Music / Religion
James Cleveland
1931–1991 · gospel singer, composer, arranger, choir director
Chicago gospel giant who worked at Detroit's New Bethel Baptist Church under Rev. C. L. Franklin and founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America after a Detroit Sing-A-Rama.
- Born
Chicago, Illinois- Died
Culver City, California
aged 59- Also known as
- King of Gospel
- Detroit years
- 1950s–1960s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Cleveland grew up singing at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church under Thomas A. Dorsey, and his gravelly voice and blues-inflected arrangements made him a leading figure of modern gospel. His ties to Detroit ran through New Bethel Baptist Church on Linwood (now C. L. Franklin Boulevard), where Rev. C. L. Franklin was pastor: the church's history records him as organist and sometimes conductor in the early 1950s, and his biography says he moved to Detroit to become its music director, around the time the young Aretha Franklin was singing there. In early 1968 he was guest at a 1,000-voice Sing-A-Rama that Mattie Moss Clark organized at New Bethel; inspired, he founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America, whose first convention was held that August. In 1972 he collaborated with Aretha on Amazing Grace, the best-selling gospel album of its era. He died in 1991.
Highlights
- Worked at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit
- Founded the Gospel Music Workshop of America (1968), inspired by a Detroit event
- Collaborated on Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace (1972)
- Donald Vails Choraleers of Detroit among the choirs he recorded with
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1950s–1960s
New Bethel Baptist Church
He was organist and later music director at this church; in 1968 he was guest at Mattie Moss Clark's Sing-A-Rama here.