Legacy and Honors
Mahalia Jackson's music was played widely on gospel and Christian radio stations, such as Family Radio. Her good friend Martin Luther King Jr said, "A voice like this one comes not once in a century, but once in a millennium." She was a close friend of Doris Akers, one of the most prolific gospel composers of the 20th century. In 1958, they co-wrote the hit, "Lord, Don't Move the Mountain". Mahalia also sang many of Akers' own compositions such as "God Is So Good to Me", "God Spoke to Me One Day", "Trouble", "Lead On, Lord Jesus", and "He's a Light Unto My Pathway", helping Akers to secure her position as the leading female Gospel composer of that time. In addition to sharing her singing talent with the world, she mentored the extraordinarily gifted Aretha Franklin. Mahalia was also good friends with Dorothy Norwood and fellow Chicago-based gospel singer Albertina Walker. She also discovered a young Della Reese. On the twentieth anniversary of her death, Smithsonian Folkways Recording commemorated Jackson with the album I Sing Because I'm Happy, which includes interviews about her childhood conducted by Jules Scherwin.
American Idol winner and Grammy Award-winning R&B singer Fantasia Barrino has been cast to play Mahalia Jackson in a biographical film about her life. The movie will be based on the 1993 book Got to Tell It: Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel. The film is said to be directed by Euzhan Palcy, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences created the Gospel Music or Other Religious Recording category for Jackson making her the first Gospel Music Artist to win the prestigious Grammy Award.
In December 2008, she was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
A prominent namesake in her native New Orleans is the Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts, which was remodeled and reopened on January 17, 2009, with a gala ceremony featuring Placido Domingo, Patricia Clarkson, and the New Orleans Opera directed by Robert Lyall.
Read more about this topic: Mahalia Jackson
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