Mahalia Jackson

Inspired by Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson is regarded as the singer who brought blues into the gospel field and then brought gospel to a secular audience with greater success than any other artist in the field. Stubborn, contentious, and not altogether a model of propriety, Jackson seemed to use her singing perfor-mances to transport herself to more sanctified ground. Her majestic contralto voice could handle a wide range of material, and her gift as an interpreter allowed her to work a lyric with such conviction, you sensed someone unburdening her soul in powerful terms.

Born in New Orleans in 1911, she moved to Chicago in 1927, and in 1936 married a man who wanted her to sing jazz and classics. The marriage ended, and Jackson went back on the gospel circuit and began to build a following. In 1937, she recorded a few sides for Decca, all of them wonderful, but another nine years elapsed before she recorded again. Signed to the Apollo label, she made her most important records in the late '40s and early '50s. These are out of print now, but should any show up in cutout bins, the titles to latch on to are The Best of Mahalia Jackson and 1911-1972.

In the years between her move to Columbia, in 1954, and her death, in 1972, Jackson was by most estimations the most popular gospel artist in America. But at the same time that she was experiencing all this fame, her music was suffering. Columbia saw an opportunity to reach a mass audience by saddling Jackson's arrangements with strings or even a full orchestra (the most egregious example being the out-of-print Power and the Glory, with arrangements by Percy Faith, the very model of the corporate studio hack). It is a testament to her consummate artistry that Jackson surmounts most every obstacle placed in her path; every Columbia album contains profound moments, even if no LP is totally successful or representative of the breadth and depth of the woman's power.

Bless This House features her with a small rhythm section, but the inspired accompaniment of her longtime pianist Mildred Falls comes through loud and clear. A male quartet -- sounding for all the world like something cooked up by Mitch Miller -- disrupts a few otherwise ebullient performances, but these miscalculations are more than offset by powerhouse vocals on "God Knows the Reason Why," "Trouble of the World," and "Precious Lord." The 1976 release How I Got Over is the best of the Columbia titles precisely because the tracks are culled from 1954 radio perfor-mances and a 1963 television appearance, capturing Jackson close to the form she displayed on her best Apollo sides. A loyal friend and supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., her album devoted to his memory includes a powerful reading of "We Shall Overcome," as well as "Precious Lord," King's last request of Jackson. Beware of Greatest Hits, as it contains rerecordings of some of the Apollo sides as well as newer material. The Great Mahalia Jackson is a worst-case example of Columbia's mishandling of this great artist; the disc is rife with pop fluff such as "Danny Boy," "Sunrise, Sunset," and "What the World Needs Now Is Love." The set Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns is a good summary of Jackson's Columbia catalogue, but a summary is all it amounts to: Its 36 tracks represent only a small portion of her output in nearly two decades with the label. In 2004, a definitive Mahalia Jackson collection that demonstrates proper appreciation of her artistry was finally released -- the two-disc Essential Mahalia Jackson. The Live in Newport album is also indispensable, as it captures Jackson's astounding vocal gifts mercifully unadorned by overproduction. (DAVID MCGEE/GAYLORD FIELDS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide