LaRhonda Steele (Portland) is a gospel singer recognized as one the region’s best rhythm and blues vocalists. Recent achievements include an invitation to sing in Porretta Italy (2018) with the Pistoia gospel choir as well as a 7-city tour of South America (2017) for teaching the history of blues and gospel as a part of Colombia’ Blues and Folk Festival.
Bio
LaRhonda Steele (Portland) is a gospel singer recognized as one the region’s best rhythm and blues vocalists. She grew up in the rural town of Spencer, Oklahoma, where her grandfather was an evangelist. Her mother sang in a gospel quartet and the family sang as part of their daily routine—Steele and her older sister harmonized as they did their daily chores. As teenagers, both sisters joined a small church choir in a nearby community where the preacher recognized Steele’s immense vocal talents. The hymns and songs she sang included “Blessed Assurance,” “Amazing Grace,” and “Going Up Yonder.” Steele performed solos before services around the region, and by the time she was 16, she was directing her first choir. LaRhonda Steele moved from Oklahoma to Portland after college to live with her aunt Jean Stadamire. Steele began meeting other musicians in the local African-American community and sang in an a Capella gospel group. Traditionally, this kind of unison harmony singing involves lining out or call and response and does not use sheet music. Steele’s church connections opened opportunities for her to perform elsewhere. She performed at the World Arts Foundation Inc. Martin Luther King Celebration, and music producer Ken Berry invited her to sing with his band Time Sound. Since 1993, Steele has regularly performed at Portland’s Waterfront Blues Festival, The Grotto (with the Portland Interfaith Gospel Choir which she is director), and the MLK Celebration. She has sung with such well-known musicians as Janis Scoggins, Linda Hornbuckle, Curtis Salgado, Obo Addy, Mel Brown, and Norman Sylvester. Steele has produced 5 CDs, and she won three Muddy awards for Best Female Vocalist leading to her induction into the Cascade Blues Hall of Fame. This year, she was inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. About her work as director of an interfaith Gospel choir Steele says “We are not a religious choir, we sing Black Gospel Music to keep the art form alive.” She explains, “by teaching the American art form of Black Gospel music no matter what the [religious] message is, the [overall] message is of freedom of a people who were in an oppressive situation, an oppressive life, reaching for the higher good. Still believing there is a higher good. What that music does, is [celebrates] that spark of life, that part of the human spirit that says ‘no matter what my situation is, I am reaching higher. I am more than this situation that I am in.” Recent achievements include an invitation to sing in Porretta Italy (2018) with the Pistoia gospel choir as well as a 7-city tour of South America (2017) for teaching the history of blues and gospel as a part of Colombia’ Blues and Folk Festival. She calls her latest CD Spirit of Freedom the most important one she’s done so far. It is a collaboration with Karen Haberman Trusty who tells of her experiences on the front line of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights movement in the South, while LaRhonda sing the songs that they sang during the marches and meetings. She states that her CD is “Culturally authentic and it’s message is true still.”
