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The World's Greatest Gospel Singer | 
 enlarge | Artist: Mahalia Jackson
Label: Sony Special Product
Category: Music
List Price: $6.97
Buy New: $1.10
You Save: $5.87 (84%)
New (29) Used (12) from $0.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 56874
Format: Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 13275
UPC: 079891327527
EAN: 0079891327527
ASIN: B000002Y4G
Release Date: July 7, 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | I'm Going to Live the Life I Sing About in My Song - Mahalia Jackson, Dorsey, Thomas A. | | • | When I Wake up in Glory - Mahalia Jackson, Traditional | | • | Jesus Met the Women at the Well - Mahalia Jackson, | | • | Oh Lord Is It I? - Mahalia Jackson, Anderson, R. | | • | I Will Move on up a Little Higher - Mahalia Jackson, Frye, Theodore | | • | When the Saints Go Marching In - Mahalia Jackson, Traditional | | • | Jesus - Mahalia Jackson, Coleman | | • | Out of the Depths - Mahalia Jackson, Gross, T. | | • | Walk over God's Heaven - Mahalia Jackson, Dorsey, Thomas A. | | • | Keep Your Hand on the Plow - Mahalia Jackson, Traditional | | • | Didn't It Rain - Mahalia Jackson, Martin, Roberta |
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 The World's Greatest Gospel Singer June 26, 2008
Who ever you are; if you are looking at this album, and looking at this review, do yourself a favour, buy it. There are very few songs that really touch you and even fewer great voices. On this album you have both.
 Mahalia Jackson March 28, 2008
If you like gospel music please take the time to sample Mahalia Jackson. From the depths of her soul she sings like she knows what she is singing about. Laugh and cry with her but most of all listen to the words.
mexican way November 6, 2007
Well, this is in my opinion the best period of Mahalia's carrer (1955). Her voice is still strong and too expressive. The songs let her "touch" us in a special way. It's a good oportunity for young people to listen the background's soul singers.
From the Depths of Suffering, Emerges Joy February 6, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The great thing about Mahalia Jackson, is that you don't have to be a fan of gospel music to enjoy her work. Like a great Opera, or an abstract work of art, she is something to be appreciated on many levels...a pure, powerful voice...one of the greatest voices ever to be recorded.
"The World's Greatest Gospel Singer" is Mahalia Jackson as she was meant to be. This collection, with all songs performed with the Falls-Jones Ensemble, is the kind of bluesy, jazz-inspired and painfully heartfelt gospel music that made Mahalia one of a kind. This is her voice and talent in its purest form, before it was bought and sold to mainstream audiences in the late 1950's. Some of the recording quality isn't quite up to snuff, but it adds to the "rediscovered" feel of this unique style of gospel music, and her voice comes loud and clear no matter what.
Hightlights include:
Track 1: "I'm Going to Live the Life I Sing about in my Song"-a bold and powerful stance against hypocrisy.
Track 3: "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well"-a great old-timey tune.
Track 5: "I Will Move on Up a Little Higher"-a bluesier version of her most famous song.
Track 6: "When the Saints Go Marching In"-a great version of an old song that had even this non-Christian tapping my feet and wanting to dance.
Track 11: "Didn't it Rain"-a definative display of her voice.
An early MJ album: 1 of 2 top recommends in her discography August 15, 2004
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
In this recording, you get mono sound only, but who cares? It displays the absolutely sizzling talents of a jazz-inflected gospel backup band, including the redoubtable pianist Mildred Falls whose genius is more or less inseparable from Mahaliah Jackson's genius.
No doubt about it, these players cook bacon while they juggle musical chairs. If the hair stands up on the back of your neck all the way through this CD, then good for you. It just means you are getting it. Of course, center of the holy musical storm is Mahaliah Jackson herself.
With her incredibly physical, mezzosoprano-range voice, she can do whatever she wants. She can trumpet, lift, pray, whisper, or shout with the best of them. She is living the life she sings about in her song, and she is singing the life she lives. Many of these versions of these songs have never been better sung, or captured in gospel recording history.
Listen to what she and the group do on a song called, "Didn't it rain". And when the woman Jesus met at the well goes running into town to talk about her encounter, the music embodies the rush of her inner necessity. This music got feet.
When MJ moves on up a little higher, you simply must trust her to carry you with her. At least let your sad eyes follow her upwards. This song is one of the two that she early recorded as an unknown African American Baptist church singer. It was backed on a two-sided 78 disc with the other big MJ signature song, How I Got Over. I have heard MJ attributed as the author of both songs, but I cannot say that for sure. Whoever wrote either one of them, it is safe to say that MJ made each her own in the most unique and powerful way. In its first release, that 78 rpm disc must have been bought by just about every African American Baptist in the USA, because she sold 3 million copies. All of a sudden, the music/money people were sniffing down highways and byways to find out who this amazing singer was. It is so characteristic that they had never hear of her. The USA was even more segregated in those years than it can be today. Indeed, one of the key concerns of the big label Columbia, once it signed its contract with MJ was: how can we set her peformances, so that they don't sound too black, so that they cross over successfully to white america?
This early album, however, will have none of that nonsense. The group (including Mildred Falls)is probably the most brilliant backup that MJ ever had on a recording. The only other recording that offers us the pure, unadulterated musical Mahaliah Jackson in her live in Europe concert CD, also (probably temporarily) available on CD. There, she and Mildred Falls are like super-heroines in a Marvel comic, with all sorts of musical magic up their sleeves.
If you have both of these, you have Mahaliah Jackson. This recording is like a drink of cool well water in the back country on a very hot, humid day. You never knew how good pure water could be. In fact, pour me another glass. I am sitting in the shade for a while, feeling the breezes, and listening to the witness this lady sings about what God is doing in her life.
Unlike many forms of religion, MJ believes the kingdom is wide open. Hers is a generous spirit, and so a generous religion. She is not worried about keeping the heavenly treasures under lock and key, lest they be unfairly distributed to beggars or publicans who have not proved their worth in terms of human empires. She sings for anybody who will bother to listen. Like a prophet, she speaks her truth to power. She makes me wonder what life would be like, if we were all speaking more truth, more often, to power.
In any case, get this CD for the music. Its five stars shape some mysterious constellation that is rare and shining as the firmament circles above our heads.
The other must-have MJ recommendation is: MJ Live In Europe concert. It is newly (and probably temporarily) available. Get both. Now. You can learn many of life's lessons from MJ on these two CD's, and have a whale of a good time listening as you learn. Maybe other singers have, in their own ways, reached so high. But nobody has surpassed MJ. She is the real deal. I think I get just a tad more real, when I listen to her. If the destination is the journey, then MJ offers us the best kind of traveling music. Highly recommended. Get it before it's gone again.
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