In this "Redemption or Salvation" so far I have picked out the secular persons who came from gospel, however, I will introduce to you the persons who had success in gospel. No one may not object to the opinion that the most world-wide famous gospel singer is Mahalia Jackson. Not only she made a contract with a corporate company where she released many records, but she energetically had many concert tours in Europe as well as in the U.S., and she was so conscious of social activities that she revealed her voice at the President's inauguration on the one hand and she gave assistance to Dr. Martin Luther King's civil rights movement on the other. Her contralto is positive and bright in the gospel way basically and shows latent blue notes occasionally. When she spreads her loud voice which is in no need of mike, her resonant vibrato sounds all around from her whole body. Her figure, which not only generates the voice but shakes and hand-claps, can be said as an instrument from head to toe. However, it seems to me that the environment around her put her gospel into the mold of appreciation like classical music, and that she was a bit lacking in the charm of gospel music which originally has the exchange or the explosion of emotions. I think that's why she got easier of access for many people.
While she, born in New Orleans, joined in the Baptist's choir since her childhood, she was influenced by the gospel with a piano and rhythms of drums and percussions heard from a next-door 'sanctified church' (although I looked it up and I cannot understand it so clearly, this may be the church where there live some who shut out almost all of relations with the secular world in order to serve God), and she was also inspired by the blues of Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey. "Say It Loud ! ", telling the history of black Americans with music, contains Bessie Smith's hit tune in 1925 The St. Louis Blues. This has so thin and slow beats that I cannot find them in today's music, but this is the blues because the melody in major keys is mixed with tones in minor. The soundtrack of the blues history documentary program by Martin Scorsese, "The Blues : A Musical Journey" lets you find Muddy Water by a rather sophisticated voice Bessie Smith and "Ma" Rainey's Black Bottom by an unrefined voice of Bessie's senior Ma Rainey. Still in her mid-teens Mahalia Jackson built her own style : a full-throated voice with stressed rhythms and the blues phrasing. After playing the church circuit as a member of the Johnson Brothers in Chicago where she relocated, she launched her solo career and began performing from coast to coast, however, she did little recordings before the World War II. Her performance was said to be so active and rhythm-oriented that it made conservative preachers frown. I guess there should have been conversations with choruses or musicians or calls and responses with the audience. But I'm sorry to say that such scenes have never been cut on vinyls before.
Her two-disc best with studio and live recordings "The Essential Mahalia Jackson" also includes sides from Apollo Records like I Can Put My Trust in Jesus, I Will Move on up a Little Higher, Dig a Little Deeper, which are accompanied with less instruments and sung in a little bit of the blues. Starting from their great success in the gospel field, she got appreciated by white intellectuals and jazz critics. And then she sang with the whites' pop chorus on CBS's national radio program, made a contract with the major Columbia, released some pop hits and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Those things led to the broader acceptance by the whites. Although there are tunes like soulfully moving Walk on by Faith or a bit of cheerful doo-wap Walk in Jerusalem featuring the organist Billy Preston, or gracefully jazzy Part IV (aka Come Sunday) with Duke Elllington, listeners of soul or R&B like me may feel strange when they face her some studio recordings with pop orchestras and choruses in square grooves. Mahalia's voice backed by the solemn choir on her Christmas album "Silent Night" is still good when you want to spend the season in a grave mood. But these studio ones are likely to isolate her voice from the exchanges of voices and sounds which is proper to gospel.
Her live recordings are from concerts only with accompaniments and without choruses, however, Mahalia Jackson shows herself at her best. "LIve at Newport 1958" was backed by the piano of Mildred Falls, who did lives with her for many years, the organ of Lilton Mitchell and the bass of Tom Bryant. Since the audience of her home knew her songs well, the live went wild especially when she ask some requests and sang encores such as Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho. However, the tunes contained in the first issue are studio remakes and quiet and solemn ones except It Don't Cost Very Much and He's Got the Whole World in His Hand. Tunes like the driving Didn't It Rain or the blues-tinged I'm Goin' to Live the Life I Sing About in My Life can be heard for the first time not on vinyl but on CD. It is never too much to say that those who only heard the album of the first issue were robbed most of the pleasure delivered by this live. In "Recorded Live in Europe During Her Latest Concert Tour", which was mainly from the concert in Sweden, she was only with Mildred Falls and did like an opera singer's solo concert. In addition to Down by the Riverside, Elijah Rock or the musical score You'll Never Walk Alone, When the Saints Go Marching in is splendid in her provocative way of singing off and on and off and on the stage. As a 'crossover' black gospel singer, she is safe to listen to but at the cost of it she tends to be less emotional, however, it never changes that she is marvelous. (2005/05/13)(2009/07/15)