POP MUSIC: Sweet Honey in the Rock

For nearly four decades, the women of Sweet Honey in the Rock have been specializing in uplifting, socially conscious songs -- music that tends to sound like angels singing about struggle and liberation.

That's no real surprise given the a cappella ensemble's roots: Sweet Honey was founded in Washington in 1973 by Bernice Johnson Reagon, a Baptist minister's daughter who had been on the front lines of the civil rights movement. In the 1960s, Reagon performed at schools, prisons and political rallies with the Freedom Singers in support of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Their biggest gig? Performing "We Shall Not Be Moved" at the 1963 March on Washington.

After working up that potent blend of music and message for 31 years with Sweet Honey, Reagon retired from the group in 2004 and was replaced by two singers in a lineup that is forever changing. (There have been more than 30 singers working out those heavenly Sweet Honey harmonies over the years.)

But Reagon's legacy lives on in those soaring, richly soulful songs about racial and political justice, gender equality and the African American experience.

Indeed, long before Barack Obama's ascendancy to the Oval Office, Sweet Honey's spiritual and political proffer tended to be affirmative, trenchant and transformational, whether it was a cover, such as Ferron's "Testimony" or Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," or an original, such as "Give Your Hands to Struggle" or "I'm Gon' Stand!!!"

Is there any question, then, that the group's potent blend of message and music will sound even more triumphal in the Obama era?

-- J. Freedom du Lac

Sweet Honey in the Rock at the Birchmere on May 15. 703-549-7500,www.birchmere.com.