Talk:Mahalia Jackson

Reese

I cut references to Mahalia Jackson's aquaintance with Della Reese and the fact that she inspired character names in Victory Gundam. Both may be true, but I don't think they merit inclusion in an encyclopedia article. Jackson was one of the most important singers of the 20th century; she knew many of the important musicians of her time quite well (Duke Ellington, for example) and has inspired countless others. Singling these two examples out at random in an article of this length looks bizarre, and suggests that they are somehow more important than Jackson herself. NoahB 18:47, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Lord's Prayer

I took out the words "The Lord's Prayer" from "Popular Culture" because they had no place or meaning there. I suspect that they were meant as a song, but since I cannot verify that this was a well-known songs of Jackson I did not move it into "Well-Known Songs". 129.79.144.144 17:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Too short

I am surprised at the briefness of this article! As one of the most important singers of our time, I expected this article would be much more detailed. I'll start trying to find more information to include in Ms. Jackson's article James 18:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Your right Godessofmagic223 (talk) 19:08, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Year of birth

Has anyone else noticed that all sources cite her birth year as 1911, yet her headstone cites it as 1912?James 20:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I did and although the headstone reads 1912, the websites and encyclopedia I checked both confirm 1911 as her birth year.

Diabetes

Our article states that she died of diabetes and heart failure. The New York Times obituary, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Findagrave all state that it was heart failure alone. What is the source for the diabetes claim? Capitalistroadster 09:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Mahalia jackson 1998.jpg

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BetacommandBot 04:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

IPA request

Add IPA of "Mahalia". Jidanni (talk) 01:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. Rilkas (talk) 18:03, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Birth name

Her birth name was Mahala, not Mahalia. That's the name she later adopted, as the article states; therefore, it should be moved to Other names alongside Halie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Liz Niña (talk • contribs) 17:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Her mother's last name

What was Mahalia's mother Charity last name? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.240.214.231 (talk) 02:02, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Secular music

The article says that she "refused to sing secular music, a pledge she would keep throughout her professional life." I honestly don't know much about Mahalia Jackson, but I do have a recording of her singing "Summertime" and "You'll Never Walk Alone," both of which are pretty much secular. Maybe someone who knows more about her work could revise this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Godoex (talk • contribs) 07:15, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mahalia Jackson/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Belovedfreak (talk · contribs) 00:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It would be great to have a really good, well-developed article on Mahalia Jackson. Although this is a good start, unfortunately, it's not up to GA standard yet. This is not an exhaustive review, but hopefully there is plenty here to work on. It would be counterproductive to put this on hold for a week, because quite a lot of work needs to be done, and sources added. After addressing the points raised here, I would recommend taking this to peer review before a further GA nomination.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   see below

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   see below

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   see below

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   On the whole neutral and well-balanced, just a few parts need tweaking (see below)

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   The article gets a fair amount of traffic, minor vandalism and incremental editing, but I see no edit warring or content disputes

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   I can't see any problem with the two free images used

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Prose/style

• For the most part, the article is reasonably well-written (I have made some minor changes eg. "So Halie's mother would rub her legs down with greasy dishwater." has been masquerading as a full sentence for years. It's still not clear why her mother would rub her legs with greasy dishwater, or what that has to do with her not getting an operation for bowed legs.) It could however do with a full copyedit from one person. Inevitably, a well-trafficked article like this, with many small changes from multiple editors over a long period of time, ends up not flowing too well. Some parts could be made clearer. For example, "Aunt Mahala was given the nickname "Duke" after proving herself the undisputed “boss” of the family." — I'm not really sure what this means.
• Good article criterion no. 1b concerns the lead section. Per WP:LEAD, this section should adequately summarise the main points of the rest of the article. At the moment, it's a bit on the short side. I would expect to see some details of her early life, as well as more detail on her career in the lead. It is often easier to tackle the lead once the rest of the article is sorted, especially if more material is to be added to the article as a whole.
• Following on from that, the lead shouldn't include details that are not in the rest of the article (usually expanded on). Here, for example, it says that Jackson was referred to as the "Queen of Gospel". Although this title is repeated later, it's not explained who referred to her as this, whether it was during her career or posthumously etc.
• Manual of Style/Words to watch is also covered by the GA criteria, so be careful of things like "criticized by some gospel purists" (who in particular?), "Jackson's estate was reported at..." (reported by whom?), "Some reporters estimated..."

Accuracy/verifiability

• The article is someone lacking in inline citations. Although every fact does not need an inline citation, for GA, there should be citations for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". Many of the facts presented in this article would be difficult for the average reader to verify as it's not clear where they come from.
• "Mahalia refused to sing secular music..." this claim has been questioned on the article talkpage (no answer provided). The editor there makes a good point that there are recordings of Jackson, that appear to be secular. WP:V requires that we go with what the sources say, but this is clearly a controversial point that needs looking into.
• All sources used need to be reliable. Some of the ones used here are questionable. For example, I'm not aware that NNDB meets our guideline, and editors in this archive discussion from earlier this year seem to agree. There is a citation to a geocities site (labelled as webcitation.org, which is misleading because webcitations.org is not the publisher) - there is no evidence that this site is reliable.
• There are three dead links in references

Broad in coverage?

• I'm by no means an expert on Jackson, but I'm not convinced that the article as it stands is broad enough. IT doesn't need to be "comprehensive" at GA, but there have been several biographies written about her, none of which appear to have been used. For someone so influential, there must also be plenty of commentary/analysis by musical historians, some of which should be included here. Using some good sources would also help with the WP:V issues.

Neutrality

• For the most part the article is well-balanced and neutral, but it strays into hyperbole in a few places. (eg. "...selling an astonishing eight million copies", "In addition to sharing her singing talent with the world...")

Also consider

• "In popular culture" sections are usually problematic, and this one's no exception. It's completely unsourced, but many of the items are actually not really needed in this article. We don't need to know every time a Mahalia Jacksom song has been played in a film. Some of the factoids refer to parts Jackson had in films; these should be incorporated into a (sources) prose section on her acting career.
• A separate article of her discography would be great. In the meantime, I'm not convinced by a list of her "well-known songs". Who has decided that those particular songs are "well known" and deserve a mention?

Please let me know if you have any questions. --BelovedFreak 13:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the thorough review. I only have this article on my watchlist to catch vandalism, and I don't know anything about her beyond what is in this article, nor do I have much interest in her music. I was frankly astonished that this article was nominated to be a GA, and didn't catch it until a few days later, thanks to some sloppy watchlisting. Hopefully someone with more time and interest can improve this article further. Graham87 05:21, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the review/comments. I think the article has good potential for getting to GA status. I don't know a whole lot about her at the moment, but it shouldn't be too difficult to find some relevant, decent sources to fix up citations and expand it a bit. Great tips, thank you again. OttawaAC (talk) 01:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

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Mildred Falls?

Why no mention or a section on Mahalia Jackson's longtime accompanist Mildred Falls? The Gospel/Blues piano of Mildred Falls was a very important part of the sound of Mahalia Jackson. You can hear her prominently in so many of Mahalia Jackson's recordings. She was her exclusive pianist for over 20years. Try to imagine the live recordings of "How I got over" without her rocking/blues piano. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kyle kursk (talk • contribs) 13:46, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Checking back I see that the new version of the article has added a nice section on Mildred Falls. Nice job explaining how Mildred Fall’s piano skills added to the success, sound, and feel to Mahalia Jackson’s great performances. Kyle kursk (talk) 13:26, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

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Unsourced statements

I removed an unsourced sentence: "When she recorded The Power and the Glory with Faith, the orchestra arched their bows to honor her in solemn recognition of her great voice." (and 2011 "Citation needed" tag), that runs afoul of the B-class criteria (#1), to prevent reassessment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Otr500 (talk • contribs) 09:13, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Thought I forgot something (to add signature) --- Otr500 (talk) 13:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

New article

Well, I wrote this article and posted it today, February 7, 2021, and God (etc.) willing, this will be the last time I edit it. So I and the entire human race are counting on you to make sure it doesn't die the death of a thousand dumb edits. Here's the sandbox I wrote this article in and the other where I summarized the majority of sources. If someone has a question that should answer most of it. And of course the sources themselves.

A word to future editors: I used Jules Schwerin's Got To Tell It as a source but I didn't cite anything from it because I don't consider it reliable. Neither does Mark Burford, author and editor of two books about Jackson (the exception is the chapter of Jackson recalling growing up in New Orleans, but this period is well documented in Goreau's book). So I removed Schwerin from the Further reading section. Be very skeptical of anything added to the article from this source.

There's now a Mahalia Jackson discography too. Moni3 (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your work! nyxærös 19:24, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Wow, thanks very much; great work as usual! Thanks also for your notes re sources. I've copyedited the article and added a little tidbit about her and Duke Ellington (I'd found the ref for it before reading the source details on your sandbox talk page). I've been watching this article since the end of 2009 when I discovered some major vandalism to it and I don't intend to stop anytime soon. Graham87 14:49, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the copy edits (I tried to get it perfect...), and thank you to everyone who watches the article to protect it. Moni3 (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

"God's word through song."

"She found a home in her church, leading to a lifelong dedication and singular purpose to deliver God's word through song."

Firstly, 'lifelong dedication', sure--but 'singular purpose' is speculative and superfluous.

Secondly, why are we using sentimental religious parlance like "God's word"? This read like a bio on a church website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.121.142.230 (talk) 15:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks for the note. I don't like what I replaced it with but it's probably better than the original. Agreed especially re "God's word". Graham87 03:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Disagree with this. Singular purpose -- she did nothing else in her life because she was motivated to sing only gospel. She rejected all manner of opportunities when both rich and poor, to focus entirely on gospel. "Lifelong dedication" doesn't do the idea, and the language used in sources, justice. There's no sentimentality in the language and this needs to be understood. This language, "deliver God's word through song" reflects Jackson's motivations. Her mindset. This article is about, essentially, a religious figure akin to a saint, monk, or someone similar. It doesn't make sense to address the biography of someone whose entire life was dedicated to a religious cause and not be direct about why she did it. Excluding it diminishes to details of her life. She didn't sing because she was paid, for fame, or other rewards. She did it because she earnestly believed she was delivering God's word through song. It's essential to convey the how serious Jackson was about this. Service to God was her duty, and the reward was an eternal placement in heaven. The statement conveys this succinctly and accurately. Accuracy is more important than neutrality of tone here. This edit does not help the article. Moni3 (talk) 15:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've self-reverted for now, until/unless we can hash out something else. To me the article does sound like it's saying that Jackson literally sang God's word through song, implying that the Christian conception of God exists and is the only correct one, in Wikipedia's voice ... which I don't personally believe ... but I can't find a way to fix it without making that passage sound clunky. Even adding something like "as she saw it"/"as she perceived/conceived it" to the end of that sentence doesn't really work for me; she sang songs written by others but she certainly put her own unmistakeable stamp on them. Graham87 02:26, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

"Queen of Gospel Music" honorific

Graham87 pinged me about this. The article before I rewrote it mentions Jackson as the "Queen of Gospel" or some similar designation. Originally I left this out of the lead and article because the sources don't refer to her this way. She was marketed by Apollo using this description. Maybe called this by MCs at concert appearances. It was a way to designate her kind of music for people who were unfamiliar with her or her style. So it seems like a marketing gimmick in the same way Atlantic Records referred to Ray Charles as a "genius" in their album titles.

Jackson didn't refer to herself this way. But gospel singer Clara Ward did while Jackson was touring and recording. Jackson also didn't refer to herself as "the world's best/greatest/etc gospel singer" but she was marketed this way by Columbia.

Also, using "Queen of Gospel etc" makes Jackson smaller than she was, confined to the gospel genre as opposed to her influence over popular music as a whole. Anyway, that's the reasoning. In the scope of the article I didn't put much thought into it as it's such a minor detail.

What's the citation standard for an honorific? When I wrote Thomas A. Dorsey's article, I included mention of the honorific "Father of Gospel Music" because sources use it repeatedly if only to clarify that Dorsey didn't invent gospel or wasn't the first to use "gospel" to refer to black church music. They elaborate on his influence by discussing the honorific title. Moni3 (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

With that explanation, I tend to agree that it deserves little or no elaboration. Maybe a short paragraph in the "On music" section, if even that. I can't find an actual standard on these things but FWIW Ray Charles's article mentions the "genius" thing right in the lead and nowhere else, which is not the best practice. There's Louis Armstrong#Nicknames, but that's not exactly comparable. Hmmm ... Graham87 14:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)