34 Spring 2017 mattersmagazine.com 35 D Music in His Soul A South Orange legend devotes himself to song and spirit BY TIA SWANSON Left: Milton Biggham (center, with glassses) with Whitney Houston (center) and his Georgia Mass Choir. The choir starred in Houston’s “The Preacher’s Wife” in 1996. Above: Reverend Biggham and his choir led the “Story of Gospel” at Columbia High School for a Seth Boyden School fundraiser. He is singing and exhorting his audience while the storyteller is in the foreground and the audience dances. Photo credit: Anna Herbst. Below: Reverend Biggham with the Georgia Mass choir. D I N E R • R E S T A U R A N T You are going to love our outdoor deck as much as our food! •Fresh Ingredients •Fresh Fish •Daily Specials•Gourmet Salads Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner 1958 Springfield Avenue • Maplewood (973) 313-3990 • fax (973) 313-3991 Park Wood We CATER! (Free Delivery to your Home or Office!) Krista Hyer 7 HIGHLAND PLACE w Maplewood 973.762.2777 w monalisaframing.com Open Tues.–Sat. 10am–6pm Thursday 12-8pm Closed Sunday, Monday GIFT CERTIFICATESAVAILABLE $75 off COMPLETE FRAMING PACKAGE with this coupon EXPIRATION: 7/15/17 Minimum order required Not to be combined Serving the community for over 10 years! Krista & Dayana (973) 824-9500 www.brantleybros.com Around the Block. Around the World. Get Moving Right. We listen. We’re focused. We communicate. We are accountable. We love what we do. What more do you need in a mover? Commercial, residential, international, corporate. No job is too small, or too large. BRANTLEY OS. MOVING & STORAGE It is immediately clear that gospel legend Reverend Milton R. Biggham is a big thinker and born showman. Witness him in late March on the stage at Columbia High School, leading his choir and audience through a history lesson and gospel concert rolled into one with a heady mix of exhortation and exultation. “Bobby, you’re good!’’ one minute, “Everybody up on your feet!’’ the next. Then watch him less than a week later, calm and smiling in the Village Diner in South Orange, unspooling his life story in masterly storytelling fashion. The South Orange resident may be best known for leading the great Newark Music label Savoy Records for years and for producing, recording and writing hundreds of gospel songs, but there’s no doubt he is also an entertainer at heart. He tells this wonderful bit about trying to get out of fighting in Vietnam by seeking to make himself indispensable to the chaplain of the ship taking him there. Though the chaplain welcomed his offer to provide music for his daily service, he had no piano on which the young man might play. Undeterred, Bigghamscouredtheship,locatedan organ – an instrument he had never played – somewhere in its bowels and mastered it in a heartbeat. He played it every morning service across the Pacific and did not, alas, get himself out of two years in the Infantry. Then he recounts when, back from the war, he wandered into a recording studio one afternoon and asked if he might play the piano there. The owner liked what he heard so much, he invited him back to record. This led to various connections and relationships and a long and illustrious career in the gospel music business, in which the Rev. Biggham is a triple threat: songwriter, musician and Emmy- winning producer.