I nearly fainted when I was chosen to lead Good Women Choir — Fasoyin

By Bamidele Kolawole
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Mrs Deborah Adebola Fasoyin is the leader of the renowned Good Women Choir which has been in existence for over 40 years and noted for sonorous hits such as Halleluyah and Odun Nlo Sopin. In this interview, the septuagenarian speaks about the music group, family and on other issues.

According to her, Good Women Choir started way back with the Christ Apostolic Church, Ibadan and prior to 1975, they were known as the Good Women Association which was a gathering of women in the church.

She admitted that it is Christ that leads the choir not her, but she was privileged to be their leader.

“An announcement was made in all branches of the church that every branch should send two educated members who are interested in music to make up the Central choir.

“We gathered and we were over 100 at the time and started practising. I was already a member of the choir in the Anglican Church before I joined the CAC Eleta where I continued.

“I was one of the people sent to the Central Choir. Before each convention, we tell our members to read the Bible, pray and bring songs. We’ll look through and as led by the spirit, choose from the compositions. At a stage, we were told that we could wax a record”.

“I nearly fainted because no one called to tell me that I would be the leader. I felt that every member of the group at the time was qualified and could lead. I was singing soprano and we had alto and tenor singers as well. I was really surprised, so it was really God’s intervention.

“When we sang at conventions, people hailed us and were healed, and they gave testimonies the following year. When it was suggested that we should begin to record some of our compositions, we couldn’t say no and somebody introduced us to Ibukun Orisun Iye Records and our first recording, Hallelujah was released in 1977.

“God sent three men of God to us from different towns that we should not charge fees for our performances and that the reason  He backed us as God is because the gospel is free and we must therefore make everything free. We told the leaders of the Good Women Association that this was the message, so if a performance came up, we referred clients to them.

Our system of composition is different from others because it is a group. Whenever we want to go into the studio, we assemble and tell our members that we want to go for another release and everybody should bring what they have composed. We will bring them together and by the spirit of God, we would look at which ones can make the next release. After doing that, we keep other compositions for the next album.

In 1995, when we released our 25th album, I was a bit ill and the doctor advised me to slow down on activities, so we didn’t go to the studio for 10 years. However, in 2005, my children said to me, ”Mummy, the doctor said that you should slow down but we will book a studio for you, go and try your singing skills again.” They did and when I went in, they were amazed at what they heard.

As a result of that, I had to release my own first single Ogo Ikehin and Ibere Otun. When my old colleagues heard it, they inundated me with phone calls saying that they can still sing and want to come back on board. Ten of us gathered in my house and God said that we shouldn’t release new materials. Rather, we should churn out a video CD of what we had done before and that was what led us to release the video version of Odun Nlo Sopin and Odun Yi Atura as everyone was used to the audio versions already.

Youths of today want quick money and rush to the studio to record an album. When it comes out, it doesn’t even have substance. You cannot blame most of them, there are no jobs after they leave school.

Odun Nlo sopin is actually a CAC composition which dates back to the early 1940s. It was a hymn that was sung at the end of each year by all CAC churches but we added only two verses to the original composition so one can’t really say who wrote it but many have said that we made it famous and we thank God for that. We also recorded the song, Gbakoso(Take Charge) during the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida which reflected what was going on in the country at that time.

I feel fulfilled when I hear people listening to Odun Nlo Sopin over the years. I also want to finish strong and empty before I go and meet my creator.