Illustration by Edward Kinsella III
Willa Mae Ford Smith
Born in 1906, Willa Mae Ford was the seventh child in a family of 14. “Our coats did double time as our blankets,” she once recalled. When she was young, churchgoers still frowned on gospel music as “worldly.” But Willa Mae and her sisters formed a quartet and threw the 1922 National Baptist Convention into a state of exultation with their arrangement of “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel.” Smith was one of the first to sing Tommy Dorsey’s bluesy style of gospel, and she helped him found the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses. She had a deep contralto voice, and she never sang a hymn straight ahead; she added to it and raised it up and threw in a sermonette or two. A beloved teacher, she taught Mahalia Jackson her “flowers and feathers” embellishments and mentored both Martha Bass and Joe May. Brother May called her Mother Smith, and the name fit: She was an ordained minister, and she nurtured the gospel world so warmly, she had no time to record her own work until 1950. Mainstream recognition didn’t come until the 1970s, after she sang at the Newport Jazz Festival. In 1988, she received a National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The O’Neal Twins
Edward Vazon O’Neal Jr. and his twin brother, Edgar, started performing gospel in 1950, at age 12. Both sang, and Edgar played the piano. Their sound was Southern (think Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Alabama), strong and heartfelt, what gospel expert Calvin King calls “pay-attention gospel,” impossible to snooze through. First, the O’Neal Twins sang in St. Louis churches. Then they moved up to Fox Theatre, the American Theater, and Powell Symphony Hall—then to Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, and the Kennedy Center. In 1969, the brothers were voted the world’s greatest gospel duo by the National Association of Television and Radio Announcers. In 2004, they were inducted into the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
The Lesters
It all started with Opal “Bobo” LuMeart, who played a pump organ in a little Baptist church in Hayti, Mo., until she fell in love with Harvey Lester and they married and moved to St. Louis. They opened a music store, where Opal taught lessons, and in 1925, they started a family music ministry. Opal’s son Herschel went on to win a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mid-America Gospel Music Association—as did his son, Brian Lester, and daughter, Ginger Pitchers. Now The Lesters are making room for the fourth generation: baritone Jonathan Lester and drummer Evan Pitchers. St. Louis’ “first family of gospel” challenged the traditional male quartets of Southern gospel, opening the way for mixed and family-based groups.
Praiz’
He’s performed hip-hop and produced for Chingy, but it was gospel that called him out of a life of crime, and gospel’s where Vance L. Watt II, a.k.a. V’land and Praiz’, is staying. He writes, sings, and produces contemporary gospel, infusing it with the urgent, driven beat of hip-hop and the polished precision of the slickest secular recordings. He’s been writing songs since he was 13; he taught himself to play piano at 16; as V’land, he produced more than 20 albums for other artists; and now he has his own label, Parking Lot Praiz’ Beats. His focus is youth fellowship, setting the example.
Gregg “Happy Guitar” Haynes
Happy’s how Haynes’ jazz guitar makes people feel. It’s why he won the Ambassador Dr. Bobby Jones Legends Award in Nashville and why, after a two-week European tour, he was pronounced an honorary citizen of Ukraine. He made them happy, too. When he was little, his family couldn’t afford music lessons, so his mother laid hands on him with blessed oil and prayed that God would anoint him with talent. Gregg did his part, practicing the “The Peter Gunn Theme” from TV and training his ear by listening to the Rev. Cleophus Robinson’s radio broadcasts. He brought “the devil’s music”—jazz and blues—into his own church music. And he was forgiven.
Too Good to Be Temporary
The IN UNISON Chorus
Almost 20 years ago, Robert Ray brought in 50 community members and 50 St. Louis Symphony Chorus members to sing Undine Smith Moore’s Scenes From the Life of a Martyr, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The performance was so powerful, the symphony asked Ray to form an entirely African-American chorus to sing Hannibal Peterson’s African Portraits. Ray found so much willing talent, especially among the city’s church choirs, that the symphony made the chorus permanent. IN UNISON draws eager, mixed-race audiences to its concerts every December, February, and May, singing classical works by African-American composers, jazz-based classical pieces, anthems, spirituals, and gospel. “This music has spoken to my community for all of its life,” Ray says, “but now we have a chance to show it to the world.”
Pick Five
Dello Thedford
Minister of Music, Shalom Church; Dean of Arts; Central Visual and Performing Arts High School
1. Martha Bass
In addition to displaying her own talents, she fostered those of her children, singers David Peaston and Fontella Bass.
2. The O’Neal Twins
Edgar and Eddie O’Neal were chosen to travel with the “King of Gospel,” the Rev. James Cleveland.
3. Willa Mae Ford Smith
She thrilled listeners with her unusual tenor range.
4. Rev. Cleophus Robinson
He was the first gospel singer to pack Kiel Auditorium yearly.
5. Christopher Watkins
His “Because of the Blood” influenced the style of contemporary gospel.
