By Sym Posey | For The Birmingham Times
Choir Director Allen Pruitt Jr. can still remember the look of joy on the face of the woman who was in hospice.
“[She] was the mother of my wife’s best friend and the year prior we went to a birthday gathering and they sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ I was just playing around with the end, and her mother loved me from there. My wife’s friend said that is all she talked about. It was like five seconds, that was it.
“When we were told that she was on hospice, I said, ‘I would love to put something together for her.’ We went by and she passed within that week but the joy you could see on her face … That means more than anything else.”
Pruitt, Minister of Music at Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and Choir Director with Refresh Family Church, said he loves to sing and perform, but for him it’s more about reaching people. “I want to be able to touch each person musically and spiritually so that they can receive whatever they need,” he said. “I love to see people and how blessed they are from just the experience of what I am doing and the impact that they receive from it.”
He added, “I’m not an accolades chaser, to tell you the truth I’m not a position chaser. I’ve received things, but just the opportunity to be able to minister to people is enough,” he said.
It’s very simple for him, he said. “I love music. I love background, I love choirs. I love trying to put the voices together, even if they don’t sing as well. There is a place for everyone,” said Pruitt.
Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Pruitt moved to Alabama and was raised by his grandmother from six months old in Edgewater, northeast from Birmingham, along with his younger brother. “I was an only child for six years, and then he came to live with us, and she [Pruitt’s grandmother] adopted both of us,” he said.
Pruitt’s love for music came at every young age.
“I remember sitting in front of the television at five years old, maybe a little earlier than that, and just sitting there and watching some of the music things that were on. I even watched Lawrence Welk when he came on late at night. I got a guitar for my birthday present, and I would sit there and just strum along with whatever was playing on the television.”
Music Lessons
As that love continued to grow, his grandmother asked him about taking music lessons. “We didn’t have anybody that taught guitar in Edgewater, Alabama, but we had a lady name Rosalie Pritchett who taught piano. My grandmother said, ‘…you can take piano,’ and I started there,” said Pruitt.
Pruitt’s grandmother, Emma M. Williams, passed in 2011, one month away from 100.
“Her birthday was December 25th. She was my foundation and my biggest cheerleader. She saw what I’m doing now them. I wouldn’t be doing anything that I’m doing now if it wasn’t for her. She imparted, nurtured, and covered [my brother and I].”
“I tell people, we weren’t poor, we were po,” he said jokingly, adding, “but I didn’t know it. I didn’t know we didn’t have any money. The things that we were able to do, I look back and I’m amazed. Whatever we needed, she was able to get it.
Pruitt can recall the Christmas he got his first piano at age 5. “My grandmother told me this story. I didn’t know how they were going to get it. They asked me what I wanted, and I said, ‘a piano.’ She said she talked to my grandad, and he said he didn’t know how they were going to get it and I ended up with one of these big old pianos.”
Pruitt attended West End High School until 1984, and continued his education at Jefferson State Community College before he graduated from UAB in 1994.
“I had an opportunity to go to Atlanta twice to do music. After graduating from high school, a mega church [pastor] came over, I don’t remember which one, but he came over with his deacon and he told me it was just something about me and I didn’t go. I was a grandmother’s child,” he said.
After finishing at UAB, Pruitt found himself in need of a job. A friend at the time happened to be the station manager for a local radio gospel station at the time (WAYE 1220 AM) and he helped Pruitt get the job where Pruitt did the music, commercials, and editing.
“I had an ideal situation,” Pruitt said. “He had me to come up and so I got there and then I needed certain things because I’m a musician.”
Pruitt said he went in and, “just laid everything that I needed out on the table.
“They gave me everything I asked for,” said Pruitt, who wanted more flexibility in his schedule to do music, but he eventually would leave radio in 1996 to pursue music full time with New Rising Star in East Lake.
“Not About The Money”
“I heard a voice say, ‘if it wasn’t about the money, would you keep this job?’ And I was like, no, ‘well let it go,’” said Pruitt.
For Pruitt, he always knew he wanted to have a career in music despite what others around him may have thought. “It was something that was said by my uncle when I graduated high school. He asked me what I was going to major in, and I said, ‘music.’ He was like music’s not going to help you do anything unless you’re teaching, otherwise, you’re not going to make it.”
When he’s not performing at the churches, you can find him working with Call II Worship, a group he put together for his wedding 15 years ago. “They felt that they sounded so good and I told them. ‘It’s been great working with y’all, and I appreciate what y’all are going to do’ and they said, ‘we have to keep this thing together,’” Pruitt recalled.
Being involved in the community is the name of the game for the ensemble. At the beginning of August, the 23 members hosted a back-to-school rally for students in need.
Pruitt currently resides in Ensley, Alabama with his wife, Deborah. The couple celebrate their 15-year anniversary this month.
