Dorothy Love Coates

During Black gospel's golden era, Dorothy Love Coates stood among the most overlooked vocalists and composers of the style, capturing what Craig Werner described in A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race and the Soul of America as "the best of what the early '60s offered: a model of call and response rooted in an unflinching engagement with history; an understanding of the world that sends pulses of energy back and forth between gospel and the blues; an unwavering commitment to the beloved community; a refusal to be seduced into a mainstream where the value of life is measured in money; and music so powerful it can change your life."

Her example directly shaped the paths of numerous better-known performers. Holland-Dozier-Holland drew the foundation for the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" from Coates' "(You Can't Hurry God) He's Right on Time," while Wilson Pickett modeled his soul hit on the Gospel Harmonettes' rendition of the traditional piece "99 and a Half Won't Do." Little Richard and others emulated Coates' commanding vocal leads. She also ranked among the rare gospel figures who openly challenged segregation, performing regularly at civil rights rallies in the late '50s and early '60s with the declaration, "The Lord has blessed our going out and our coming in. He's blessed our sitting in, too." Such outspokenness carried extra risk in Birmingham, Alabama, then the nation's most perilous locale for activists, especially since she was not yet performing professionally. As she recounted to gospel historian Tony Heilbut, "At night I'd sing for the people, days I'd work for the white man."

The Gospel Harmonettes—Mildred Miller Howard on mezzo-soprano, Odessa Edwards as contralto and sermonizer, Willie May Newberry on contralto, and pianist Evelyn Starks—had already gained prominence on Birmingham radio in the 1940s when the younger Dorothy McGriff joined their ranks. After a victory on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts television broadcast, the group cut several modest sides for RCA in 1949. With Dorothy assuming greater leadership, they rose to national gospel prominence once they signed with Specialty Records in 1951.

That July they journeyed to Hollywood to record "I'm Sealed" and "Get Away Jordan," both of which soon entered the standard repertoire. Dorothy married Willie Love, the standout lead singer of the Fairfield Four, though the union proved brief. She later wed Carl Coates, the bass vocalist and guitarist with the Sensational Nightingales, adopting the name Dorothy Love Coates. Their summer 1953 session for Specialty yielded the enduring "No Hiding Place," followed in 1956 by "You Must Be Born Again." August 1956 brought their two landmark tracks, "99 and a Half Won't Do" and, most notably, "That's Enough."

The ensemble crisscrossed the gospel highway through churches and towns across the South, Midwest, and northern centers including Philadelphia, New York, and Newark, where her longtime acquaintance Alex Bradford had likewise become a gospel figure. They began recording for Savoy Records in Newark in 1959. From late that year through 1961, Coates stepped away to tend to a newborn daughter who suffered from epilepsy and cerebral palsy. The group, now including Cleo Kennedy—who would later sing backup for Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen—resumed with Savoy in 1961 and moved to Vee-Jay in 1964, an association that continued until 1968. That year they issued several sides for OKeh/Columbia, among them the striking "Strange Man," and also recorded for Nashboro. Neither Coates nor the ensemble released further material after roughly 1970, though she continued occasional live appearances in later years.

As a performer, Dorothy Love Coates distinguished herself from earlier female gospel leads by functioning equally as preacher and singer. Her voice remained perpetually hoarse, at times suggesting actual vocal damage from relentless shouting and testifying. Yet she maintained a swinging pulse beneath the forceful delivery, producing recordings whose drive and intensity remain virtually unparalleled in American music.