If you name any gospel music star of the mid-20th century, Gregory Donald Gay probably has a story about them.
His family was visited by singer Clara Ward, who would pull her 1957 Chrysler limousine into the driveway of their Woodlawn home.
As a starstruck teenager, he sang before the “father of gospel music,” Thomas A. Dorsey.
At 5 years old, he witnessed icon Mahalia Jackson having a fit backstage at Carnegie Hall after Ward’s group – particularly Marion Williams – brought the house down.
“She didn’t want anybody to outsing her,” said Gay, now 81 and the longtime pastor of the Prayer Center Church of God in Christ in Woodlawn.
As the younger brother of the Gay Sisters gospel group, he had a front row seat for the action during gospel’s golden age. Now, he is sharing his tales in a recently released book, “Can I Get a Witness! Faith, Family and Chicago Gospel Music” (The University of Chicago Press). The text was co-written with Steven B. Dolins, 69-year-old founder and president of The Sirens Records music label in Highland Park.
Gay said his sisters would have been forgotten without Dolins.
“I’m grateful for him opening up a window and letting the general public look in,” Gay said. “They were great, talented people, but I don’t think they got a fair break.”
Gay’s late siblings — Evelyn, Geraldine and Mildred — performed, recorded or rubbed elbows with Ward, Jackson, Sam Cooke, the Staple Singers, James Cleveland, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Rollins. They released music on the legendary Savoy, Decca and Chess labels; toured the country and helped bring gospel to a televised audience. Their 1951 hit record, “God Will Take Care of You,” was later covered by Aretha Franklin.
But their accomplishments have been overlooked, and their records are difficult to find beyond streaming sites or YouTube.
The sisters faced both racism and sexism in the music industry. At times, they were not paid or properly credited for their work. Their career was also impacted by personal problems. “Can I Get a Witness!” details their setbacks and triumphs, while recounting music history in Chicago, where scholars say modern gospel music was born.
Dolins said he was inspired to write the book after recording CDs featuring both Geraldine Gay, who died in 2010, and Gregory Donald Gay, who would regale him with stories. Week after week, Dolins documented Gay’s accounts over lunch – bagels and lox from Once Upon a Bagel in Highland Park – at the pastor’s church.
“These stories became hallowed ground for me,” said Dolins, also a computer scientist and professor at Bradley University. “It just brought to life his sisters and his mom.”
A prominent figure in “Can I Get a Witness!,” matriarch Fannie Gay was known by many gospel, pop and jazz artists at the time. They often came to her house for a home-cooked meal and prayer. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who wrote the book’s foreword before his death this year, even lived with the Gay family following his stint at a drug rehabilitation facility. (Fannie Gay is memorialized with an honorary street sign in front of her son’s church at East 67th Street and South Rhodes Avenue.)
Fannie Gay also supported the musical talents of her daughters, paying for their music lessons and tagging along on their gigs. After forming in the 1940s, the Gay sisters quickly built a reputation in Chicago and made key connections in the New York scene.
Talented piano players, Evelyn and Geraldine helped usher in a new era of gospel music. Now, the focus was on piano-driven tunes rather than a cappella spirituals by vocal groups. Evelyn was one of Mahalia Jackson’s first accompanists, and they both mentored gospel star James Cleveland.
“Evelyn’s style was bluesier,” Gregory Donald Gay said. “She was a songwriter. If she could hear you talk, she knew what key you sang in.”
Geraldine, an aficionado of pianist Erroll Garner, leaned more toward jazz, Gay said.
“And then there was my middle sister, Mildred, who was a great singer,” he said. “I really think that Mildred could’ve sang with the Metropolitan Opera because she had a tremendous range.”
The rest of the family was also musically inclined. Gay’s older brother, Robert, was a trumpeter who played with Dizzy Gillespie, and Gay himself was a talented singer and orator, who delivered sermons as “the Boy Preacher.” And he was the first Black child to appear on the “Quiz Kids” TV show, which originated in Chicago.
Gay often performed with his sisters, appearing with them at Carnegie Hall in 1950 for the first exclusively gospel concert at the venue. He also played with them at the Apollo Theater in 1956.
“This was an exceptional American family,” Dolins writes in the book. “The level of success they achieved in the music industry is rare, especially considering all of the odds stacked against them.”
Gay said he learned to brush off their many hardships, from not getting paid to being barred from hotels and the front entrance of restaurants due to the color of their skin.
“You realized that that was a part of life, and you just had to overcome it,” he said of the racism they experienced. “You didn’t let it bother you. If you did, it would mess your whole life up. You just said, ‘It’s got to get better.’”
He views “Can I Get a Witness!” as a testament to his family’s perseverance.
“It’s a good story to tell, because it’s a story of a challenge that we overcame,” he said. “Sometimes we got knocked back, but we had the resiliency to come up and keep going.”
In the 1950s and ‘60s, the Gay Sisters worked with some of the biggest names in music. Now, they are getting their due in “Can I Get a Witness! Faith, Family and Chicago Gospel Music,” co-written by their younger brother.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, the Gay Sisters worked with some of the biggest names in music. Now, they are getting their due in “Can I Get a Witness! Faith, Family and Chicago Gospel Music,” co-written by their younger brother.
