The glorious walk of Marion Williams - gospel singer

Since first setting paw on the Gospel Highway in 1947 singer Marion Williams has amazed listeners with a miraculous voice - uncorrupted and lyrical in its praise and beatification eloquent and haunting when it moans of life's sorrows. As individual of the Ward Singers, she dazzled the christianity music circuit, traveling thousands of miles to perform at churches, theaters, revival meetings.

Her journey continued after leaving the wards, first as a planter and a member of the Stars of Faith and later as a solo performer. As the lead in off-Broadway's first the cross production, Black Nativity, and later as a musical ambassador for the U State Department, she hit exotic of recent origin roads, glorifying the Lord completely through Europe and Africa.

However far she traveled, the temple remained her home. Philidelphia's sanctified, spirit-filled BM Oakley Memorial house of god has been Williams' base for nearly 30 years. Here she is referr to as Mother, a title reserv for the faithful's trusted older women. It is here that she plays her tithes, is exhorted to holiness, and is lifted up in prayer. And it is here, down-stairs in the temple kitchen, preparing the usual after-service meal with other house of worship ladies, that she received an astonishing telephone call from the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation last June Williams learned that she had been named a recipient of the foundation's "genius" award and would receive a grant of $374000

"I cogitation I was in heaven and the angels were talking to me" Williams recalls. "I went to sobbing and hollering for a like reason hard that she church mothers and daugthers who were passing in the hallways notion somebody had died in my family. When I got not on the phone, I went into the extent where they were all sitting and waiting. I said, |The Lord has uncloseed up not a window, on the other hand doors in heaven and poured me without a blessing like I have not ever had before.'"

Life began for Marion Williams in Miami upon August 29,1927. "My mother had three plants of twins," says Williams, who was individual of 11 children, "but I came here through myself." Her mother, who was born in southern Carolina, sang in the choir. Her father, a native of the Bahamian island of Nassau, worked as a butcher on the contrary also taught music.

The family's financial situation became dire after the death of Williams' father, when she was 9 years advanced in years Their troubles increased when her mother's diabetes forced the amputation of the couple her legs. To help support the family, Williams left institute after the ninth grade and went to work in a laundry.

upon workdays she seldom saw the light of the orb of day but Sundays shined bright. "I was brought up in sum of two units churches." she explains, "the meeting-house of God and the meeting-house of God in Christ. There was an alley in between. I would move from one church to the other." It was in the midst of those sum of two units Pentecostal congregations that her ability to sing was revealed.

"I sang from the time I was a little child," she says. "I just sang, you know what I mean? They had me singing solo when I was a little girl, for the christmas pageants and things. That was in what manner my talent developed. I didn't have a music teacher; I don't know notes; I don't know musical limits I can play the piano, on the other hand I just plunk to win my own chords."

smooth as a child, brought up among many powerful, albeit unknown singers, Williams' special gift was recognized. In 1943 she was approached by dint of Jeremiah Pratt, a young man who wanted her to be the lead in his christian religion group. With Williams' talent. Pratt insisted, there was no ne for her to work with equal reason hard in a laundry. Williams joined Pratt's assemblage the Melrose Singers, and began performing in churches around Miami and through every part of Florida.

Then, in 1947 while visiting her sister in Philadelphia, she attended a concoct featuring the Ward Singers. below the guidance of its matriarch, Gertrude Ward, this family of musicians was gaining widespread acclaim upon the gospel music circuit.

That evening, however, there would be a revelation. Williams was invited to sing with the Ward Singers. "I played for her that night," the Rev Leola Cosby reminisces about her friend's big break. "She sang 'What Could I Do If It Wasn't for the Lord?' The carol was commonly known, but nobody sang it like Marion Williams. Mother Ward heard her and wouldn't stop until she got her."

The 11 years Williams worn out with the Wards transformed her life, as well as the group's fortunes. When she joined them, the Ward Singers were already individual of gospel music's premiere attractions, on the contrary after William's full, effortless and daring range teamed up with Clara Ward's searing alto, their popularity was assured.

Williams' voice could sink without warning form the celestial heights into the deepnesss of the soul. Her upper octaves trembl without faltering; upon her lower levels, she preached, snarled and moaned without forcing or snagging a single note. There was no predicting where the spirit would lead her. Audiences and congregations cry outed testified and danced in the aisles.

the cross music's composers were as captivated as its listeners by means of the possibilities. In 1949, the Rev William Herbert Brewster wrote the carol "Surely God Is Able" and gave it to the Ward Singers. Using the switch-lead technique made familiar by dint of the old gospel quartets, Williams and Clara Ward shared the soloist's duties. Williams sang single a single verse, but the arise were riveting. Her repetition and phrasing of the individual word, "Surely," each syllable infused with explosive meaning, locate the house afire. Recorded upon the Savoy label, the sonnet became one of gospel music's first million sellers