Sister O.M. Terrell

Sister Ola Mae Terrell (18 August 1911 – 3 March 2006; Atlanta, Georgia), also known professionally as Sister O.M. Terrell and born Ola Mae Long, was an American traditional gospel singer, songwriter, and guitarist, known as a "Bottleneck Evangelist" for her distinctive slide guitar accompaniment.

Early Life

Terrell was born Ola Mae Long in Atlanta, Georgia. At the age of eleven, she experienced a religious conversion while attending a Holiness Movement tent revival, a formative encounter with the worship traditions of the era, where hymns and spirituals were performed on whatever instruments were at hand. This early spiritual awakening shaped the course of her life and music thereafter.
 

Career

By the Great Depression, Terrell had become an itinerant evangelist and street musician, using her singing and guitar playing to spread her faith to passers-by, performing original compositions such as "God's Little Birds." She developed a distinctive guitar style, playing in open D (Vestapol) tuning with a slide, a technique heard prominently on tracks such as "The Bible's Right."

For a period, she hosted a regular Sunday live radio programme on WPAL in Charleston, South Carolina, where she came to the attention of station managers Robert T. Christie and Lauren Moore, who helped secure her a recording contract with Columbia Records. In 1953, she recorded her only studio session for the label in Nashville, Tennessee, producing six sides, including "God's Little Birds," "I'm Going to That City," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "The Bible's Right," "Lord I Want You to Lead Me On," and "The Gambling Man," alongside an earlier recording, "Life Is a Problem" backed with "How Long," made for the Playboy label.

Terrell never recorded again following her Columbia session. Her recordings have since been reissued on several archival compilations documenting African American gospel and blues music of the era.

Personal Life

Terrell spent her later years living in a nursing home in Conyers, Georgia, where she passed away in 2006. Long overlooked during her lifetime relative to her talent, she has since been recognised by musicologists and gospel and blues enthusiasts as a significant, if underdocumented, figure whose fervent vocal delivery and virtuosic slide guitar playing captured some of the most powerful recordings of the post-war gospel and Delta blues traditions.