Mahalia Jackson

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Mahalia Jackson

Background information
Birth name Mahala Jackson
Also known as Halie Jackson
Born October 26, 1911(1911-10-26)[1]
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Origin United States
Died January 27, 1972 (aged 60)
Evergreen Park, Illinois, USA
Genre(s) Gospel
Instrument(s) Singer
Years active 1927 – 1971
Label(s) Decca Coral
Apollo
Columbia
Associated acts Present "Queen of Gospel Music'Albertina Walker'"Queen of soul"Aretha Franklin'"The story teller"Dorothy Norwood and Della Reese

Mahalia Jackson (October 26, 1911[1] – January 27, 1972) was an American Grammy Award-winning gospel singer, widely regarded as the best in the history of the genre and is the first "Queen of Gospel Music". Mahalia Jackson became one of the most influential gospel singers in the world. She recorded about 30 albums (mostly for Columbia Records) during her career, and her 45 rpm records included a dozen "golds"—million-sellers.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Mahalia Jackson, born Mahala Jackson, nicknamed “Halie," grew up in the Black Pearl section of the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana. The three room dwelling on Pitt Street housed thirteen people. This included Mahala (named after her aunt nicknamed Aunt Duke), her brother Roosevelt, whom they called Peter, and her mother Charity. Several aunts and cousins lived in the house as well. She was rewarded with the name because she held the title of being the “boss” of the family. Little Halie's large family (The Clarks) consisted of her mother's siblings - Isabell, Mahala, Boston, Porterfield, Hannah, Alice, Rhoda, Bessie, their children, grandchildren and patriarch Rev. Paul Clark, a former slave. Her father's sister, Jeanette Jackson-Burnett and husband, Josie were vaudeville entertainers.

When Halie was born she suffered from a condition known as genu varum or what is commonly called "bowed legs." The doctors wanted to perform surgery by breaking Halie's legs, but one of the resident aunts opposed it. So Halie's mother would rub her legs down with greasy dishwater. It never stopped young Halie from performing her dance steps for the white woman her mother and Aunt Bell cleaned house for.

When Mahalia was six, her mother Charity died. It was a terrible blow to the family especially when the decision came as to who would keep Halie and her brother Peter. Aunt Duke assumed this responsibility, and the children were forced to work from sun-up to sun-down. Aunt Duke would always inspect the house using the "white glove" method. If the house was not cleaned properly, Halie would be beaten with a "cat-o-nine-tails." If one of the other relatives was unable to do their chores, or clean at their job, Halie or one of her cousins was expected to perform that particular task. School was hardly an option. Halie loved to sing and church is where she loved to sing the most. Halie’s Aunt Bell told her that one-day she would sing in front of royalty. Halie would one day see that prediction of her aunts come true. Mahalia Jackson began her singing career at the local Mount Moriah Baptist Church. She was baptized in Mississippi by Mt. Moriah's pastor, the Rev. E. D. Lawrence, then went back to the church to "receive the right hand of fellowship."

[edit] Career

Mahalia Jackson, photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1962.
Mahalia Jackson, photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1962.

[edit] 1920s – 1940s

In 1927, at the age of sixteen, Jackson moved from the south to Chicago, Illinois, in the midst of the Great Migration. After her first Sunday church service, where she had given an impromptu performance of her favorite song, "Hand Me Down My Favourite Trumpet, Gabriel", she was invited to join the Greater Salem Baptist Church Choir and began touring the city's churches and surrounding areas with the Johnson Gospel Singers, one of the earliest professional gospel groups.[2] In 1929 Jackson met the composer Thomas A. Dorsey, known as the Father of Gospel Music. He gave her musical advice, and in the mid-1930s they began a fourteen-year association of touring, with Jackson singing Dorsey's songs in church programs and at conventions. His "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" became her signature song.[3]In 1936 Jackson married Isaac Hockenhull, a graduate of Fisk University and Tuskegee Institute, who was 10 years her senior. Mahalia refused to sing secular music, a pledge she would keep throughout her professional life despite enormous financial inducements to do otherwise; she eventually divorced Isaac in 1941 because of his unrelenting pressure on her to do so.

In 1931, she recorded "You Better Run, Run, Run." Not much is known about this recording, and is impossible to find. Biographer Laurraine Goreau cites that it was also around this time she added 'i' to her name, changing it from Mahala to Mahalia. At age 26, Mahalia's second set of records were recorded on May 21, 1937 under the Decca Coral label,[4] accompanied by Estelle Allen (piano), in order; "God's Gonna Separate The Wheat From The Tares," "My Lord," "Keep Me Everyday," and "God Shall Wipe All Tears Away." Financially, these were not successful, and Decca let her go. In 1947 she signed up with the Apollo label, and in 1948 recorded the William Herbert Brewster song "Move On Up A Little Higher", a recording so popular that stores could not stock enough copies of it to meet demand, selling an astonishing eight million copies.[5] (The song was later honored with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in (1998)).[6] The success of this record rocketed Mahalia to fame in the U.S. and soon after in Europe. During this time she toured as a concert artist, appearing more frequently in concert halls and less often in churches. As a consequences of this change in her venues, her arrangements expanded from piano and organ to orchestral accompaniments.

Other recordings received wide praise, including: "Let the Power of the Holy Ghost Fall on Me" (1949), which won the French Academy's Grand Prix du Disque, and "Silent Night, Holy Night" which became one of the best-selling singles in the history of Norway. When she sang "Silent Night" on Denmark's national radio, more than twenty thousand request for copies poured in.[7] Other recordings on the Apollo label; "He Knows My Heart" (1946), "Amazing Grace" (1947), "Tired" (1947), "I Can Put My Trust in Jesus" (1949), "Walk with Me" (1949), "Let the Power of the Holy Ghost Fall on Me" (1949), "Go Tell It on the Mountain" (1950), "The Lord's Prayer" (1950), "How I Got Over" (1951), "His Eye is on the Sparrow" (1951), "I Believe" (1953), "Didn't It Rain" (1953), "Hands of God" (1953), and "Nobody Knows" (1954).[8]

[edit] 1950s – 1970s

In 1950 she became the first gospel singer to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall, and started touring Europe in 1952, and was hailed by critics as the "world's greatest gospel singer". In Paris she was called the Angel of Peace, and throughout the continent she sang to capacity audiences. Mahalia's career in the late 1950s and early 1960s continued to rise. She began a radio series on CBS and signed to Columbia Records in 1954. Down Beat music magazine stated on November 17, 1954: "It is generally agreed that the greatest spiritual singer now alive is Mahalia Jackson."[9] Her debut album for Columbia was The World's Greatest Gospel Singer, recorded in 1955, followed by Bless This House in 1956. However, with her mainstream success came an inevitable backlash from gospel purists who felt she had watered down her sound for popular accessibility. Jackson had many notable accomplishments during this period, including her performance of many gospel songs in the 1958 film, St. Louis Blues, and singing "Trouble of the World" in 1959's Imitation of Life; recording with Percy Faith. She was the first gospel singer to perform at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957 which was recorded by the VOICE OF AMERICA and 1958 (Newport 1958), and also performed in 1959. In 1961 she sang at U.S. President John F. Kennedy inauguration. She recorded her first Christmas album Silent Night (Songs for Christmas) in 1962. By this time, she had also become a familiar fact to British television viewers as a result of short films of her performing that were occasionally shown to fill gaps between regular programmes.

At the March on Washington in 1963 she sang in front of 250,000 people "I've Been 'Buked, and I've Been Scorned", in which Martin Luther King, Jr. made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. She also sang "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at the funeral of her friend Martin Luther King, Jr. She sang at the 1964 New York World's Fair and was accompanied by "wonderboy preacher" Al Sharpton.[10] She toured Europe again in 1962 (Recorded Live in Europe 1962), 1963-1964, 1970, and performed in Africa, Japan, and India.

Her last album was What The World Needs Now (1969). She ended her career in 1971 with a concert in Germany, and when she returned made one of her final television appearances on The Flip Wilson Show. Jackson devoted much of her time and energy to helping others, and she established the Mahalia Jackson Scholarship Foundation for young people who wanted to attend college. For her efforts in helping international understanding she received the Silver Dove Award.

Chicago remained her home until the end. She opened a beauty parlor and a florist shop with her earnings, while also investing in real estate ($100,000 a year at her peak).[11]

[edit] Death

Mahalia Jackson died in Chicago on January 27, 1972 at age 60 of heart failure and diabetes complications. Two cities paid tribute, outside Chicago's Greater Salem Baptist Church and 50,000 of the people who had known and loved Mahalia Jackson filed silently past her mahogany, glass-topped coffin in final tribute to the queen of gospel song.[12] The next day, as many as could — 6,000 or more — filled every seat and stood along the walls of the city's public concert hall, the Arie Crown Theater of McCormick Place, for a two-hour funeral service. Mahalia's pastor, the Rev. Leon Jenkins, Mayor Richard J. Daley, Mrs. Coretta Scott King eulogized Mahalia during Chicago funeral as "a friend - proud, black and beautiful." Sammy Davis, Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald paid their respects. Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., of which Mahalia was Official Soloist, delivers the eulogy at Chicago funeral. Aretha Franklin, closes the Chicago rites with moving rendition of Precious Lord, Take My Hand. Three days later, a thousand miles away, the scene repeated itself: again the long lines, again the silent tribute, again the thousands filling, this time, the great hall of the Rivergate Convention Center in downtown New Orleans. Mayor Moon Landrieu, Louisiana Governor John J. McKeithen joined gospel singer Bessie Griffin, Dick Gregory praised 'Mahalia's "moral force" as main reason for her success", and Lou Rawls sang "Just a Closer Walk With Thee". The funeral cortege of 24 limousines drove slowly past her childhood place of worship, Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, where her recordings played through loudspeakers, then made its way to Providence Memorial Park in Metairie, Louisiana where, finally, Mahalia was entombed.[13] Despite the inscription of Jackson's birth year on her headstone as 1912, she was actually born in 1911.

It is reported that Mahalia's estate was "more than a million dollars," and some estimate that record royalties, TV and movie residuals, and various investments make it worth much more than that. The bulk of the estate was left to a number of relatives — many of whom cared for Mahalia during those lean years when she was just another young black girl in the South — one consigned to a life of scrubbing floors and washing clothes. Among principal heirs are relatives, including her half-brother John Jackson, and aunt Hannah Robinson. Neither ex-husband, Isaac Hockenhull (1936-1941), and Sigmund Galloway (1964-1967), was in her will.[14]

The year of her death, Mahalia was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, she was posthumously inducted into the Gospel Music Association's Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1978. Mahalia Jackson is widely regarded as the greatest gospel singer in history and one of the voices of the 20th-century. Her music was never played a lot on radio stations except for traditional gospel and traditional Christian stations. Her music was heard for decades on Family Radio, but it was never identified over that group of stations. Indeed, her good friend Martin Luther King said "a voice like hers comes along once in a millennium". In addition to sharing her singing talent with the world, she mentored the extraordinarily gifted Aretha Franklin; she was a close friend of Aretha's father, C. L. Franklin, and a frequent guest in the Franklin home. Mahalia was also good friends with Dorothy Norwood and fellow Chicago-based gospel singer Albertina Walker ( who is the present "Queen of Gospel Music" ), carrying on the legacy and friendships started by Mahalia. She also discovered a young Della Reese. She was present at the opening night of Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music in December 1957.[15]

In 1997, Jackson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame "as a pioneer interpreter of gospel music whose fervent contralto was one of the great voices of this century".[16] In addition, Jackson was the first gospel artist to be inducted onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

[edit] Selective awards and honors

[edit] Grammy Award history

Mahalia Jackson Grammy Award History[17][18]
Year Category Title Genre Label Result
1976 Best Soul Gospel Performance "How I Got Over" Gospel Columbia Winner
1972 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award[19] Winner
1969 Best Soul Gospel Performance "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" Gospel Columbia Nominee
1963 Best Gospel Or Other Religious Recording, Musical "Make A Joyful Noise Unto The Lord" Gospel Columbia Nominee
1962 Best Gospel Or Other Religious Recording "Great Songs Of Love And Faith" Gospel Columbia Winner
1961 Best Gospel or Other Religious Recording "Everytime I Feel the Spirit" Gospel Columbia Winner

[edit] Grammy Hall of Fame

Mahalia Jackson was posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."[20]

Grammy Hall of Fame Award
Year Recorded Song Genre Label Year Inducted
1948 "Move On Up A Little Higher"[21] Gospel (Single) Apollo 1998

[edit] Honors

Postage Stamp 1998
Postage Stamp 1998
Mahalia Jackson Honors
Year Category Honor Result Notes
1998 U.S. Postal Service 32¢ Postage Stamp[22] Honored Issued July 15, 1998
1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inducted "Early Influence"
1988 Hollywood Walk of Fame Star at 6840 Hollywood Blvd.
1978 Gospel Music Hall of Fame Inducted

[edit] Well-known songs

[edit] In popular culture

In the movie Jungle Fever, the character played by Ossie Davis tries to distract himself from his son Gator's (Samuel L. Jackson) crack cocaine addiction by listening to Mahalia Jackson albums by the hour.

In the 1959 remake of the film Imitation of Life Mahalia Jackson portrays the choir soloist, singing "Trouble of the World" at Annie's funeral. She has no speaking lines, but her singing performance highlights the climactic scene.

In the The Boondocks episode "Return of the King", a still-living Martin Luther King, Jr. laments over losing his iTunes password when he tried to download Mahalia Jackson's catalog.

She is referenced in the Denis Leary song "Elvis & I" when Leary sings "He says what the hell is Lisa Marie thinking with Michael Jackson crap, she should have married Janet or LaToya or Tito or even Mahalia Jackson".

In the 1994 "Wake Up Show Anthem" for the Los Angeles radio station 92.3FM The Beat, the rapper Ras Kass mentioned Jackson in his freestyle verse: "Come equip, your losing your paraphernalia / I'm a hip hop Apostle singing the Gospel like Mahalia Jackson".

She was an early influence on Irish soul singer Van Morrison, whose song "Summertime in England" (from 1980s Common One) refers to her by name: "The voice of Mahalia Jackson came through the ether."

African-American and Wu-Tang Clan member rapper Raekwon in Mobb Deep's song "Eye for an Eye" says, "But still/ write my will out to my seeds then build/ Mahalia sing a tale but the real we still kill."

In the Donna Summer song, "Dinner with Gershwin", she wants to "sing hymns with Mahalia."

Duke Ellington, with whom she occasionally recorded, paid tribute to her on his New Orleans Suite album with the song "Portrait of Mahalia Jackson."

[edit] Further reading

  • Tony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, Limelight Editions, 1997, ISBN 0-87910-034-6.
  • Horace Clarence Boyer, How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel, Elliott and Clark, 1995, ISBN 0-252-06877-7.
  • Laurraine Goreau, Just Mahalia, Baby, Waco, TX: World Books, 1975.
  • Jesse Jackson, Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord! : The Life of Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel Singers, T.Y. Crowell, 1974.
  • Mahalia Jackson, Movin On Up Hawthorn Books, 1966.
  • Hettie Jones, Big Star Fallin' Mama : Five Women in Black Music, Viking Press, 1974.
  • Jules Schwerin, Got to Tell It : Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel, Oxford Univ. Press, 1992, ISBN 0195071441.
  • Bob Darden, People Get Ready : A New History of Black Gospel Music, New York: Continuum, 2004. ISBN 0826414362
  • Jean Gay Cornell, Mahalia Jackson: Queen of Gospel Song, Champaign, Ill., Garrard Pub. Co., 1974. ISBN 0811645819 oh god

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Mahalia Jackson NNDB Profile. NNDB. Retrieved on 2007-05-09.
  2. ^ Larkin, Colin. The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness (1995), page 2107 - ISBN 1561591769
  3. ^ Lyman, Darryl. Great African-American Women, Jonathan David Company, Inc. (2005), page 132 - ISBN 0824604598
  4. ^ Dixon, Robert M. W. Blues and Gospel Records: 1890-1943, Oxford University Press (1997), page 431 - ISBN 0198162391
  5. ^ Koster, Rick. Louisiana Music: A Journey from R&B to Zydeco, Jazz to Country, Blues to Gospel, Cajun psMusic... (2002), Da Capo Press, page 271 - ISBN 0306810034
  6. ^ Grammy Hall of Fame Award
  7. ^ Stanton, Scott. The Tombstone Tourist: Musicians page 118
  8. ^ Decca/Apollo recordings
  9. ^ Down Beat (1954)
  10. ^ Interview with Al Sharpton, David Shankbone, Wikinews, December 3, 2007.
  11. ^ Time magazine: "Moving On Up" (Monday, February 7, 1972)
  12. ^ EBONY magazine April 1972: Two Cities Pay Tribute To Mahalia Jackson
  13. ^ Providence Memorial Park
  14. ^ EBONY magazine April 1972
  15. ^ Chicago Tribune[dead link]- Studs Terkel talks about the opening night of the old town school.
  16. ^ Mahalia Jackson Inductee Profile. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Retrieved on 2007-05-10.
  17. ^ Mahalia Jackson Grammy Award History Database
  18. ^ Louisiana Music at the Grammy Awards List
  19. ^ Lifetime Achievement Award List
  20. ^ Grammy Hall of Fame
  21. ^ "Move On Up A Little Higher" song
  22. ^ Mahalia Jackson: 32¢ Postage Stamp

[edit] External links

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