Willie Mae Ford Smith

Willie Mae Ford Smith (June 23, 1904 – February 2, 1994) was an American musician and Christian evangelist instrumental in the development and spread of gospel music in the United States. She grew up singing with her family, joining a quartet with her sisters. Later she became acquainted with Thomas A. Dorsey, the "Father of Gospel Music", when he co-founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in 1932. Smith started the St. Louis chapter and became the director of the national organization's Soloist's Bureau, training up and coming singers in the gospel blues style. She became known for her nurturing temperament, leading to her commonly being called "Mother Smith" by those within her musical circle. For a decade she traveled ceaselessly tutoring, singing, and preaching in churches and at revivals. Her appearances were renowned for being intensely moving spiritual experiences.

A devout Christian, she rejected commercializing gospel music throughout her life, even during gospel's "golden age". Smith chose to perform live and on the radio rather than record. She was ordained as a minister and preached at a church in St. Louis, Missouri, for 30 years. However, not until the 1980s did she become known to mainstream audiences. She was the primary focus of the 1982 documentary film Say Amen, Somebody, about gospel singers in the U.S. Author Anthony Heilbut states, "her admirers and protégés are legion. This is simply the most influential female gospel singer of all time, and in the opinion of many, many fans, the greatest."

Early life (1904–1921)

Born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, Willie Mae was the seventh of fourteen children of Clarence Ford, a railroad brakeman, and Mary Williams. Soon after she was born, her family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee for her father's work.

Willie Mae became familiar with blues from hearing it coming from a disreputable clubhouse adjacent to her family's Memphis back yard when she was still a toddler. Bar patrons tossed coins to hear her sing "Boll Weevil". The Fords moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1917, and Mary started a restaurant where Willie Mae worked after dropping out of school in the eighth grade. Her parents were devout Christians, her father a deacon in their church. They fostered a love of singing, eventually encouraging Willie Mae and her sisters Mary, Emma, and Geneva to perform at their local church, True Light. They enjoyed it so much they formed a singing quartet called the Ford Sisters. Their reception at events, including the 1922 National Baptist Convention, was lukewarm.

In the early 20th century, music at urban black churches throughout the U.S. was formal and refined. Choirs performed sophisticated material from classical European composers, like Handel and Mozart, more to show their musical abilities than reiterate a spiritual message through music. Personalizing songs by improvising with melody, lyrics, and rhythm was generally not tolerated under the belief that it was common and undignified. In this light, Smith later said that the National Baptist Convention "hadn't really accepted gospel".

Introduction to gospel blues (1922–1930)

As her sisters grew, married, and had families, Willie Mae continued as a soloist, even after her 1924 marriage to James Smith, a man 19 years her senior who owned a general hauling business. James encouraged her to accept requests to sing in church, and expressed pride in her voice.

Despite his best efforts, Dorsey found it impossible to sell his sheet music or break into the inner workings of Chicago's black churches. As a blues singer, his involvement in a culture widely considered to be sinful would not have been well received in churches, particularly in a position of leadership, which he was seeking. Dorsey thus had neither the time or interest in attending the National Baptist Convention in his home city of Chicago. Though he had gone in previous years, Dorsey stayed home in 1930. Smith traveled from St. Louis to the convention, with 15,000 attendees, and sang Dorsey's "If You See My Savior" to the general morning gathering. Upon hearing her, the audience was greatly moved. Smith performed it twice more on request; Dorsey, who did not know Smith before the convention, was beckoned to rush there where he sold 4,000 copies of his song. It led to his permanent position as music director at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church, allowing him to focus entirely on gospel music.

fontsize= 95%

When the Holy Ghost hit me, I hit the floor. On the train coming back to St. Louis, I kept everybody up all night long, trying to talk, speaking in tongues.... Honey, this child got soused good. The Lord had to fix me up, because you see I was a wild person, just like a wild buck. I made fun of holiness people. I laughed at 'em and tried to do the holy dance. I would just cut up. — Willie Mae Ford Smith According to Anthony Heilbut, "Those who attended her programs consider them some of the deepest experiences of their lives."

Part of her touring entourage included younger singers under her tutelage. She took them to perform with her at "Willie Mae Ford Smith Specials", and earned her enduring "Mother" sobriquet by caring for her singers: "When we'd go out of town, I was their mother until we came back home. Anyone who was in distress, Mother Smith could help out, give money or part of my clothes."

Throughout her life, Smith steadfastly refused to commercialize her performances by asking to get paid. She took offerings for her services but the compensation was meager, at times barely covering her train fares and accommodations. Sometimes she had to request money from her husband to get home, which he obliged. She ended the decade on a high note, however, joining Mahalia Jackson for an Easter Sunrise concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles in 1949. The next year, at 67 years old, she recorded her first album, I Believe I'll Run On, and in 1975, her second, Going On With the Spirit.

Smith was the primary focus of the critically acclaimed documentary film Say Amen, Somebody, released in 1982, where she describes her efforts to spread gospel and the obstacles she faced when first getting started. Aged 77 at the time of filming, Smith sings with her family in her kitchen, at the 1981 NCGCC meeting, and at a tribute concert organized by the film's director, George Nierenberg. She also mentors a young Zella Jackson Price, who expresses her difficulty reconciling the need to be at home with her family while being called on by God to sing. Guiding her protégée behind the scenes, Smith insisted that Price be included in the film. Four of Smith's songs in Say Amen, Somebody were included on the soundtrack, released in 1983.

The same year, she released her final album titled I Am Bound For Canaan Land, her only album to capture the ambient sounds of the participating audience with her voice. She stayed active singing and visiting nursing homes until 1985. One of Smith's final appearances was at a reunion concert for the singers featured in Say Amen, Somebody held in 1986 at the Fox Theater in St. Louis. Frail, in a wheelchair, and considerably thinner, she was barely able to sing, but prompted a rousing call and response among the audience. As observed by Harper Barnes, a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "as she kept speaking her words grew louder and stronger and turned into a hypnotic chant and the audience began responding as if the soaring parapets of the Fox were the walls of a church". The next year, she was among 75 black American women included in the book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America. She died at age 89 of congestive heart failure at the Tower Village Nursing Home in 1994. A crowd of 500 celebrated her life at Lively Stone Apostolic Church where she preached and sang for 30 years. She is buried at St. Peter's Cemetery in St. Louis.

Legacy

fontsize= 95%

Mother Smith ... was Holy-Ghost filled... She was dramatic. When she said she felt like flying away, in your mind's eye, you could visualize this... She had power in her voice [and] in her expression. She was a singer. I've seen her walk out singing... on the way to her next appearance... and folks is just shoutin' everywhere, hats flyin' and carryin' on, just somethin' terrible. She'd come in and just wreck all them buildings. That was Mother Smith, and she loved it. — Zella Jackson Price While Dorsey wrote 1,000 gospel songs and set standards for gospel choirs, Smith created the "openly emotional and spiritually exuberant performance style" so characteristic of gospel blues.

Smith was an inspiration to generations of gospel singers, a towering figure in black churches. Martha Bass remembered, "She had such joy, such a lovely personality. It would shine out beautifully... She used to sing a song called 'Give Me Wings,' and she made us feel like we were on wings. She was just real, that's all. If you don't sing inwardly, you can't sing outwardly." Holding Smith responsible for the creation and popularization of the song-and-sermonette method of preaching, the National Endowment for the Arts attributes her influence to "her distinctive singing style, which brought to the gospel repertoire the range of vocal effects she heard as a young girl in country churches. She ornamented and bent the tones of the straightforward hymns that she preferred. She helped the great Mahalia Jackson develop the 'flowers and feathers' that so adorned her vocal style... Above all, she sang out of emotion, using every vocal effect from growling to crooning to express her sense of the moment."

Honors

National Endowment of the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, awarded 1988

Discography

Singles "Call Him" / "Jesus Is the Name" Gotham G667, ca. 1950 "Goin' On With the Spirit" / "Pilot, Take My Hand" Sacred 6015, ca. 1950 "Give Me Wings" / "What Manner of Man" ca. 1950

Albums I Believe I'll Run On, Nashboro 7124, 1973 Going On With the Spirit, Nashboro 7148, 1975 I Am Bound For Canaan Land, Savoy Records 14739, 1983

Other appearances Say Amen, Somebody: Original Soundtrack Recording and More, DRG Records – SB2L 12584, 1983 Mother Smith and Her Children, Spirit Feel 1010, 1989 (with Martha Bass, Brother Joe May, and Edna Gallmon Cooke)