Love of music kept blind member in choir

The third Sunday in January was a bittersweet day for Jim Sherrill.
   
That morning, Sherrill sang in the choir at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Homewood, as he had almost every Sunday for 44 years. The difference was what happened when Sherrill, 79, left the choir loft.
   
While his fellow choir members were already anticipating next week’s service, Sherrill had sung with them for the last time. His final Sunday in the choir marked a milestone in the twilight of a life spent singing.
   
Sherrill has been legally blind for almost nine years, meaning his wife, Ginny, drove him to church. Other choir members have also helped with driving.
   
“I’ll miss it; I won’t lie to you,” Sherrill said. “I love singing. But it just doesn’t seem right for me to depend on other people to get me where I need to go.”
   
Sherrill’s longevity allowed him to work with every full-time choir director at Dawson, beginning with Lester Barker, followed by Marvin Spry and the church’s present minister of music, Bob Hatfield.
   
Since joining Dawson in 1955, Sherrill estimates he hasn’t missed singing in the choir more than two Sundays each year.
   
“As the choir has grown or as the directors have changed their methodology or whatever — Jim’s been a supporter of the choir’s growth and its ministry,” Hatfield said. “He’s just been a real example of faithfulness and faithful service, week by week. He’s been a real stalwart in the choir. He has just made the special effort to keep going.”
   
That commitment is also one of the things Spry remembers most about Sherrill. “He was one of my most faithful choir members,” said Spry, who served as Dawson’s minister of music from 1963-1978.
   
“He would be at choir practice when he didn’t really feel like being there,” added Spry, who now serves as minister of senior adults and interim minister of music at Shades Crest Baptist Church, Birmingham. “Through his faithfulness and dedication, he set the example for other choir members.”
   
Sherrill remembers growing up in what he calls “a singing family.”
   
His musical education was fueled by evenings around the piano with his four siblings, as his mother or sister played.
   
“We’d just gather around the piano and sing,” he said. “It was just something we loved to do.”
Sherrill said he was three when his grandfather decided it was time for his singing debut in church.
   
“He was always singing, and he had taught me to sing ‘Brighten the Corner Where You Are,’ ” Sherrill said. “He carried me to church one Sunday, took me in there and stood me on the table, and he said, ‘Sing, boy!’ And that was my first solo appearance in anybody’s church.” Sherrill also played the oboe with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra beginning at age 13.
   
Sherrill eventually spoke with Hatfield about the possibility of leaving the choir. “I said, ‘I can see weaknesses, and I don’t like going backwards. I never have,’ ” Sherrill said. “But I can still cut it with the best of them,” he added.
   
And he can still brighten the corner where he is.