Mahalia Jackson

Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson circa 1962, photographed by Carl Van Vechten
Background information
Birth name	Mahalia Jackson
Born	October 26 1911(1911-10-26) 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)	Apollo, Columbia

Mahalia Jackson (October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely regarded as the best in the history of the genre. Mahalia Jackson became one of the most influential gospel singers in the world.

Gospel singer. Born on October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Mahalia Jackson became a leading singer in Gospel music, known for her rich, powerful voice. A devout Baptist, she still found time for secular sounds of such blues artists as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.

After moving to Chicago in the late 1920s, Mahalia Jackson joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church, and soon became a member of the Johnson Gospel Singers. She performed with the group for a number of years. After singing with the Johnson Gospel Singers, Jackson started working with Thomas A. Dorsey, a Gospel composer. She also worked a number of jobs before her musical career took off.

While she made some recordings in the 1930s, Mahalia Jackson had her first taste of success with “Move Up a Little Higher” in 1947, which sold a million copies. She became more in demand, making radio and television appearances. Jackson also had a successful tour abroad in 1952, and became especially popular in France. She even had her own gospel program on the CBS television network in 1954 and scored a hit with “Rusty Old Halo” that same year. In 1958, she appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island, performing with Duke Ellington and his band. All during her career she focused on gospel music, refusing to sing secular music.

Mahalia Jackson became an active supporter of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. She sang at the March on Washington at the request of her friend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963. After King’s death in 1968, Jackson sang at his funeral and largely withdrew from public political activities.

In her later years, Mahalia Jackson had several hospitalizations for various health problems. She died of a heart attack on January 27, 1972. She is remembered for her strong, soul-like delivery, her deep commitment to her faith, and her lasting influence on musicians from all of different types of musical genres.

Early life

Mahalia Jackson 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 Mahalia, whom they affectionately called “Halie” for short, her brother Roosevelt, whom they called Peter, and her mother Charity. Several aunts and cousins lived in the house as well. Mahalia was nicknamed "Halie" after her aunt, Mahalia. Family members conferred upon the aunt the title of Aunt Duke. She was rewarded with the name because she held the title of being the “boss” of the family.

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 would not hear of 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.

Career

Mahalia Jackson, photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1962.

1920s – 1940s

In 1927, Jackson moved from the South to Chicago, Illinois, in the midst of the Great Migration. There she would sing with The Johnson Brothers, one of the earliest professional gospel groups. She later married Isaac Hockenhull, 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 because of his unrelenting pressure on her to do so. The Johnson Brothers broke up in the mid-1930s, and Mahalia began her solo career in 1937. Though her recording of "God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares," was only a moderate success, she became a popular concert draw. She experienced a recording hiatus until 1946, and in 1948 recorded "Move on Up a Little Higher," a recording so popular that stores could not stock enough copies of it to meet demand. The success of this record rocketed Mahalia to fame in the U.S. and soon after in Europe. Other recordings received wide praise, including: "I Can Put My Trust in Jesus," which won a prize from the French Academy, and "Silent Night" which became one of the best-selling singles in the history of Norway.

1950s – 1970s

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. 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; and important performances at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 and 1959, the 1961 inauguration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and the March on Washington in 1963 (she sang the gospel standard "How I Got Over"). She also sang "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at the funeral of her friend Martin Luther King, Jr. The late 1960s saw a downturn in her popular success. 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.

Death and legacy

Mahalia Jackson died in Chicago on January 27, 1972 at age 60 of heart failure and diabetes complications. She was buried in Providence Memorial Park in Metairie, Louisiana. 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. 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). She was also good friends with fellow Chicago based gospel singer Albertina Walker founder of the world renowned gospel group The Caravans, who later went on to phenomenal success as a solo artist and is regarded as the undisputed "Queen of Gospel Music," carrying on the legacy started by Mahalia. She also discovered a young Della Reese.

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".. In adition, Jackson was the first gospel artist to be inducted onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Despite the inscription of Jackson's birth year on her headstone as 1912, she was actually born in 1911.

Well-known songs

• "How I Got Over"
• "Trouble of the World"
• "Silent Night"
• "Go Tell It on the Mountain"
• "Amazing Grace"
• "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"
• "Remember Me"
• "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho"
• "Holding My Saviour's Hands"
• "Roll Jordan, Roll"
• "The Upper Room"
• "We Shall Overcome"
• "I'm on My Way to Canaan"
• "You'll Never Walk Alone"
• "His Eye is on the Sparrow"

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 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."

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Cornell, Jean Gay. Mahalia Jackson: Queen of Gospel Song. Champaign, IL: Garrard Pub. Co., 1974. ISBN 0811645819
• Darden, Bob. People Get Ready : A New History of Black Gospel Music. New York: Continuum, 2004. ISBN 0826414362
• Goreau, Laurraine. Just Mahalia, Baby. Waco, TX: World Books, 1975. ISBN-13: 978-0876803073
• Jules Schwerin, Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel. Oxford: University Press, 1992, ISBN 0195071441

External links

• Obituary, New York Times, January 28, 1972 Mahalia Jackson, Gospel Singer, And a Civil Rights Symbol, Dies - Retrieved October 16, 2007.
• Mahalia Jackson at Find-A-Grave - Retrieved October 16, 2007.
• Mahalia Jackson at Internet Movie Database - Retrieved October 16, 2007.
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bio - Retrieved October 16, 2007.
• The World´s Greatest Gospel Singer - Retrieved October 16, 2007.