Joyce Mann Wilson graduated from Howard High School then went on to study music at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Cadek Conservatory.There are few certainties in life, but if you’ve attended Antioch Primitive Baptist Church in the last 54 years, you could count on Joyce Mann Wilson singing from her piano bench.
Change seems to come rarely at Antioch and that’s the way Wilson likes it. She says she likes the level of consistency that she has found, and is part of, at Antioch.
“It is comforting to me,” she says. “I like my routine.”
She started playing there as a teenager – but only with permission from her mother, Sernetta Mann, of course. She’s been at Antioch ever since, handling the role of the church’s music director for most of those years as well.
Wilson won’t tell how old she is.” I don’t tell my age, but I’m proud to be alive,” she says.