Isn't Her Grace Amazing!

The Women Who Changed Gospel Music

Cheryl Wills

• Publisher: Amistad
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780063050983
• eBook ISBN:
  9780063051003
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies

A unique tribute to often overlooked women who have left an indelible mark on Gospel Music—powerful talents who overcame racism and sexism to define the genre, establish its sound, and set the standard for good sangin’ for generations.

Nothing in the world soothes the soul better than Gospel music. From the foot-stomping, hand-clapping melodies of yesterday to the head-bobbing, bass-thumping hits of today, Gospel music ignites the spirit and delivers the inspiration that takes us from the rough side of the mountain to the peak of God’s love and grace. That feeling of joy, peace, love, and contentment is amplified when it’s ringing through the voice of a sister who can SANG, Cheryl Wills reminds us. The remedy for a tough day at work can be alleviated with Mary Mary’s uplifting jam Shackles, the answer to your heart’s desires can be found in the harmonies of The Clark Sisters Name It, Claim It, and if you need a reminder of God’s love, there is nothing more timeless that Aretha Franklin’s stirring rendition of Amazing Grace.

Some talented performers, like Sister Rosetta Tharpe have faded from history, while singers like Yolanda Adams are at the top of her game. During the twentieth century, Willie Mae Ford spent most of her life encouraging and uplifting Christians both in church and on stage and composed more than 100 Gospel songs, yet it was men like her co-writer, Thomas A. Dorsey, who received the accolades and fame. Many women in the Gospel music industry go unnoticed, unpaid, and under-appreciated for their contributions, yet it is these women who are often the bedrock for songwriting, arranging, directing, and developing singers. 

Cheryl Wills, the granddaughter of a Gospel singer, at last shines a spotlight on these spectacular women of song. The only book of its kind, Isn’t Her Grace Amazing! showcase the talents, gifts, and skills of women in the Gospel music industry. It celebrates these heroines, chronicles their journeys from the choir loft to the world’s largest stages, and reveals how they revolutionized this sacred music that is beloved worldwide. From the matriarchs of this movement to today’s chart-topping divas, Wills offers in-depth portraits of twenty-five amazing women of Gospel music—based on interviews and extensive research—behind-the-scenes stories of favorite gospel hits, and illuminates what makes each of them shine. 

1

Queen Mothers

Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson (1911–1972) singing at a hotel reception.

Don Cravens / The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images / Getty Images

Mahalia Jackson

Mahalia Jackson, one of the most influential female vocalists of the twentieth century.

ullstein bild / Getty Images

Born: October 26, 1911

Died: January 27, 1972

Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana

Notable Gospel Hits: “Move On Up a Little Higher,” “Trouble of This World,” “How I Got Over”

Notable Crossover Hits: “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”

Awards and Accolades: Three Grammy Awards, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1973), Gospel Music Hall of Fame (1978), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1997)

Mahalia Jackson in the dressing room of Bunkyo Kokaido Hall on April 11, 1971, in Tokyo, Japan.

The Asahi Shimbun / Getty Images

When Mahalia Jackson sang the stirring hymn “Trouble of the World” during the climax of the classic film Imitation of Life, the world was introduced to the queen of gospel, who laid the blueprint for generations of gospel singers for the next fifty years.

Mahalia, the granddaughter of slaves, began singing in churches throughout her native New Orleans as a child. She quickly became known as the “little girl with the big voice.” While she was surrounded and influenced by the musical gumbo of the Crescent City, particularly the blues and jazz, Mahalia was strongly encouraged to only use her voice to sing God’s praises. She was repeatedly offered more money to sing the blues, but she refused to sing in nightclubs.

By the age of sixteen, Mahalia moved to Chicago and worked as a washerwoman by day and began singing with her aunt Hannah’s church choir at the Greater Salem Baptist Church. In 1934, she recorded her first song, “God’s Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares,” for just twenty-five dollars. In the late 1930s and 1940s she began touring with the father of gospel music, Thomas Dorsey. In 1946, she recorded her first million-selling single, “Move On Up a Little Higher.”

In 1950, Mahalia became the first woman gospel singer to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and she sang at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. During the mid- to late 1950s, Mahalia performed all over the globe with tours throughout Europe and Asia and was crowned the queen of gospel. She earned her first two Grammys in 1961 and 1962 for the classic gospel albums Great Songs of Love and Faith and Every Time I Feel the Spirit.

When she appeared at the world-famous Apollo Theater in 1963, Billy Mitchell, who would later become known as “Mr. Apollo,” was in the audience during the spirit-filled performance, with his grandmother. “I couldn’t believe the sound that was coming out of her mouth,” Mitchell shared. “All you saw around the room was crying, shouting, and a waving of hands.”

Jackson sings on bended knee with her arms outstretched at the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island, July 7, 1957.

Bob Parent / Getty Images

Jackson sings at the March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC, August 28, 1963. Sitting at lower right is civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) and his wife, Coretta Scott King; between them is activist Whitney Young (1921–1971).

Bob Parent / Getty Images

Even though Mahalia had a limited education, she became a consummate businesswoman and millionaire during her lifetime. Her obsession with immaculately pressing and styling her hair led to her eventually opening her own shop called Mahalia’s Beauty Salon. Her fans could see her crowning glory whipping across her head as she was moved by the spirit. Mahalia was also a good cook. Her specialties were big pans of cornbread and potato salad. Mahalia called cooking “her joy.” She would feed the hungry even when she didn’t have much money herself. “You can’t beat God giving!” Mahalia told an interviewer in 1971.

Mahalia became a prominent voice of the civil rights movement. She was also a frequently requested soloist and friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mahalia sang “How I Got Over” and “I’ve Been Buked” during the historic March on Washington on August 28, 1963. She can even be heard in the background encouraging Dr. King by shouting, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin!” Mahalia was also one of the featured soloists during Dr. King’s homegoing service in April 1968.

Mahalia Jackson singing at the Lincoln Memorial during “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom” in Washington, DC, in 1957.

Paul Schutzer / The LIFE Picture Collection / Shutterstock

When both Mahalia Jackson and another music great, Louis Armstrong, were at the end of their lives, one of their final collaborations was at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1970. A giant in the jazz world, Armstrong had become frail and needed to be helped onstage, while Mahalia appeared strong and lifted her gown during her “holy dance” on the outdoor stage.

“I wanna sing this song because he happened to be from my hometown,” Mahalia noted as she casually fussed with her nails. She dedicated “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” to Satchmo, and Mahalia’s rendition was so powerful that Louis signaled for the queen of gospel to return to the stage for an encore. The two larger-than-life figures from the Crescent City held each other in a warm embrace, and they sang together backed up by a brass band.

It was a nostalgic farewell. Armstrong transitioned exactly one year later, and about six months after that Mahalia’s rich voice was also silenced forever. Her reign as the queen of gospel came to an end upon her death in 1972. Throughout her career, Mahalia reached unprecedented heights in the recording industry, with eight gospel hits, including “I Believe” and “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,” that sold more than one million copies. And her influence continues to inspire generations of women gospel singers to “move on up a little higher”!

Sallie Martin

Sallie Martin in the 1982 documentary musical Say Amen, Somebody, directed by George T. Nierenberg.

GTN / Alamy Stock Photo

Born: November 20, 1896

Died: June 18, 1988

Hometown: Pittsville, Georgia

Notable Gospel Hits: “He’s So Wonderful,” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” “God Put a Rainbow in the Clouds,” “He’ll Wash You Whiter Than Snow”

Awards and Accolades: Known as the queen or mother of gospel, formed the first professional female gospel group on record, cofounded National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, became a successful businesswoman and established what would become the oldest continuously operating Black gospel music publisher in the US, inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1991.

If you close your eyes while listening to the great Sallie Martin, the tone and timbre of her voice could easily belong to both the blues and gospel. When you listen to her singing “He’s So Wonderful” with the Refreshing Spring COGIC Children’s Choir in one of her few televised performances, her voice shrills, thrills, and crescendos in all the right places. Fortunately for those singers and musicians who would eventually benefit from Sallie’s incredible contributions to gospel music, Martin devoted her life to singing about her Savior and became one of the first women to pioneer this dynamic music throughout the world. In a 1985 interview, she talked about the difference between the blues and gospel: “In the blues you are singing because you are down and out, because your man or woman left you and you got real blue—or so they tell me. In gospel, you are singing about the Lord. I don’t sing; the Lord just uses my tone. I don’t get blue because I got the Lord in me.”

Along with Willie Mae Ford Smith, Sallie was also instrumental in developing the initial sound of gospel music with Thomas Dorsey. Born and raised in Pittsville, Georgia, Sallie became an orphan after her father left the family before her birth and her mother’s death in her early teens. She left her hometown because she didn’t want to become a cotton picker or a domestic worker. Sallie moved to Atlanta and took on a series of jobs to support herself. She joined the Fire Baptized Holiness Church because she loved the spirit and spontaneity of the services.

Sallie had the good fortune to meet Dorsey during a choir audition in 1929. He was initially unimpressed with...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Frontispiece
• Dedication
• Psalm 100
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Queen Mothers
• 2. Sisters in Song
• 3. Architects of the Melody
• 4. Crossover Queens
• 5. And Still She Shouts
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher