{"id":1566,"date":"2017-09-22T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T08:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2017-09-14T11:49:12","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T10:49:12","slug":"song-of-the-week-didnt-it-rain-by-mahalia-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1566","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Didn&#8217;t It Rain&#8221; by Mahalia Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;Didn&#8217;t It Rain&#8221; by Mahalia Jackson:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n0KxVXsdSvg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thomasdyja.com\/the-third-coast\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Third Coast<\/em> by Thomas Dyja<\/a> at the moment. It&#8217;s an excellent cultural history of mid-twentieth Century Chicago. One of the many things I&#8217;ve particularly enjoyed learning about reading it is the friendship between Studs Terkel and Mahalia Jackson, and the ways in which they supported and stood up for one another.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago I posted <a href=\"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1546\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a song featuring Mavis Staples<\/a>, another great Chicago gospel singer, and one who both follows in a tradition that Mahalia both was part of and brought out into a more mainstream\u00a0 light, but also expands or elaborates in different directions.<\/p>\n<p>To give some sense of the expansiveness of that tradition, here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SR2gR6SZC2M\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sister Rosetta Tharpe<\/a> performing &#8220;Didn&#8217;t It Rain&#8221; in 1964, the same year as this Mahalia Jackson version. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=qzXs7OfkeBQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Aretha Franklin in 1985<\/a>, and here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G0nrQkcoP6k\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Little Richard and Billy Preston<\/a>, also in 1985. Finally, here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Qz2CuVUog8I\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a Louis Armstrong version<\/a> from 1958.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Didn%27t%20It%20Rain%22%20by%20Mahalia%20Jackson\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Didn&#8217;t It Rain&#8221; by Mahalia Jackson: I&#8217;m reading The Third Coast by Thomas Dyja at the moment. It&#8217;s an excellent cultural history of mid-twentieth Century Chicago. One of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Didn%27t%20It%20Rain%22%20by%20Mahalia%20Jackson\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1567,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}