Gospel Legend: Walter Hawkins, 1949 – 2010.  

Hawkins was at the forefront of the contemporary gospel music movement and had been a major influence on many later musicians careers. Walter Hawkins’ pioneering music always reflected the heart of a man who was looking forward to leaving this world for a better one, and his songs still offer a blueprint for what authentic gospel music is all about. A tribute to the late legend.

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This book is a good A-Z guide for today’s independent artists. Alvin Williams and Jay King uncover a lot of the mysteries’ behind the veil of the business of music. If you are called and gifted to create music, this book will empower you to get your music into the hands of your audience.

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By Stephen Smith, A&R Rep, Verity Music Group

So you’ve written a song and you need to copyright it? Well, if you have put the song onto a tangible medium such as a transcription on sheet music, CD or even cassette (c’mon it’s 2010), then believe it or not the song is already technically copyrighted. (Note that you can not claim a copyright on an idea that exists only in your head.)

~According to Copyright Law (by way of the Berne Convention and the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988), a work is automatically protected by an assumed copyright once put in a tangible form

Now with that said, you probably are wondering what everything you’ve heard about filling out forms and “sending in” are about. Well, that is considered registering your works with the U.S. Copyright Office and WILL benefit you if you ever need to prove that you are the original copyright holder of a work. By registering your works with the U.S. Copyright Office, you’re making your claim of ownership that much easier in the event you need to prove due to infringement (if you ever need to prove in court). The Copyright Office has recently updated the various methods in which you can register a work.

eCO – You can now register works online using what they call eCO (Electronic Copyright Office) which also happens to be the cheapest ($35) and quickest method. You can pay the registration fee using a credit card and also upload certain file types (vs the traditional method of mailing in). This is also the Copyright Office’s preferred method.

Form CO – This is a new form that takes the place of forms TX, VA, PA, SE and SR (forms PA and SR are the forms used to register songs and recordings). This is a “fill-in” form that you complete online, print out and send via mail along with payment (check or money order) and the work being register termed “deposit”. This method costs $50 and is obviously slower than eCO but quicker than the traditional hand completed copyright forms.

Paper Forms – This is the old school way. No need to use this method anymore. In fact, the Copyright Office does not even offer the forms on the site anymore. In addition, the fee is $65!!! If you decide to use this method, you have to request to form be sent to you (via postal mail).

After you send in your registration, the Copyright Office will process your application and if all is well send you a registration certificate. The turnaround time various based on your method of registration and the number of registrations they’re receiving at the time of submission. It can be anywhere from 6 months (using eCO) to 2 years (using Paper Forms).

As it stands now, a copyright’s duration is for the life of the author + 70 years.

Visit the U.S. Copyright Office site at http://www.copyright.gov/

Stephen Smith June 10, 2010

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Today is Joseph Burney’s birthday.

Happy Birthday Joseph!

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Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899, Villa Rica, Georgia – January 23, 1993, Chicago). He is known as “the father of gospel music” and was at one time so closely associated with the field that songs written in the new style were sometimes known as “dorseys.” Earlier in his life he was a leading blues pianist known as Georgia Tom.

Dorsey’s father was a minister and his mother a piano teacher. He learned to play blues piano as a young man. After studying music formally in Chicago, he became an agent for Paramount Records. He put together a band for Ma Rainey called the “Wild Cats Jazz Band” in 1924.

He started out playing at rent parties with the names Barrelhouse Tom and Texas Tommy, but he was most famous as Georgia Tom. As Georgia Tom, he teamed up with Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker) with whom he recorded the raunchy 1928 hit record “Tight Like That”, a sensation, selling seven million copies. In all, he is credited with more than 400 blues and jazz songs.

Dorsey began recording gospel music alongside blues in the mid 1920s. This led to his performing at the National Baptist Convention in 1930, and becoming the bandleader of two churches in the early 1930s.

His first wife, Nettie, who had been Rainey’s wardrobe mistress, died in childbirth in 1932 along with his first son. In his grief, he wrote his most famous song, one of the most famous of all gospel songs, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord“.

Unhappy with the treatment received at the hands of established publishers, Dorsey opened the first black gospel music publishing company, Dorsey House of Music. He also founded his own gospel choir and was a founder and first president of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses.

His influence was not limited to African American music, as white musicians also followed his lead. “Precious Lord” has been recorded by Albertina Walker, Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Clara Ward, Dorothy Norwood,Jim Reeves, Roy Rogers, and Tennessee Ernie Ford, among hundreds of others. It was a favorite gospel song of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was sung at the rally the night before his assassination, and at his funeral by Mahalia Jackson, per his request. It was also a favorite of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who requested it to be sung at his funeral. Dorsey was also a great influence on other Chicago based gospel artists such as “Queen of Gospel” Albertina Walker and The Caravans.

Dorsey wrote “Peace in the Valley” for Mahalia Jackson in 1937, which also became a gospel standard. He was the first African American elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and also the first in the Gospel Music Association’s Living Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in 2007. His papers are preserved at Fisk University, along with those of W.C. Handy, George Gershwin, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

The works of Thomas A. Dorsey have proliferated beyond performance, into the hymnals of virtually all American churches and of English-speaking churches worldwide.

Thomas was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Incorporated.

He died in Chicago, Illinois and was interred there in the Oak Woods Cemetery.

In 2007, he was inducted as a charter member of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana.

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NAME: Mahalia Jackson

DATE OF BIRTH: October 26, 1911

PLACE OF BIRTH: New Orleans, Louisiana

FAMILY BACKGROUND: Mahalia was the third child to John A. Jackson, a barber and preacher, and Charity Clark, who died at the age of 25 when Mahalia was four years old. In 1916, her father sent her to live with her aunt Mahalia “Duke” Paul. Aunt Duke didn’t allow secular music in her house, but Mahalia’s cousin would sneak in records. Even at a very young age, Mahalia had a booming voice and she would sing hymns and old-time gospel tunes around the house.

EDUCATION: Mahalia attended the McDonough School No. 24 in New Orleans through the eighth grade.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Mahalia Jackson is viewed by many as the pinnacle of gospel music. Her singing began at the age of four in her church, the Plymouth Rock Baptist Church in New Orleans. Her early style blended the freedom and power of gospel with the stricter style of the Baptist Church. As a teenager, through her cousin’s aid, she was influenced by such famous singers as Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Enrico Caruso and Ma Rainey, and her own style began to emerge into a more soulful expression.

In 1927, at the age of 16, she moved to Chicago and found work as a domestic. But soon after, she found plenty of work as a soloist at churches and funerals after joining the Greater Salem Baptist Church choir. Her unique contralto voice caught the attention of many small churches from coast to coast. Larger, more formal churches frowned upon her energetic renditions of songs. After performing with the Prince Johnson Singers, she began recording for Decca Records in 1937. When the records did not sell as well as expected, she became a beautician. However, after five years of touring with composer Thomas A. Dorsey at gospel tents and churches, Mahalia’s popularity and success garnered her another record contract, this time with Apollo Records, from 1946 to 1954. She then switched to Columbia Records, from 1954 to 1967, where she attained broad recognition as a spiritual singer.

Throughout the 1950s, Mahalia’s voice was heard on radio, television and concert halls around the world. Her shows were packed in Europe, and her audience very enthusiastic at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, at a special all-gospel program she requested. In 1954, she began hosting her own Sunday night radio show for CBS. She performed on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956 where she catapulted gospel music into America’s mainstream. She sang for President Dwight Eisenhower and at John F. Kennedy’s inaugural ball in 1960.

From the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott until her death, Mahalia was very prominent in the Civil Rights Movement. Very close with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she often performed at his rallies–even singing an old slave spiritual before his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963. She also sang at his funeral five years later.

Despite her doctors ordering her to slow down, Mahalia refused and collapsed while on tour in Munich in 1971. She died of heart failure on January 27, 1972, at her home in Evergreen Park, Illinois.

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The Fisk Jubilee Singers are an American a cappella ensemble that performs Negro spirituals originally sung by slaves prior to the Civil War. The first group of Singers arranged the music and took it on the road beginning in 1871 introducing the public to a new genre that remains a vibrant musical tradition today.

Fisk University opened in Nashville in 1866 as the first American university to offer a liberal arts education to “young men and women irrespective of color.” Five years later the school was in dire financial straits.

George L. White, Fisk treasurer and music professor then, created a nine-member choral ensemble of students and took it on tour to earn money for the University. The group left campus on October 6, 1871. Jubilee Day is celebrated annually on October 6 to commemorate this historic day.

The first concerts were in small towns. Surprise, curiosity and some hostility were the early audience response to these young black singers who did not perform in the traditional “minstrel fashion.”

One early concert in Cincinnati brought in $50, which was promptly donated to victims of the notorious 1871 fire in Chicago. When they reached Columbus, the next city on tour, the students were physically and emotionally drained. Mr.. White, in a gesture of hope and encouragement named them “The Jubilee Singers,” a Biblical reference to the year of Jubilee in the Book of Leviticus, Chapter 25.

Continued perseverance and beautiful voices began to change attitudes among the predominantly white audiences. Eventually skepticism was replaced by standing ovations and critical praise in reviews. Gradually they earned enough money to cover expenses and send back to Fisk.

In 1872 they sang at the World Peace Festival in Boston and at the end of the year President Ulysses S. Grant invited them to perform at the White House.

In 1873 the group grew to eleven members and toured Europe for the first time. Funds raised that year were used to construct the school’s first permanent building, Jubilee Hall. Today Jubilee Hall, designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Department of Interior in 1975, is one of the oldest structures on campus. The beautiful Victorian Gothic building houses a floor-to-ceiling portrait of the original Jubilee Singers, commissioned by Queen Victoria in during the 1873 tour as a gift from England to Fisk.

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test post for black history month

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It's raining and windy in New York City, Joseph Burney, Sen. Director of A&R was nearly blown away this morning on his way to work. His umbrella took a beating!

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“The Dream Giver” by Bruce Wilkinson

“I highly reccommend ‘The Dream Giver’ especially for creative people who need a nudge to birth their dreams.  You too can move beyond the familiar and take hold of your destiny” – Jackie Patillo

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