Tony Cummings charts the life and achievements of MAHALIA JACKSON.

Apollo released the other two songs from Mahalia's session but "I Want To Rest" and "He Knows My Heart" sold poorly too. Even a white Chicago deejay Studs Terkel raving on the airwaves, "If she were singing the blues she'd be another Bessie Smith" didn't cut much mustard. Apollo decided to cut short Mahalia's contract but Art Freeman persuaded Bess to try once more with a song he'd heard her warming up with, a traditional spiritual "Move On Up A Little Higher". Bess Berman reluctantly agreed and set to record the gospel singer in Chicago. The intended session meant Mahalia and her pianist would have to cut short their appearance at the National Baptist Convention. But they agreed. Then, at the last moment her pianist pulled out and after the long drive back from Kansas, Mahalia drafted in pianist Mildred Falls to play on her make-or-break recording session. The session, in September 1947 produced gospel music history. Mahalia wailed and moaned the ponderous song (put in two parts on the 78) taking it from wistful-melancholy to shattering, transcendent joy.

It was a stunning performance. And it found instant acceptance. Nothing remotely like it had ever happened in the gospel record history. In Chicago alone they sold 50,000 of "Move On Up A Little Higher" in four weeks. Studs Terkel interviewed Mahalia on his new TV show - a first for gospel. The final total sales of "Move On Up" were a staggering two million. Mahalia began playing concerts every night, mixing bigger halls ($1,000 a night) and smaller churches (whatever they could afford). Her audience was vast, though still almost entirely black.

She recorded more hits: "Even Me" (a self-composed song Apollo put out as a flip but which eventually passed a million sales, then "Dig A Little Deeper" (which sold three quarters of a million). It wasn't always easy for the recording star. When Mahalia and Mildred did a tour in the deep South they encountered lip-curled racism. But back in New York, Mahalia's career blossomed.

Her hits - the next a searing version of "Amazing Grace" - continued. Her appearance at the Golden Gate threatened to permanently remove the roof. More hits: "Get Away Jordan" and "Just Over The Hill" and then another first in October 1950. Egged on by Joe Bostic, an enterprising deejay-turned-booker Mahalia became the first black gospel artist to play the vast centre-of-cultural-elegance Carnegie Hall.

It was packed, mixed (about 20 percent white) and Mahalia left 8,000 shouting and clapping for more. Even the newspapers began to take note. Said the New York Amsterdam News, "We have never heard the sorrow-song 'City Called Heaven' sung with such an impact of suffering ecstasy. Her voice ranging from the lowest sultry tones to the highest thrill of tonal purity sends chills of enchantment through the blood of every hearer. A genius unspoiled...a great artist."

She was approached to appear in a new Broadway play. She turned it down and it was Ethel Waters who made theatre history in Member Of The Wedding. But being true to gospel brought its own rewards for Mahalia. A gold disc for "Just Over The Hill" and France's Grand Prix du Disque for "I Can Put My Trust In Jesus" - the first gospel singer so honoured.

Mahalia was asked to sing before an eminent panel of musicologists at Lenox, Massachusetts. She enraptured them and when one earnest professor asked, "Doesn't your gospel owe a lot to jazz?", responded with "Baby, don't you know the Devil stole the beat from the Lord?"

In 1952 ill health threatened to cut short Mahalia's phenomenal career. But an illness at first diagnosed as cancer, turned out to be sarcoid - a rare disease of the lymph glands. Mahalia steadily put on weight so that by the time she had made her first overseas visit she was a massive figure. In the winter of '52 Vogue Records (who released Mahalia's Apollo recordings throughout Europe) brought the gospel star to Europe. She sang before enthusiastic French audiences and then journeyed to London. There she was shocked and upset to be put on the same Royal Albert Hall bill as blues singer Big Bill Broonzy. But she sang anyway and was the ill-conceived show's best-received artist. Dogged by ill health she struggled through the tour still winning ecstatic reviews. Though very ill she sang her latest recording, an amazing re-working of "Silent Night, Holy Night" on the radio.

Back in the States, Mahalia did her fourth Carnegie Hall concert - another easy sell-out. Then came the startling news that Columbia Records wanted her. Columbia, home of the showbiz establishment - with hardly a black, let alone a black-gospel, artist on its books.

Columbia's A&R head Mitch Miller visited Mahalia with an offer of $50,000 a year guaranteed. It was an extraordinary chance. Mahalia's massive record sales in America had been almost exclusively to the black community, which Columbia knew nothing about marketing records to. But Columbia were ready to pull out all the stops.

They landed her a coast-to-coast radio series on the CBS network. The show, with a white announcer and a white backing group, was an instant success and with Columbia gaining Mahalia four national magazine interviews in as many months, she was away to a new phase in her career. Mitch Miller found her a song called "A Rusty Old Halo" which along with a couple of Thomas Dorsey compositions and a hymn made up the first Columbia session in November 1954.

More sessions followed. Sometimes the material was poor, pseudo-religiosity ("You'll Never Walk Alone"), sometimes musical tales of exultant faith ("I'm Going To Live The Life I Sing About In My Songs"). But the TV and radio exposure she and Columbia received ensured excellent sales. Mahalia's debut album 'Mahalia Jackson Sings' drew a five-star review from the prestigious jazz magazine Downbeat. She was asked to guest on the prime time TV Arthur Godfrey show.

It must have seemed the pinnacle of achievement for a meagrely educated maid turned gospel singer. Through the wonder of television she was being transported into the homes of a quarter of all those living in the USA. But there was still much, much more to come for Mahalia Jackson - the extraordinary servant of an extra-ordinary God.

By 1954 Mahalia Jackson stood poised to enjoy showbiz acceptance and exposure no previous performer of religious music - and certainly not a black performer - had ever achieved. Her transition from storefront church heroine to darling of Middle America's latent religiosity continued with her syndicated CBS radio series. CBS pulled out all the stops and with music director Jack Holloran and a white barbershop quartet backing up, the series (taped in the Wrigley Building, Chicago) was a big success.