Jackson, Mahalia

Jackson, Mahalia, fervent American gospel singer; b. New Orleans, Oct. 26, 1911; d. Evergreen Park, III., Jan. 27, 1972. Widely considered the best gospel singer of her generation, Jackson was certainly the best known, with a career that embraced radio, television, and film as well as a major-label record contract. Such incursions into the secular realm made her a controversial figure among gospel fans, but with her impassioned contralto she spread the influence of gospel far beyond its previously narrow boundaries.

Jackson was the illegitimate daughter of Johnny Jackson Jr., a stevedore who also preached at a church in New Orleans, and Charity Clark. She sang first at her father’s church. Following the death of her mother when she was five, she was raised by an aunt. In November 1927 she moved to Chicago to live with another aunt and began to sing with the choir at the Greater Salem Baptist Church while supporting herself as a domestic. She became a member of the Johnson Gospel Singers, a professional group, and eventually performed solo while working as a hairdresser; later she ran a beauty salon and a flower shop.

Jackson became a song demonstrator for gospel songwriter Thomas A. Dorsey in 1937. That same year she was signed to Decca Records and made her recording debut in May. She married Isaac Hockenhull, a mail carrier, in 1938; the marriage ended in divorce. She returned to recording in October 1946 for Apollo Records. An Apollo session in September 1947 produced a recording of “Move on Up a Little Higher,” which was released in January 1948 and sold a reported two million copies. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in October 1950 and toured Europe in 1952.

Jackson signed to the Columbia label of CBS Records in 1954; she also had her own weekly series on the CBS radio network, The Mahalia Jackson Show, from September 1954 to February 1955; and she made frequent appearances on the television program In Town Tonight on the local CBS affiliate in Chicago in the fall of 1954. With these activities she moved beyond the religious community even while continuing to sing gospel music. She began to make appearances on national television, notably The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956, and performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957. Her recording of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand” (music and lyrics by Geoff Love, adapted from a traditional song) reached the singles chart in April 1958, and the same month she appeared in the film St. Louis Blues, a biography of W. C. Handy starring Nat “King” Cole. She returned to the Newport Jazz Festival that summer, performing with Duke Ellington, and in October she was a guest on the television special The Bing Crosby Show. She appeared in the film Imitation of Life, released in April 1959.

In March 1960 the film Jazz on a Summer’s Day, a documentary of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival featuring Jackson, was released. She won the first Grammy Award to be given out for Best Gospel or Other Religious Recording in 1961 for her album Everytime I Feel the Spirit. Her album Sweet Little Jesus Boy, a Christmas recording, reached the pop charts in January 1962, and in the Christmas season of 1962, Apollo Records reissued her 1950 recording of “Silent Night, Holy Night” (music by Franz Gruber, lyrics by Joseph Mohr) for a chart entry; it made the Christmas charts in 1964, 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1973. Jackson won her second consecutive Best Gospel or Other Religious Recording Grammy in 1962 for the album Great Songs of Love and Faith. She was nominated again in 1963 for the album Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord.

Jackson married Sigmund Galloway, a musician, in 1964; they divorced in 1967. In 1969 she was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance for the LP Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah. She toured Europe in the fall of 1971 but was hospitalized in Munich, West Germany, in October for coronary heart disease. She died of a heart seizure at 60 in 1972.

Jackson’s continuing popularity led to a series of posthumous record releases and awards. The album How I Got Over, which contained recordings from her radio broadcasts of 1954 and television appearances of 1963, won the Grammy Award in 1976 for Best Soul Gospel Performance; I Sing Because I’m Happy was nominated for the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word, Documentary, or Drama Recording.

Writings

With E. Wylie, Movin’ on Up (N.Y., 1966).

Bibliography

J. Cornell and V. Mays, M. J.: Queen of Gospel Song (Champaign, III., 1974); K. McDearmon, M., Gospel Singer (N.Y., 1976); J. Jackson, Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord! The Life of M.J., Queen of Gospel Singers (N.Y., 1974); L. Goreau, Just M., Baby (Gretna, La., 1975); E. Witter, M. J.. (Milford, Mich., 1985); C. Wolfe, M. J.. (N.Y., 1990); D. Donloe, M. J. (Los Angeles, 1992); J. Schwerin, Got to Tell It: M. J., Queen of Gospel (N.Y., 1992).

—William Ruhlmann