In Jackson this week to help celebrate the 46th Annual Medgar Evers/B.B. King Homecoming, Bishop Joe Simon took time out of his busy schedule to talk up close and personal with The Mississippi Link.
In case some readers are asking themselves: “Did I read this right, ‘Bishop Joe Simon’?” Yes.
Most people knew him as Rhythm and Blues Joe Simon who sang such hits as “Chokin Kind,” “Nine Pound Steel,” “Drowning in the Sea Of Love,” and others. His unique singing voice led him from the cotton fields in Simmesport, La. to become a legendary R&B artist and Grammy Award winner. However, Simon confessed that most people never knew that he “hated” R&B. “I used to sneak and read the Bible,” he said.
How did he do so well in a genre he says he hated?
In Part 1 of excerpts from his interview, he shares details of leaving a successful R&B music career that began in 1962 to preaching his first sermon before a crowd of 4,500 Sept. 12, 1988, an event reported in Jet magazine:
ML: Specifically, what made you decide to leave R&B to come on ‘the Lord’s side?’
Simon: It was my home training. Home training is very important. I was raised in a good home and with a good family. I was raised in the church but I went astray. When my home training flashed in front of me, I knew that the need was there for me to start getting something else in my life other than what I was doing, which was serving Satan.
ML: We know that some people wait until they’re destitute before turning to God. Had you gotten to this point in your life?
Simon: I like your question because it sounds like you did your homework. I am the only entertainer that came from that world and gave up $8.8 million to follow Jesus Christ. I was not broke, I was not hungry and also in my blues career I owned two record companies. Most of the records that people bought came from companies I owned. If you bought “Drowning in the Sea of Love,” I owned the company and I had all of that going for me, but that did not fill the void that I had. “Drowning in the Sea of Love” sounds like a beautiful song, but that is not the love that God wants us to have.
ML: In your bio, it is mentioned that you felt that you had a ministry calling on your life, but you tried to fight it. How did you know this?
Simon: When my home training flashed in front of me, I began to do what I was trained to do. [Not wanting anyone to know] I began to sneak and read the Bible even though I was on the road singing R&B. We came to a hotel in Greenville, Miss. The first thing I did was look in the drawer for a Bible. It was not in there. I told my bodyguard, because I didn’t want people to know that I was sneaking to read the Bible, ‘something is wrong with this room; go get me another room.’ So he went to the front desk and got me another room, and when I walked in the room I opened the drawer and there was a Bible there. [Before leaving] I stole that Bible, because I didn’t ever want to be without a Bible again. I went back to Illinois.
So I went back to Illinois and my wife and I went to downtown Chicago and bought my first Bible.
I rented a car, left Chicago, drove back to Greenville with a cap on and waited until the maids went to dinner and I put the Bible back back in the drawer. I left Mississippi and returned to Illinois. All Because I didn’t want to be without a Bible, and now, I got three or four Bibles.
Not only does he owns three Bibles, he is the Second Presiding Bishop of the Mission Consortium of the Churches International of 365,000 plus people with member churches the Bahamas, the United Kingdom, the United States and Haiti.
His ministry focuses on disadvantaged youth.
Next week, Part 2 will present Simon’s comments on the “hurt” he felt by Jay-Z and others using his music without his permission. It will also include other comments.
For more about his ministry, log on to www.joesimonministries.com
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