Mahalia Jackson

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Mahalia Jackson (October 26, 1912 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely regarded as the best in the history of the genre.

Contents 1 Life 2 Well-known songs 3 In popular culture 4 Further reading 5 External links

[edit] Life

Mahalia Jackson grew up in the "Black Pearl" section of the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans, Louisiana, and began singing in a Baptist church. In 1927 she moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she sang 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 kept throughout her professional life despite enormous financial inducements to do otherwise) and 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. She began a radio series on CBS and signed to Columbia Records in 1954. With her mainstream success came an inevitable backlash from gospel purists who felt she had watered down her sound for popular accessibility.

Mahalia's career in the late 1950s and early 1960s continued to rise. Her most notable accomplishments during this period included (1) singing "Trouble of the World" in 'Imitation of Life (1959 film)', (2) recording with Percy Faith, and (3) performing at the (a) Newport Jazz Festival (1958 and 1959), (b) inauguration of John F. Kennedy (1961), and (c) March on Washington (1963) (she sang the gospel standard 'How I Got Over'), respectively. 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.

Mahalia Jackson died in Chicago on January 27, 1972 at age 59 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).

[edit] 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

[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 climatic 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".

[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

[edit] External links

• Obituary, New York Times, January 28, 1972 Mahalia Jackson, Gospel Singer, And a Civil Rights Symbol, Dies
• Mahalia Jackson at Find-A-Grave
• Mahalia Jackson at Internet Movie Database

• http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=126
• http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/2675