Ingram composed numerous local hits before signing her children with the storied gospel label Nashboro Records. All the while, Ingram refused many offers to join secular groups, including James Brown.
When Maggie developed Alzheimer’s in her later years, she gracefully passed the leadership of the group into the capable hands of her oldest daughter, Almeta Ingram-Miller, before Ingram’s passing in 2015. A scintillating, powerhouse singer in her own right, Ingram-Miller is now backed by her sister-in-law Carrie Ingram Jackson, Maggie’s God-daughter Valerie Stewart, and Jaccari Woodson. Their band members include Patrick Newby on keys, Calvin “Kool-Aid” Curry on bass, and Gary Jones on percussion.
Together, the Legendary Ingramettes continue to bring the spirit of a Sunday morning service to the stage, enthralling audiences at such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center, The Library of Congress, The National Folk Festival, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and countless others across the United States. The group has also become an international sensation, touring Serbia and Bulgaria with the U.S. State Department, and Ireland.
In 2020, Almeta and Carrie were presented with honorary doctorate degrees in Sacred Music (D.S.M.) from Higher Learning Bible Institute International Seminary, and in 2022, the National Endowment for the Arts named The Legendary Ingramettes National Heritage Fellows. This is the highest honor the U.S. government bestows on traditional artists. As Heritage Fellows, they join the ranks of other prominent artists such as BB King, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and Shirley Caesar.