Martha Bass

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The quality of this article or section may be compromised by wording which promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.
You can help Wikipedia by removing peacock terms or finding content which backs the claims.

The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia.
Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.(December 2007)

Martha Bass was an American gospel singer. (circa. 1927 - 2001) Although her greatest claim to fame these days is as the mother of soul singer Fontella Bass, to hear Martha Bass is to know where her daughter really got it from.

After migrating to St. Louis as a young girl, she joined the Pleasant Green Baptist Church in St. Louis, where she became known as a promising gospel vocalist. She came under the authoritative and watchful tutelage of Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, the head of the Soloists Beareau in gospel composer Thomas A. Dorsey's National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses and the founder of the St. Louis Chapter of the organization, and it was there that she developed into a "house wrecker" as they are called in gospel. She possessed a smooth, dark contralto of great beauty and a stage presence of tremendous authority; she would stand in her white choir robe and wail her signature tune "I'm So Grateful" with such power that she would lay congregants out by the pewload. With Willie Mae Ford's teaching and a wealth of church singing experience under her belt, she left St. Louis in the early 1950's to travel with the great Clara Ward Singers;according to gospel maven Anthony Heilbut, she felt underpaid and overworked there and left after one year. A single recording, "Wasn't it a Pity How They Punished my Lord" is the only aural evidence of her time there,lovely in the tight harmonies of the Ward Singers and good in the fervor of Bass's solo work, but really un-indicative of what a great singer she really was. In the 1960's her album on Checker, "I'm So Grateful" disclosed the true measure of her powers and established her as a gospel singer of the first rank. When her daughter Fontella returned to her gospel roots, she cut several tracks with her and her son, the gospel singer David Peaston.