Mahalia Jackson

Born Mahala Jackson on 26 October 1911 in New Orleans, contralto, Mahalia Jackson ("Queen of Gospel") continues the history of Black Gospel along the lineage of Thomas A. Dorsey. As music, southern folk blues and black gospel had had a left and right hand relationship since the early 20th century, blues branching off from black gospel's roots beneath cotton. Not a few early blues musicians sang gospel or styled it into blues, while gospel singers per se hung with tradition, focusing on the church, evangelism and the hymns of old time religion. Though the origins of the blues were otherwise secular (: Hart Wand, W.C. Handy, Mamie Smith, Ethel Waters, etc., to mention only its more metropolitan origins apart from the rural South) both genres were an easy blend. Black gospel would come to clap with R&B as well. As for Mahalia Jackson, though, she early decided to pursue gospel instead of blues, passing up support from the Decca label which preferred her singing more lucrative blues. Howsoever, Mahalia's father was a stevedore who also cut hair and would become a minister. Her mother was a laundress who cleaned houses, but would die when Jackson was five.

Some black gospel vocalists were raised in strictly gospel environments. But Jackson listened to blues records as well, Bessie Smith the singer she most admired even as she avoided secular music as a professional. She was baptized as a youth, both into the Baptist Church and the muddy brown waters of the Mississippi. Jackson left Louisiana for Chicago at age sixteen. She met Dorsey in 1929 and would tour with him later in the thirties. Jackson is said to have experimentally recorded 'You Better Run, Run, Run' in 1931 in Chicago about the time she slipped the 'i' into Mahala. That and any others with it were noncommercial curiosities and have long since disappeared.

On 21 May 1937 Jackson recorded four tracks for Decca: 'God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares', 'My Lord', 'Keep Me Everyday' and 'God Shall Wipe All Tears Away'. Per above, Mahalia might have begun a recording career with Decca that year if she'd agreed to sing blues. But, being Christian, she was determined to focus on gospel alone. She didn't get the blues as a Christian, nor were a blues lifestyle or blues subject matter in alignment with her faith. So Decca dropped her, not wishing to pursue the unprofitable genre which gospel was, and Jackson recorded nothing again for nearly a decade. She also had a Dorsey prejudice, preferring his experience to stepping out on her own. Caveat: samples below are endeavored to be in chronological order.

'God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares'   Decca 7341   Composition: Jackson

'Oh, My Lord'   Coral 65011   Composition: Jackson

'Keep Me Every Dayd'   Coral 65001   Composition: Jackson

'God's Gonna Wipe All Tears Away'   Decca 7321   Composition: Jackson

21 May 1937   Jackson's 1st recordings to issue

Mahalia Jackson   Piano / organ: Estelle Allen

Jackson was yet working with Dorsey when on 3 October of 1946 she recorded four tracks for Apollo: 'I Want to Rest', 'He Knows My Heart', 'I'm Going to Wait Until My Change Comes' and 'I'm Going to Tell God'. A couple sessions followed in latter 1947, the first in September to yield 'Move On Up a Little Higher' which would sell a jaw-dropping eight million copies, a very big deal with black gospel, having never been exactly what the everyday American record buyer sought at the shop. Also released in 1947 were 'Even Me' and 'Amazing Grace'. 'Even Me' was the second black gospel issue to sell a million copies.

'Move On Up a Little Higher'   Mahalia Jackson

12 Sep 1947   Apollo 164

Piano: James Lee   Organ: Herbert "Blind" Francis

'Even Me'   Mahalia Jackson

12 Sep 1947   Apollo 178

Organ: Herbert "Blind" Francis

Composition: Roberta Martin

'If You See My Savior'   Mahalia Jackson

Dec 1947 in Chicago   Matrix C-2196   Apollo 181

Piano: James Lee   Organ: Herbert "Blind" Francis

Composition: Thomas Dorsey

Jackson's sudden stardom in an unlikely genre tilted her Dorsey-centric world. In order to promote her career more securely Jackson had to say goodbye to Chicago and Dorsey in order to tour. By 1950 she was in full swing and owned the show in black gospel. She performed at Carnegie Hall that year, then toured Europe in 1952. Columbia picked her up in the early fifties because she was a money maker. Performing next to no secular music, she shares distinction with James Cleveland in taking black gospel out of the church into the wider world, while pursuing gospel not only to evangelize, but to build as a musical industry in itself. Such the golden years of black gospel.

'I'm On My Way'   Mahalia Jackson

June 1954   Apollo 286

Composition: Jackson

'Run All the Way'   Mahalia Jackson

June 1954   Apollo 298

Composition: Jackson

'Summertime' / 'Motherless Child'   Mahalia Jackson

1956   See the album 'Bless This House' on Columbia CL 899

Composition 'Summertime': George Gershwin / DuBose Heyward

Composition 'Motherless Child': Traditional

In 1957 Jackson performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, yet again the following year. She was heard at John F Kennedy's inaugural ball in 1961. She performed 'How I Got Over' at the March on Washington in 1963 on the day Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech, 'I Have a Dream', to 250,000 people. The next year she sang at the New York World's Fair. Jackson sang 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' at King's early funeral (assassinated at a Memphis motel at age 39) in 1968.

'He That Sows In Tears'   Mahalia Jackson

From the film 'St. Louis Blues' released 10 April 1958

Composition:  W.C. Handy

IMDb   Wikipedia

'For My Good Fortune'   Mahalia Jackson w Bing Crosby and Dean Martin

1 Oct 1958    'The Bing Crosby Show for Oldsmobile'

Composition: Otis Blackwell / Bobby Stevenson

Bing Magazine

'Tell the World About This'   Mahalia Jackson

1959   From the album 'Great Gettin' Up Morning' on Columbia CS 8153

Composition: Jackson

'By His Word'   Mahalia Jackson   Television

28 Oct 1958    'Arthur Godfrey Show'

Composition: Walt Huntley / Wishart Campbell