BY COURTNEY SEARCY

PHOTOS BY DECEMBER RAIN HANSEN

FEATURED IN VOL 7, ISSUE 3: Healing

On Sunday morning at Historic First Baptist Church, Stedman Roebuck stands ready at the keyboard, looking out over the congregation. As the preacher’s voice rises, and a tune rises with it. He moves with the music, with the crowd, with the lifting of voices. Hands are raised and tears fall. Shoulders relax into a place that feels like home.

The first time I heard Stedman play was the summer of 2020 and I was sitting in my room-turned-office for the fourth month straight, watching the first draft of the video file for the Porchfest Drive-In that would be taking the place of Porchfest held annually on 731 Day, July 31. Because we weren’t going to be packed into the yards of our neighbors to hear live music, we did our best, like everyone else, to make something meaningful out of it. I pushed “play” on the film the crew had been working on for months.

Soon, I’d be watching the film from our makeshift Drive-In theater, safely six feet away from my neighbor. In the transition between artists, you hear a tune on the keys being played by Stedman, one that feels bright and full and hopeful. Next, Terrence Dawson asks for a key change. A slow, peaceful melody begins and Terrence starts to sing. In the midst of some of the darkest days of the pandemic, that moment moved me to relax into the music we’d so dearly missed gathering to hear.

I didn’t know it then, but on that same day a year earlier, Stedman had been stopping by his mother’s house with a friend when he heard music in the distance.

“Do you hear music?”

His friend brushed it off, but he was insistent.

"Do you hear music?"

Determined, he followed the sound to find the crowd for Porchfest in 2019, as LOLO took the stage for the final performance. In that moment, he knew he wanted himself and his community to be present there. Two years later, he was playing at the final stage on that same street with Kelsea Merriweather.

If there’s anything that can be said of Stedman, it’s that music has led him throughout the world with that same driving force since the day he was born. It’s a force he reads like the winds of a storm coming in, that he knows how to sail, how to bring joy and peace and freedom with. Maybe we don’t see it around us, but he is playing the notes we’ll follow.

Stedman was born and raised in Jackson, Tennessee, to a family full of musicians. There’s no way to trace the beginning of the influence of music in his life.

Though music was always a part of his life, there were moments that solidified it as being a part of his path. His parents, Cynthia Roebuck and Elvis Roebuck, were musicians. His mother played and sang, his grandmother played, father played piano and sang, “my stepmother even played piano and sang.”

When his father passed away before his eighth grade graduation, Stedman started piano lessons “late” compared to a lot of musicians, but he was surrounded by influences who pushed him, including his sister. She went to the University of Memphis, toured as a musician overseas, and came back and told him about all the places she went. “That sparked something in me,” Roebuck said. Her influence continued, as she’d introduce him to new music and art. He was developing something, and learning to listen.

Then there’s a particularly vivid memory of his sister bringing home a CD produced by J Dilla.

“The things I heard him do in that one album changed everything. I wanted to be a producer,” Roebuck said.

After high school, Stedman moved to Memphis. It was a combination of the drive to go to school and learn, as well as the desire to run from home. This time was formational, giving him the experience and confidence he needed to hone in his craft. In 2015, he came home to Jackson.

Since his return home Stedman has worked with a clear and driven vision, and his influence is seen in many ways beyond his time on the stage at Historic First Baptist Church.

As a producer, he envisions elevating other up-and-coming artists. He knows the barriers to access to music for young artists around him, and wants to see resources and opportunities extended to them.

“When I play at church one of my thoughts is the child in the back of the room. Theres a child who is listening and you are shaping his future,” he said.

His vision is one that is far reaching, and has taken shape in many outlets. He remembers being a kid and driving down North Royal, wondering why all the different churches didn’t come together. So in 2019, he created a space to do just that. Members from 20 churches filled the choir loft at Historic First Baptist for the Hub City Mass Choir.

“Music has been like a costume for me. I get to put it on and be free, to transform into a super hero. When I’m not playing, I’m idle, I have time to reflect and think. When I’m playing it gives me the opportunity to forget. Because of the sharpening of the gift, it allowed me to just do it so freely. I’m past playing the instrument, I want the people to have a good time. Music is my release. I understand that there is healing in music,” he said.

His work in our city is happening much like the invisible current of the music he plays on Sunday. For underrepresented artists, for young artists with dreams, for his church, for his family, he is playing the right notes, bringing the right people to the room, and seeking out excellence in all facets. The crucial element is whether, like he has done, we can learn to hear the music outside of our usual paths and circles, follow it, and join in with people across the street or across the city, or in another pew, bringing others along with us to the tables we find ourselves at.

In a time when our community is often divided and siloed, and when we are still recovering from the effects of the pandemic, Stedman understands that how we come together and what we create together is crucial to making our home a better place for everyone not just to live, but to flourish, and it is clear in his words and actions.

“I just want everybody to be okay. If I can do that through music, I’ll do that until I die.”

See the Hub City Mass Choir this Saturday, April 16 at Unity Temple at 369 Lexington Avenue at 6:30 and at Soul of the City on May 12.

Courtney Searcy is the Program Director of Our Jackson Home at theCO. Jackson became home after she graduated from Union University in 2014, where she studied Graphic Design and Journalism. She thinks the best things in life are porch swings, brunch, art, music, and friends to share it all with.

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