By Sym Posey | The Birmingham Times
During choir rehearsal one afternoon while a student at Birmingham’s Ramsay High School, Prince Yelder was overcome with such emotion that no one could understand except his teacher.
“We sang this anthem. It was more classical material, and there should be no shouting in it because it is classical,” Yelder recalled. “The song was … ‘Out in the Fields with God.’ … When we finished it, it has a big ending to it. Our choir director would cut it off at the end of the song, and I’d go, ‘Hallelujah,’ and the other choir members started laughing at me.
“[They] were like, ‘You big dummy! You know you are not supposed to shout over a classical song.’ [Our choir director] told them to shut up and leave me alone and said, ‘[Yelder] gets it.’ And that is when I knew.”
Yelder knew then that he should pursue a career in music — and 45 years later, he’s still at it.
Few currently in Birmingham represent Black Music Month like Dr. Prince E. Yelder, 58, who serves as the minister of music at Mission Baptist Church in Gadsden, Alabama, and director of the Birmingham Community Mass Choir.
“I’ve been doing gospel for 45 years, and I’ve been the [Mass Choir’s] minister of music for 35 years,” he said. “Everybody you see can’t do that kind of work. There has to be some type of connection to God.”
Yelder recently celebrated his musical anniversary at two events in two Alabama cities: an Honors Banquet was held on May 29, in Birmingham at the Botanical Gardens, and an Honors Musical took place on June 1, at Mission Baptist Church in Gadsden, when he has served since 2017.
“Since I am [at Mission Baptist in Gadsden], I might as well, you know, do some celebrating,” he said.
Yelder has been associated with some of gospel’s most renowned figures dating back to his start with the Birmingham Community Mass Choir.
“I remember being at a program at Bethel Baptist, Pratt City, where the choir was on program,” he said. “I had not become a member, [but] Dr. John David Brown, … director [of the choir], walked up to me and threw me his keys to hold. He went up and directed the first song, then he turned and asked me if I remembered the song, ‘I’ll Be A Witness’ by Dr. Robert Fryson. I said ‘Yes,’ then he pulled me up, [and] we had church!”
The next night, Yelder joined the choir and remained part of it for 35 years.
“Since age 18, I haven’t had to wonder what I was going to do on Monday nights,” said Yelder, who served as the choir’s minister of music for 28 of the 35 years.
“Praise Into Worship”
Yelder also served as minister of music at New Hope Baptist Church in Birmingham from 2001 to 2017, taking helm of the music ministry following two of Birmingham’s gospel greats: Ruby Boyd and Dr. John David Brown.
The church choir’s first recording under Yelder’s direction was an independent release, “Praise Into Worship.” It was recorded in front of a standing-room-only crowd and featured singles like “I Still Remember” and “In Spirit and in Truth.”
Yelder also produced Bishop Leonard Scott’s “Hymns and Church Songs Live from Alabama,” released on Tyscot Records in 2006 as a DVD and CD, featuring the church’s music ministry. “Sing Unto the King,” a video from that project, was in rotation on Black Entertainment Television (BET) and listed on the Billboard Gospel chart.
Following a statewide tour and national exposure from the release, the New Hope Mass Choir won the Steve Harvey Neighborhood Award for Best Church Choir in America in 2007, beating nominees from cities like Chicago, Illinois. The choir has performed in concert with BET Sunday Best and Grammy Award-winner Le’Andria Johnson, the late great singer, songwriter, and pastor Walter Hawkins, and legendary gospel vocalist Dorothy Norwood, to name a few.
Also during Yelder’s tenure at New Hope, the church hosted several well-known gospel artists, including Kurt Carr and the Kurt Carr Singers, along with Karen Clark-Sheard, Kathy Taylor, VaShawn Mitchell, Wanda Nero Butler, LaShun Pace, DeWayne Woods, Ted Winn, Smokie Norful, RiZen, James Fortune and FIYA, Vickie Yohe, and Earnest Pugh.
“I never dreamed that I would do some of things God has let me do,” he said.
Mother’s Love
Yelder was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and his family moved to Alabama when he was a baby because his father was stationed in the Air Force. He grew up in Birmingham’s Woodlawn neighborhood, along with his two older siblings. Because he was the youngest, he was spoiled, he said, “but, in our family, we were poor. You did not have a whole lot of opportunities to be spoiled because we all had to do what we all had to do.”
Music has always been a part of Yelder’s life. He credits his mother, Annie Laura Macon, for introducing him to music and being his first teacher. As a singer herself, “she instilled music in me,” Yelder said.
“In our household, we listened to Walter Hawkins and Andraé Crouch all the time on the radio, on albums,” he added, noting that his mother was well known among gospel musicians.
“People would invite her to concerts and programs and stuff,” Yelder recalled. “That’s how [music] got in me.”
The first time he learned anything about a piano, it came from his mother.
“One day, I was listening to the stereo. We had one of those long wooden ones, and I would listen to gospel and do my fingers like I was playing the piano. My mom was like, ‘Do you want to play?’ And I said, ‘Yes ma’am.’ She took me over to our little broken down piano. My grandma just had it in the house for whatever reason. She prayed for my hands, then she got a black marker and wrote [letters of the musical alphabet—A, B, C, D, E, F, and G], on the piano keyboard, and said, ‘That is all mama knows. You’re going to learn the rest.’”
By age 13, Yelder was playing piano for Faith Mission Church, on Avenue D in Birmingham’s Ensley neighborhood. His mother also recognized his gift of song. In fact, Yelder’s first performance was during one of his mother’s concerts.
“She allowed me to sing, ‘Someday We’ll Meet Again’ by Walter Hawkins, and I was so nervous,” he recalled. “She just kept telling me to breathe.”
Directing Choirs
While attending Ramsay High School, Yelder refined his vocal skills, spending all four years in the choir, under the direction of Dr. James Pruitt.
“[He] instilled something in my spirit that made me enjoy the teaching part of [singing],” said Yelder. “He was such a great teacher that I was like, ‘I want to teach people like that.’”
By the time Yelder graduated in 1985, he had already started directing church and community choirs. “My friends and I would go to [concerts and church programs] to sing, and they would always encourage me to direct. They’d say, ‘Let Prince direct. He knows what he is doing.’ I didn’t know, but it just began to build from there,” he said.
At 18, he became director of the Birmingham Mass Choir, after singing in the tenor section: “I was selected to be the minister of music by the founder of the organization.”
Yelder had planned to attend college to become a music educator, but he got a job offer he couldn’t resist. “At a concert, a radio owner asked me if I would start working for him at WAYE 1220 AM in Birmingham,” said Yelder, who went on to spend 35 years on air.
Traveled the World
The Birmingham Community Mass Choir began in 1968, when the late Rev. James Cleveland had a dream of organizing a chapter of the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA), “a Christian organization convening annually with intergenerational global performances [that] include choirs, recording artists, composers, educators, dancers, and pastors,” according to the organization’s website. “The [GMWA] has been the launching platform for worldwide gospel artists.”
Cleveland asked Ed Smith of Detroit, Michigan, to travel to Birmingham and find someone who could lead the Alabama area for the GMWA. He went to WENN-AM/FM and spoke with the Rev. Erskine Faush, who had a daily morning gospel program. Faush recommended Mary K. Elsaw, who was serving as pianist and assistant director of the daycare at New Pilgrim Baptist Church.
“Mrs. Mary K. Elsaw , along with [the] Rev. James Cleveland, founded the Birmingham Mass Choir, and I joined in 1985 as a singer in the men’s section,” said Yelder, who has since traveled the world.
His most memorable trip was in 2013, when he traveled to Switzerland during the Voice of Gospel tour.
“[Event organizers] would pull from who they thought were hot gospel choirs in the [United] States and then bring them to Switzerland to sing. Me and 25 other people were flown to Switzerland, all expenses paid. They even paid us. We sang every night doing 14 concerts in Switzerland to packed houses, like [the size of downtown Birmingham’s] Alabama Theater. There were no empty seats, and the [audience] paid as much as $100 to see us. We felt like stars for real.”
Yelder has been signed to major labels, including Malaco Records, based in Jackson, Mississippi, and Tyscot Records, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, and he has recorded with some of the big names in gospel, including Dorothy Norwood, James Bignon, and Beverly Crawford. Nonetheless, Yelder considers singing in Switzerland and performing at the Stellar Gospel Music Awards his most memorable performances.
“We sang on the 22nd annual Stellar Awards in 2007, when it was in Atlanta, Georgia,” said Yelder, adding that he never imagined music taking him this far.
“I remember specifically listening to an album by Andraé Crouch [that featured] live concerts at [New York City’s] Carnegie Hall. During the concert, they were singing, and you could hear the big, humongous crowds screaming and clapping. … I was like, ‘Wow! One day, you know, I’d love to do that’—and so, somehow it has happened,” he said.
With all that Yelder has accomplished, many in Birmingham’s music community refer to him as a legend, but he doesn’t see himself that way.
“While I do not consider myself a legend, I do want to leave a legacy,” said Yelder.
For more on Prince Yelder visit @prince_yelder1966 on Instagram
