If you are a regular listener of Good Black News’ Music Monday playlists, we’re sure you’ve noticed by now that we’ve got some serious Stevie Wonder fans in the house. In 2020, we even celebrated his 70th birthday with a whole month of fantastic playlists (some links below).
And now that Mr. Wonder’s birthday week again (on this Friday the 13th), we’ve got a new playlist to share – this one built around songs that he composed for other artists – it’s called “Written By Wonder, First Sung By Another”:
This playlist is comprised of over 90 songs spanning from the mid-60s when he was still just a teenage songwriter, up through the list’s most recent composition, a 2011 release from smooth jazz vocalist Maysa called “Have Sweet Dreams.”
Many people already know of the hits Stevie wrote for others – classics such as The Spinners’ “It’s A Shame,” Jermaine Jackson’s “Let’s Get Serious,” Third World’s “Try Jah Love,” Rufus feat. Chaka Khan’s “Tell Me Something Good,” and of course, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles’ “The Tears of a Clown.”
But his writing legacy goes so much deeper than that.
[Photo: GBN Contributor Joyce Lakin (l) and GBN Editor-in-Chief Lori Lakin Hutcherson (r) in Maui, 2005]
Good Black News wants to take a moment on this day to honor and remember the women who gave us life, who nurtured and raised us, and also offered us solace, counsel, wisdom, humility and humor.
To all the mothers out there – be they Aunties, Grandmothers, Cousins or Friends – thank you for all you do!
And to one mom out there in particular — Joyce Lakin — we want to thank you for all of the above and also for agreeing to put together a playlist of some of your all-time favorite songs to share with all the other moms and children out there who grew up on their mom’s music!
On this list there’s clearly songs you grew up on (Johnny Mathis, Etta James, Sammy Davis, Jr.), songs that were your jams that became our jams (Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye, Prince) and songs that are refreshing surprises — Jay Z and J. Lo — who knew?!
If anyone out there is still lucky enough to have their mom, we encourage you to ask them for their playlist — and you’ll learn more about your mom and yourself than you’d imagine!
We end our celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth today with a short tribute to a seminal architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong.
To read about Armstrong, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, April 30th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Today, we’d like to close out #JazzAppreciationMonth, with a short tribute to a primary architect of the sound, the legendary New Orleans son, Louis Armstrong:
[“St. Louis Blues” by Louis Armstrong]
“No him, no me,” is how jazz innovator Dizzy Gillespie described the impact of musician Louis Armstrong.
Widely believed to be the first great jazz soloist, Armstrong’s improvisations on the cornet and trumpet influenced every jazz musician after him and elevated the musical style to a new, exciting standard.
Born in August of 1901, during one of the more challenging times of his childhood, Armstrong was sent to a home for boys in 1912 after firing his stepfather’s gun in the air during a New Year’s Eve celebration.
While at the “Colored Waifs Home for Boys” as it was called, Armstrong learned how to play the cornet. When Armstrong was released, as he worked odd jobs he was mentored on his horn by one of the best players in town — Joe “King” Oliver – and eventually replaced Oliver on cornet in Kid Ory’s band.
Armstrong soon reunited with Oliver when Oliver formed his own band in Chicago, which lead to Armstrong’s first recorded solo on record, 1923’s “Chimes Blues.”
[Excerpt of “Chimes Blues”]
Armstrong soon left his mentor to join Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra, the top Black big band in New York. But the big city lifestyle and creative restraints Armstrong encountered lead him back to New Orleans to play with his wife Lil Armstrong’s band at the Dreamland Café.
Armstrong also began recording with his studio band – first the Hot Five and then Hot Sevens – even though they weren’t who he played with for live performances.
These recordings with smaller groups of musicians were an early influence on what would that become the norm after the swing band/orchestra’s hey day in the 1930s that ushered in the bebop era in the 1940s.
Armstrong’s stop-time solos on numbers like “Cornet Chop Suey” and “Potato Head Blues” changed jazz history, featuring daring rhythmic choices, swinging phrasing and incredible high notes.
[Excerpt “Potato Head Blues”]
Armstrong also innovated with his vocals, and his riff-style “scat” singing was emulated by popular singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
[Excerpt of “Heebie Jeebies”]
Armstrong’s influence on other musicians was impactful and immediate. A young pianist from Pittsburgh, Earl Hines, assimilated Armstrong’s ideas into his piano playing, and together, they made some of the greatest recordings in jazz history in 1928, including their duet on “West End Blues”:
[Excerpt of “West End Blues”]
“West End Blues” proved without a doubt that popular dance music like jazz music was also capable of producing high art.
As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he toured in Europe, began recording hit songs of the day and appeared in Hollywood movies such asPennies From Heaven and High Societywith Bing Crosby, The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart and New Orleans with Billie Holiday. Armstrong also recorded with a smaller six-piece combo, the All Stars.
The personnel of this combo would frequently change, but Armstrong would perform live with his All Stars until the end of his career. Members, at one time or another, included Jack Teagarden, Earl Hines, Sid Catlett, Barney Bigard, Trummy Young, Edmond Hall, Billy Kyle and Tyree Glenn, among other jazz legends.
During this time in the 1940s and 1950s, Armstrong had hits with his versions of songs such as “That Lucky Old Sun,” “A Kiss to Build a Dream On,” “Blueberry Hill” “La Vie En Rose” and one of the biggest hits of his career, his version of “Mack The Knife”:
[Excerpt from “Mack The Knife”]
As times advanced and changed, Armstrong’s style was seen as outmoded and outdated. He received criticism for remaining silent on politics and not lending his voice to the fight against racism and for civil rights.
Even when Armstrong did speak up, as in 1957 when he called out President Eisenhower for allowing Governor Orval Faubus to use the National Guard to prevent the Little Rock Nine from integrating Little Rock Central High School, he was met with criticism from whites and Blacks alike – the former for saying anything and the latter for seeming to speak out too late.
Yet and still, Armstrong kept on with doing what he wanted to do musically and defying all odds and at the height of the British invasion of the rock and roll era, he scored a #1 Billboard pop hit in 1964 at the age of 63 with his version of “Hello, Dolly”:
[Excerpt of “Hello, Dolly”]
In 1965, Armstrong started performing the Fats Waller tune “Black and Blue” live again a decade after removing it from his repertoire. He changed a lyric from being “I’m white inside” to “I’m right inside” and turned it into a protest that he would continue to play for the rest of his life:
[1965 version of “Black and Blue” from East Germany]
Three years later however, Armstrong’s version of “What A Wonderful World” did not get the same reception in the United States. But it was a number one hit overseas in England and South Africa in 1967, and after its appearance almost two decades later in the 1986 movie Good Morning, Vietnam, “What a Wonderful World” became a signature tune and perennial favorite of Armstrong’s, known the world over to this day.
[Excerpt of “What a Wonderful World”]
Armstrong’s home in Corona, Queens, which he shared with his fourth wife Lillian from 1943 until his passing in 1971, was declared a National Historic Landmark in in 1977. Today, the house is home to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, which annually receives thousands of visitors from all over the world.
Even though his most famous nickname was “Satchmo” for his “satchel mouth,” New Orleans native Armstrong was more lovingly known among musicians as “Pops,” as he was the father of it all.
You can also watch the 1957 documentary Satchmo the Great which is currently posted on YouTube, Ken Burn’s Jazz miniseries on PBS, and be on the lookout for what Apple Original Films announced last year would be the definitive Louis Armstrong documentary produced by Imagine Entertainment where the story will be told entirely through Armstrong’s own words titled Black & Blues: The Colorful Ballad of Louis Armstrong.
And speaking of Louis Armstrong’s words, let’s hear a bit of him speaking about love and life from an audio clip posted on louisarmstronghouse.org:
[Clip of Louis Armstrong speaking]
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Excerpts from Louis Armstrong’s music are included under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Although we dropped in on Duke Ellington earlier this month on April 6th when we shared a quote from him and a snapshot of his career and contributions, today, on his birthday, this prolific composer and musician gets a much-deserved second look, because one thing we didn’t share last time about the Black, Brown and Beige maestro?
He had synesthesia, the neurological condition where sounds and colors blend.
To read about Ellington, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Friday, April 29th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Although we dropped in on Duke Ellington earlier this month on April 6th when we shared a quote from him and a snapshot of his career and contributions, today this prolific composer and musician gets a much-deserved second look:
Born on this day in 1899, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington made an indelible mark on American music for more than six decades. A pianist, composer and bandleader, Ellington created such now-classic standards as “Prelude to a Kiss,” “Mood Indigo,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing”– as well as full-length compositions such as Black, Brown and Beige and Jump For Joy and film scores for Anatomy of a Murder andParis Blues.
Perhaps there were so many hues to Duke’s music because he had synesthesia, the neurological condition where sounds and colors blend. Other noted musicians who are also reported to be synesthetes are Pharrell Williams, Mary J. Blige, Frank Ocean and Kanye West.
To learn more about Ellington, check out our April 6th daily drop and its resources, and if you want to learn more about synesthesia, check out the links provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
Excerpts from Black, Brown & Beige, Part 1 composed by Duke Ellington are included under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
For #JazzAppreciationMonth, we explore the term “bop” — a word often used today to describe a song with a good groove. I
ts musical reference origins however, are rooted in the early 1940s when “bop” was used to describe an new and exciting intricate form of jazz. To read about it, read on. To hear about it, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 26th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category we call “Lemme Break It Down,” where we explore the origins and meanings of words and phrases rooted in the Black Lexicon and Black culture. Today’s phrase is another one in honor of #JazzAppreciationMonth… “Bop.”
“Bop” is a slang term most currently used to mean a really good song, but originally used to reference the jazz genre “bebop,” “rebop” or “hard bop.”
Invented in the 1940s and 1950s by musicians like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Christian, Max Roach, Miles Davis, Mary Lou Williams and Thelonious Monk – right now you’re listening to the song called “Be-Bop” by Dizzy Gillespie, originally written, recorded and released by him in 1945.
The “bop” style of playing consisted of intricate phrasings and harmonic improvisations over chord melodies of standards as well as original compositions. Dizzy Gillespie even titled his 1979 autobiography To Be or Not to Bop.
To learn more about the term “bop,” links to sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
The excerpt from “Be Bop” by Dizzy Gillespie is included under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
GBN is pulling a trifecta today — celebrating #MusicMonday, #JazzAppreciationMonth, and dropping in on absolutely one of the best singers past, present — or ever — Ella Fitzgerald!
Born 105 years ago #OnThisDay, through her stunningly timeless gifts (and vast catalog), Ella Fitzgerald is still surprising and delighting music lovers and casual fans alike.
To read about her, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, April 25th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Today, we offer a quote from the “First Lady of Song” born 105 years ago on this date, the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald.
“The only thing better than singing is more singing.”
Born in 1917 in Newport News, Virginia, Ella Fitzgerald’s earliest artistic ambitions were to become a dancer.
When the loss of her mother when she was 15 lead to a relocation to Harlem to live with her aunt and stints in an orphanage and a state reformatory school for girls, Fitzgerald hustled to get by on the streets and at 17 took her terpsichorean talents to Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater.
But when she saw two sisters with a dance act go on before her and wow the crowd, Ella didn’t think she could compete so she switched up her talent from dancing to singing and took to the stage to sing “Judy” and “The Object of My Affection” and won first prize in 1934.
Although she didn’t record either at the time, in 1968 Ella gave “The Object of My Affection” another onstage go when she sang it for her Live At Chautauqua, Volume1 LP:
[Excerpt from “The Object of My Affection”]
Ella’s Amateur night win lead to an audition with Chick Webb to become the girl singer in his orchestra, and one of the best collaborations between bandleader and singer in the swing era.
Webb and Ella had hits with “Love and Kisses,” “(If You Can’t Sing It) You’ll Have to Swing It (Mr. Paganini)” and the classic turn on a nursery rhyme co-written by Ella that become of the best-selling songs in it’s decade, “A Tisket, A Tasket”:
[Excerpt from “A Tisket, A Tasket”]
Even as Chick Webb took the young Ella under his wing, his serious health challenges ended his life way too soon in 1939.
Ella stepped up and lead and toured with the orchestra for a few more years until she went solo as jazz turned increasingly towards the newer sounds of bebop.
It was around this time, while working with Dizzy Gillespie and his band, Ella developed her scat singing style, lauded on songs such as “Oh, Lady Be Good” and “Flying Home”:
[Excerpt from “Flying Home”]
Ella not only navigated and interpreted jazz standards with dazzling dexterity and clarity, during her heyday, she, like her quote implied, sang and sang and sang some more.
Ella took on several of America’s most popular composers with her unparalleled series of “songbooks,” where she devoted entire albums to covering the songs of Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Rodgers and Hart, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin.
You can’t go wrong with any of these incredible recordings, so I’ll share a personal favorite from Ella Sings Gershwin – Ella’s plaintively tender version of “Someone to Watch Over Me”:
[Excerpt of “Someone to Watch Over Me”]
Ella also paired up with jazz royalty, recording an album with Count Basie, three with Louis Armstrong, four with guitarist Joe Pass and four with Duke Ellington, one which included her version of – I can’t think of any better word than “banging” because Ella just goes so hard in “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”:
[Excerpt of “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”]
From big band to bebop to Broadway, standards, pop and R&B, throughout her career, Ella Fitzgerald recorded over 200 albums and 2,000 songs.
Because frankly, with a voice like hers, the only thing better than Ella singing was more Ella singing. I’m going to put a link to a much longer Ella playlist in the show notes, but let’s hear from her one more time, in 1977, when one of her biggest fans, Stevie Wonder, lovingly sings her praises right before she helps him sing his song:
And of course, buy or stream as much of her music as you can. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
All excerpts of Ella Fitzgerald’s music are included under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
As #JazzAppreciationMonth nears its end, today GBN celebrates the “Home of Happy Feet” that was one of the first integrated public entertainment spaces in the U.S., Harlem’s once famous Savoy Ballroom.
To read about the Savoy, read on. To hear about it, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 24th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category for Black Museums and Landmarks we call “Get The Knowledge”:
Located in Harlem, New York, the Savoy Ballroom was known as “The World’s Finest Ballroom” and the “Home of Happy Feet” from its 1926 opening to its 1958 close.
Unlike other ballrooms of the era, the Savoy always had a no-discrimination policy and showcased the finest swing music in the city.
The Savoy offered non-stop music from two bandstands that attracted dancing pros like Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers as well as everyday people looking to have a good time.
Chick Webb, of the prominent house band leaders at the Savoy, had a top 10 hit in 1934 with the song composed by his saxophonist Edgar Sampson that you are hearing now, called – what else – “Stompin’ At The Savoy.”
In 2022, Frankie Manning and Norma Miller, members of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, unveiled a commemorative plaque for the Savoy Ballroom on Lenox Avenue:
To learn more about the Savoy Ballroom, check out welcometothesavoy.com, a site that’s restoring the Savoy with a VR experience, and they have a great collection of photos from the Savoy’s heyday on view now, watch the 1992 television movie Stompin’ At The Savoydirected by Debbie Allen, available on Amazon Prime Video or Roku.
Watch clips about the history of the Savoy on YouTube, or read Swinging At The Savoy: The Memoir of a Jazz Dancer by Norma Miller. Links to these and other sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org
This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
“Stompin’ At The Savoy” by Chick Webb’s Orchestra is included under fair use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
In continued celebration of #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on Billie Holiday, the singer and artist who not only influenced peers and progeny alike with her innovative interpretation of and phrasing in songs, but also composed several of her signature songs which became jazz and blues standards in the decades that followed.
To read about Holiday, read on. To hear about her, press PLAY:
[You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, April 19th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Billie Holiday famously said she styled her singing after two major influences – blues empress Bessie Smith and jazz trumpeter and legend Louis Armstrong.
The alchemy Holiday found by combining her favorites inspired many of her contemporaries as well as subsequent generations of singers, who were impressed with her pioneering phrasing and improvisation.
What is less often praised about Holiday is her songwriting skill. She wrote several signature songs that are now standards. Let’s start with “Fine and Mellow,” which Holiday first recorded in 1939:
It’s Music Monday! In celebration of Easter and #JazzAppreciationMonth, here is a collection of Sacred Jazz.
When jazz emerged in the first half of the 20th century as music of liberation, entertainment and modernism, it provoked a backlash among cultural and religious-establishment figures.
Many of them went so far as to call it “the music of the devil.” By the middle 1950s, jazz had found its way into the church, sometimes employed in the ritualistic proceedings of liturgies and other traditional ceremonies, or presented in other thematic ways in overt religious homage.
Religion, in some respects, was there from the jump. Many African-American musicians grew up attending and performing in church services, and the imprint of that experience can be found in albums ranging from John Coltrane‘s landmark 1965 LP A Love Supreme to Miles Davis‘ Kind Of Blue.
It was inspired in part, in the words of Davis, “some other kind of sound I remembered from being back in Arkansas, when we were walking home from church and playing these bad gospels.”
This collection features Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe contributions to gospel and sacred jazz, along with pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, known for her Jazz Masses in the 1950s.
Duke Ellington, Kamasi Washington, Pharaoh Sanders, The Free Nationals and many others are on hand too.
On Easter Sunday, GBN celebrates Thomas A. Dorsey, who once worked as Ma Rainey‘s pianist and musical director, and wrote and sang blues songs as the “Georgia Tom” half of the Georgia Tom and Tampa Red duo before revolutionizing gospel music by integrating the feeling of the blues into sacred songs.
To read about Dorsey, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, April 17, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
Gospel music existed before Georgia native Thomas Dorsey turned his ear and pen to it, but it was never the same after.
Working most famously as the piano player and musical director for blues legend Gertrude “Ma” Rainey in the 1920s under the moniker “Georgia Tom.” Despite this success, Dorsey fell into a prolonged period of depression for almost two years and barely performed.
In 1928, Dorsey attended a spirited church service where he claimed a minister pulled a live serpent from his throat. From that point on, Dorsey vowed to dedicate himself to composing gospel music. Dorsey wrote “If You See My Savior” in honor of a friend who passed, which combined a blues feeling into a more traditional hymnal structure:
[Excerpt of “If You See My Savior”]
Dorsey tried to sell his new sacred songs directly to publishers and churches but initially had no luck and returned to writing the blues. With duet partner Tampa Red, as “Georgia Tom” Dorsey had a big hit in 1928, selling over seven million copies of “It’s Tight Like That”:
[Excerpt of “It’s Tight Like That”]
This type of “dirty blues” or “Hokum” songs proved to be popular and the duo recorded and performed for years until Dorsey finally turned to gospel music for good.
He formed a gospel blues choir in Chicago, which helped the new style catch on, and soon became the musical director for Pilgrim Baptist Church and running his own music publishing company.
Dorsey worked with a young Mahalia Jackson in the late 1920s and originally composed for Jackson what became a beloved song not only in gospel blues circles, but country & western as well.
[Excerpt of “Peace in the Valley” by Red Foley & the Sunshine Boys]
“Peace in the Valley” has been recorded by over the decades by artists such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Red Foley & the Sunshine Boys, Johnny Cash,Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton.
And while he was still in his gospel group in the 1960s, Sam Cooke and his Soul Stirrers took their turn in the valley as well:
[Excerpt of “Peace in the Valley” by Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers]
In Dorsey’s lifetime, which was long – he lived to 93 – Dorsey composed over 3,000 songs, including the one Martin Luther King, Jr. said was his favorite, the one Mahalia Jackson ended up singing at his funeral, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”:
[Excerpt of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”]
Dorsey’s songs changed the sound of sacred music and influenced generations to come, which is why he is often called “The Father of Gospel Music.”
Dorsey has been inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2002, the Library of Congress honored Dorsey by adding his album Precious Lord: New Recordings of the Great Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey, to the United States National Recording Registry.
You can also watch 2005’s The Story of Gospel Musicdocumentary, which is currently available on DVD.
And every year, Dorsey’s hometown of Villa Rica, Georgia holds an annual Thomas A. Dorsey Birthplace Heritage Festivalof gospel music. This year’s will be held on June 25thand 26th.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
And before we go, let’s hear a clip of Thomas Dorsey himself speaking on the meaning of gospel:
“Down through the ages gospel – what? What did they say was? You mean to tell me you don’t know that good news? On down to the ages, gospel was good news. Now if you don’t know that I’ll rush you out of here myself.”
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by yours truly, Lori Lakin Hutcherson. Intro and outro beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
“Roll Jordan Roll” by the Fisk Jubilee Singers is in the Public Domain.
Excerpts of songs composed by Thomas A. Dorsey are included under Fair Use.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
Armstrong also began recording with his studio band – first the Hot Five and then Hot Sevens – even though they weren’t who he played with for live performances.
As Armstrong’s reputation grew, he toured in Europe, began recording hit songs of the day and appeared in Hollywood movies such as Pennies From Heaven and High Society with Bing Crosby, The Glenn Miller Story with Jimmy Stewart and New Orleans with Billie Holiday. Armstrong also recorded with a smaller six-piece combo, the All Stars.
To learn more about the term “bop,” links to sources are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
Watch incredible clips of her on YouTube performing with 
