Mahalia Jackson - Wikipedia

Thank you my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that October 26 is the anniversary of the birth of American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson who possessed "a powerful contralto voice,[2] she was referred to as "The Queen of Gospel."
She was a wonderful performer. Thankfully we can still listen to her recordings.

Rest in peace Mahalia Jackson!

Background from mahaliajackson.us/biography/
"A Childhood in New Orleans
"Oh clap your hands, all ye people!
Shout unto the Lord with the voice of a trumpet!"
Born in New Orleans in 1911, Mahalia Jackson grew up in a shotgun home shared by 13 people. Raised by her Aunt Duke after her mother died in 1917, economic circumstances forced Jackson to quit school and work at home when she was in fourth grade. Her earliest influences were the sights and sounds of Uptown New Orleans: banana steamships on the Mississippi River, acorns roasting in Audubon Park, hot jazz bands, the beat-driven music of the Sanctified Church, and Bessie Smith's bluesy voice wafting from her cousin Fred's record player. But Jackson found her greatest inspiration at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, where she sang on Wednesday, Friday, and four times on Sunday. Even at age 12, her powerful voice could be heard all the way to the end of the block. "You going to be famous in this world and walk with kings and queens," said her Aunt Bell, predicting an illustrious future for a voice that would change the face of American music, empower the Civil Rights movement, and bring Mahalia Jackson worldwide renown.

In Chicago
"I can't sing a song that doesn't have a message.
If it doesn't have the strength, it can't lift you."
Jackson was 16 when she joined her Aunt Hannah on board the Illinois Central Railroad. Like many African Americans in the South, she moved to Chicago for better opportunities, but she found only low-paying domestic work during her first several years there. Ever lifting her spirit through church and its music, Jackson joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church and began touring with the Johnson Brothers, Chicago's first professional gospel group. As a "fish and bread" singer, Jackson performed for donations in storefront churches, basement halls, and other makeshift venues. Later, she made tickets for her appearances — ten cents each — and found work singing at funerals and revivals. During this period, Jackson made a vow that she would live a pure life, free of secular entertainment. She promised to use her voice for spiritual song — a promise that she kept.

Seeds of Success
"The secret of life, I am told, is keep on moving.
You got to have heart, you got to take hold. Keep on movin..."
By 1937, Jackson had made her first set of recordings with Decca Records. Her first side, "God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares," only saw moderate commercial success. Despite her A&R representative's suggestions, she refused to make a blues record, remembering her pledge to sing only gospel music. As a result, she lost her contract with Decca. Then married to her first husband, Ike, Jackson decided to buy real estate and invest in her own business, a beauty shop. High-paying offers for work in the theater rolled in, and though Ike protested, Jackson kept her vow. Gospel music was becoming popular in Chicago churches, and Jackson was building a community of gospel musicians. Among these was Thomas Dorsey, a talented Atlanta-born African American composer and pianist who had migrated north with a vision for gospel music. He chose Jackson out of all the singers in Chicago to be his partner, and, as a traveling act, the two ushered in the Golden Age of Gospel.

Radio, Touring, and Television
"One of these mornings,
I'm going to lay down my cross and get me a crown...
and move on up a little higher."
In 1948, Mahalia Jackson recorded "Move On Up a Little Higher" for Apollo Records, selling one million copies in the United States. A white radio DJ, Studs Terkel, helped to popularize the recording, playing it alongside the hit rhythm and blues records of the day. With her riveting contralto, Jackson was as captivating as popular blues singers, and gospel's bouncing beat proved just as danceable, even to those who didn't go to church. Jackson began to tour extensively. And though she battled racism and segregation, especially in the South, she could collect hundreds of dollars for a single concert. In 1950, she was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall as the headlining act at the First Negro Gospel Music Festival, a monumental event in the history of gospel music.

In 1954, Jackson signed with Columbia Records and recorded Bless This House. The first of her 30 albums for the label, it included traditional numbers such as "Down By the Riverside," two compositions by her old friend Thomas Dorsey, and a spiritual version of Gershwin's "Summertime." Jackson's Colombia deal included a national radio show out of Chicago, The Mahalia Jackson Show, the first all-gospel radio hour. The show drew a tremendous positive response, but when Jackson suggested a television series to CBS-TV, executives explained that national sponsors would not take a chance on a "Negro show," fearing that their sales would drop in Southern markets. After twenty weeks, CBS cancelled Jackson's radio show because it failed to secure a national sponsor.


The Queen of Gospel Song
"Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim; its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me."
Jackson found wild mainstream success in the late '50s, touring the world and recording several successful albums for Columbia. Though she could not convince a television network to grant her a show of her own, Jackson did appear as a guest on many "white" variety shows including those hosted by Dinah Shore, Steve Allen, and Ed Sullivan. She also performed at dozens of monumental events, including her first European tour and an appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, which yielded the classic album Live at Newport 1958. In the same year, Jackson collaborated with popular orchestral arranger Percy Faith to record the hit album The Power and the Glory, and contributed vocals to Duke Ellington's suite, Black, Brown, and Beige. By 1960, Jackson was an international star. Her congregational call-and-response style, combined with her soulful, voluminous voice, made gospel music popular all over the world. But back home, Jackson's financial success brought racist backlash. She received violent threats from neighbors who did not want an African American woman to live on the quiet street in the Chicago suburbs where she had purchased a home.

Civil Rights
"Children, I've been buked and I've been scorned,
Tryin' to make this journey all alone
Children, talk about me sure as you please
Your talk will never drive me down to my knees"
Mahalia Jackson's struggle with racism had urged her to get involved in the Civil Rights movement at its onset. With the Montgomery bus boycott, the movement had begun to unfold quickly. As early as 1956, Civil Rights leaders called on Jackson to lend both her powerful voice and financial support to the rallies, marches, and demonstrations. Boycott leader Reverend Ralph Abernathy invited Jackson to Montgomery to sing at the first anniversary of Rosa Parks' historic act. Braving hecklers, Klansmen, and widespread violence, Jackson rolled into Montgomery on a train. At the station, Abernathy greeted her with another young preacher named Martin Luther King. Though she was afraid for her safety, King's speeches inspired her, and the two became friends.
By the early 1960s, gospel music and spirituals had become the inseparable soundtrack to the Civil Rights movement. Their greatest performer, Mahalia Jackson, had empowered the downtrodden masses with songs of strength and solidarity, inciting real change in America's social and political structure. At the second March on Washington in 1963, the largest demonstration in the history of the nation, Jackson opened her set with "I've Been 'Buked," at King's request. When it was King's turn to speak, some witnesses say, Jackson leaned forward and whispered, "Tell them about the dream, Martin," urging him to deliver the most famous speech of the Civil Rights movement. Throughout the era, Jackson sang at monumental events such as President John F. Kennedy's inauguration and funeral. She also sang at King's funeral in 1968, and recorded an album of his favorite songs, The Best Loved Hymns of Dr. M. L. King.

Final Years
"One glad morning, when this life is over, I'll fly away..."
By 1969, with Kennedy, King, and many of her other beneficiaries deceased, Jackson had retired from the political front. She had battled illness for years. Still touring almost to the end, she visited Africa, the Caribbean, Japan, and India, where she met Indira Ghandi, an instant fan. Jackson's final performance was in Germany in 1971. Soon after an operation on her pained abdomen, she died of heart failure in January 1972, at the age of 60. Hundreds of musicians and politicians attended Jackson's two funerals. In Chicago, Aretha Franklin performed "Take My Hand, Precious Lord," and Coretta King praised Jackson for being "black and proud and beautiful." Mourning continued at a second funeral in New Orleans, where thousands of hometown admirers gathered to honor the greatest gospel singer of all time, a woman who had conquered poverty, racism, and hardship to win fans and friends all over the world."

Mahalia Jackson Interview 1971
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-UwQMkWLKE

FYI LTC Jeff ShearerSGT Philip Roncari Lt Col Jim CoeCWO3 Dennis M.SGT (Join to see)PO3 Bob McCordSGT Jim Arnold Sgt Albert Castro PO3 Phyllis Maynard Maj Robert Thornton SPC Douglas Bolton Cynthia Croft PO1 H Gene Lawrence PVT Karl Goode CW5 John M. CMSgt (Join to see) PO2 Kevin Parker SGT James Murphy SrA John Monette

Excellent biography share sir.

She had an amazing voice and inspired so many others.