walking upstream…
Mahalia Jackson
photo: carl van vechten · public domain ↗Mahalia Jackson
sourcesWikipedia · 64 Parishes
Mahalia Jackson grew up in New Orleans within earshot of both the Baptist church where she sang and the Sanctified congregation next door, and she wore out her cousin's blues records while she worked. After moving to Chicago as a teenager she became the foremost gospel singer of her era, refusing to cross over into secular music even as her contralto reached a mass audience through recordings, radio, and television. Her 1947 record 'Move On Up a Little Higher' became a landmark gospel best-seller, and she carried the music from storefront churches to Carnegie Hall, the Newport Jazz Festival, and the 1963 March on Washington, where she sang before Martin Luther King Jr. spoke. She wedded the blues feeling she absorbed as a child to sacred song, moaning and bending phrases with a rhythmic drive drawn from the churches of her youth.
the sound in question
1947
Move On Up a Little HigherMahalia Jackson
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Bessie Smith1920s · Blues / Classic female blues / Vaudeville
Jackson named Bessie Smith as her favorite singer, recalling that she played Smith's blues records over and over as a child in New Orleans, and though she sang only sacred material she carried Smith's deep, resonant tone and unhurried, emotionally direct delivery into gospel.
listen: upstream & here
1925
Careless Love BluesBessie Smith
1959
Trouble of the WorldMahalia Jackson
listen forSet Smith's 'Careless Love Blues' beside Jackson's 'Trouble of the World' and listen for the same low, weighty contralto sitting over a spare backing, holding and darkening long notes so the ache is carried by the grain and swell of a single voice.
Thomas A. Dorsey1930s · Gospel / Blues
Dorsey, a former blues pianist who recorded raunchy 'hokum' sides as Georgia Tom before turning to sacred song, fused blues feeling with religious lyrics to help invent modern gospel; Jackson worked as a soloist demonstrating his compositions in the 1930s and made his songs, above all 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord,' into signatures.
listen: upstream & heresource: Wikipedia ↗
1928
It's Tight Like ThatThomas A. Dorsey
1956
Take My Hand, Precious LordMahalia Jackson
listen forPlay Dorsey's bluesy, swinging 'It's Tight Like That' and then Jackson's 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord,' his own composition, and hear how the loose, bent, blues-inflected phrasing he came out of is carried into a slow sacred hymn, the notes still leaning and sliding rather than sitting straight.
Ma Rainey1920s · Blues / Classic female blues / Vaudeville
Jackson recalled playing Ma Rainey's records alongside Bessie Smith's as a child, and from these classic blues women she absorbed a dark, moaning resonance and a habit of bending and worrying notes that she brought to the rhythmic, hand-clapping spirituals of her repertoire.
listen: upstream & here
1924
See See Rider BluesMa Rainey
1958
Didn't It RainMahalia Jackson
listen forCue Rainey's low, drawn-out 'See See Rider Blues' next to Jackson's 'Didn't It Rain' and listen for the shared moan on the long notes, the voice sliding up into a phrase and hanging heavy on the bottom of its range before releasing.