Just Mahalia, Baby [Paperback]

Laurraine Goreau (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 1998

The queen of gospel and a symbol of integrity, Mahalia Jackson was the embodiment of an era. Accurate, well-researched, and rich with the music, faith, people, and events that sparked the spirit of the time, Just Mahalia, Baby is a fast-paced and engaging biography. From the poverty of her New Orleans childhood, where she sang in church and was exposed to the rhythms of ragtime jazz, through troubled times and triumphs, and on to Chicago, wealth, and worldwide acclaim, her biographer Laurraine Goreau chronicles Mahalia's storied life and career. Mahalia went to receptions for presidents, sang at a freedom rally to set the mood before Martin Luther King spoke, toured the world, and remained a dedicated fighter for black people's rights. Generous and warm-hearted, she won the respect and admiration of those who knew her, whether personally or through her music. Downbeat magazine named her one of the top four jazz vocalists along with Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan, yet she remained undaunted by fame. "Don't make me no saint, baby!" she told Laurraine Goreau. "Tell the real story of me."

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Firebird Press (December 31, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882894412
• ISBN-13: 978-0882894416
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #428,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Don't Make Me No Saint, Baby", December 19, 2002

By 

B R Jones (Bartlesville, Ok United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Just Mahalia, Baby (Paperback)

I read this lengthy story many years ago. In the meantime I was privileged to meet one of Mahalia's former pianists, Rev. J. D. Strawther, who is so listed in the book. Hearing Strawther's chronicle of his experience with the powerful singer made the book come alive to me. I am a very strong admirer of the late Clara Ward, and enjoyed reading, from Mahalia's viewpoint, about the relationship of the Ward Singers and Miss Jackson.

It is extremely admiral to see how that Mahalia pulled herself up by her own bootstraps in a day and time when that was very difficult, and given her problem with timing in regards to her vocal singing. It must have taken a lot of courage for Laurraine to write the good, the bad and the ugly; and some instances were rather disappointing. But she wrote as she was instructed, "Don't make me no saint, baby."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Mahalia, Baby!, January 22, 2007

By 

Thomas C. Banks (Saint Louis, Missouri) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Just Mahalia, Baby (Paperback)

Great biography! I have always enjoyed reading about the world's greatest singer, and this biography simply takes out all the stops and tells about the true Mahalia, in her own words. Mahalia, I miss you more and more each day, because no one sings like you or as well as you sang.

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough and well-documented, August 4, 2011

By 

William V. Cleland - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Just Mahalia, Baby (Paperback)

I first bought the hardback copy in, I think, 1975. It was a labor of love reading this extensive work, as Mahalia Jackson requested this book in response to "a vast wave of dissatisfaction" with much in print about herself. Moreover, I finally did contact Laurraine Goreau and spoke with her on the phone about her work, Mahalia, and other issues. Ms. Goreau was candid, warm, and helpful. Her book was taken from extensive interviews with luminaries such as Jacqueline Onassis, Studs Terkel, Irving Townsend (Columbia record producer) and many others. She incorporated actual tape recordings she had made with Mahalia since 1967. The story begins at the early 20th century in New Orleans and details Jackson's life and the culture surrounding her. It elaborates extensively on her mystical life and visionary state. We as readers follow her through the streets of New Orleans, Jim Crow life, the Baptist and Sanctified Churches, the dinner table, the Mississippi River, the Crackerjack (Voodoo store), the Catholic Church making novenas, etc., and thus we discover that Mahalia was a woman eclectically motivated and exposed to multicultural forces. She was extremely complex, intelligent, self-actualized, and as the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca stated "in harmony with her own nature." The train trip to Chicago, the decades of struggling to make ends meet, failed marriages, Thomas Dorsey, Carnegie Hall, Europe, Africa, India, and Japan are only a few events that shed intriguing insights into the psyche of this extraordinary woman. Her anxieties, illnesses, and temper shed further light on the broader scope of her personality. This book is an interesting cultural as well as psychological study of Mahalia Jackson. At the end, the reader has the sense that, as Seneca stated, "The conclusion is, not that hardships are desirable, but that virtue is desirable, which enables us patiently to endure hardships" (Epistle LXVII). Mahalia Jackson had more than her fair share of hardships. Her courage, humor, and determination serve to demonstrate an incredible drive to overcome. That she did!