Music: Gospel with a Bounce

Mahalia Jackson was born in a Negro shack in New Orleans in 1911 and went to work as a washerwoman at 13. Even earlier, the thing she loved best was to sing in the congregation of her Baptist church. “All around me I could hear the feet tapping and the hands clapping. That gave me bounce. I liked it much better than being up in the choir singing the anthem. I liked to sing the songs the folks sing which testify to the glory of the Lord—those anthems are too dead and cold.”

Mahalia still sings in churches. But her deep, creamy contralto has also been heard five times in Carnegie Hall, where she fills the house without benefit of advertising (“You just get a feeling she’s coming,” explains one New York fan). Two years ago, on a European tour, greetings came from Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill before an Albert Hall concert.

After she sang in Copenhagen, enthusiastic Danes bought 20,000 records of her Silent Night. In the U.S., she reports, her recording of Move On Up a Little Higher topped the 1,000,000 mark.

Except for gospel songs, she will sing only such numbers as Danny Boy: “That’s a sad song. It tells the experience of one who has grieved, so I can sing it. I love to sing songs with a sorrow aspect.” She refuses to do blues numbers because “they’re sinful.” Explains Mahalia: “Blues only touch the heart. Gospel singing is a heart feeling, too, but it’s also got His love, and that’s what I’ve got to sing if I’m going to sing at all.”

Last week untrained but talented Mahalia was rehearsing in Chicago for her own radio show (Sun. 10:05 p.m., CBS). Her arranger, Jack Halloran, suggested that she start singing on the eighth bar of I Believe. Said Mahalia: “Jack, don’t talk to me about bars. What word do you want me to start on?” When she is learning a song, Mahalia listens intently as her longtime accompanist, Mildred Falls, plays the piece over and over. Then Mahalia works until she feels both the words and the music. She never sings the same song twice in the same way. Even when using an identical arrangement for I Believe, Mahalia sang one version in two minutes, 40 seconds and another in three minutes, 20 seconds — a 40-second difference that could play hob with radio’s split-second timing.

Fortunately for radiomen’s peace of mind, the show is recorded, and the rapt studio audience thunderously liked whichever way Mahalia sang a song. She has a surge, vitality and emotional genuineness that crackles across her listeners like electricity. When the audience began cheering and stamping, Mahalia warned them: “Don’t you start that or we’d tear this studio apart. You got to remember, we’re not in church—we’re on CBS.”