Reminiscences of movie director Jules Schwerin who some three decades earlier tried to make a documentary about majestic Mahalia Jackson (who at the same time made far more prestigious cameo in "Imitation of life") and his own take on the world he knew nothing about. While being impressed and drawn to the Afro-American community and Gospel music, Schwerin can only be embarrassed for the brutality and harshness of 1950s racial segregation (when Mahalia drove him around New Orleans, he had to sit at the back so it appears she is driving her boss) but basically he is outsider peeking into another reality. Peppering his story with testimonies of other travellers on the same road, author unfortunately falls in the trap of listening embittered voices who were left in the dust behind Jackson's international success - often its just pure envy and jealousy, claiming she had changed and somehow metamorphosed into shrewd businesswoman.
It seems that even decades after her passing, people still try to understand such towering presence that Jackson was and easiest thing is to point at her humanity: look in her private life, she was not so holy as we think. Schwerin gleefully lists anecdotes and lists of situations where the stress of travelling life on the road, searching for accommodation, taking care of finances and performing made even "Queen of Gospel" curse and people are quick to recall how she kept cash in her bra, etc - what nobody can explain is where this magnificent spirit came from and how coming from the poorest part of town, this impoverished washerwoman made her way blazing trough the churches of US into international stages, led by her steely confidence and conviction. Really, Jules Schwerin, a hundred years from now, nobody will care for you and your opinions but the world will still listen Mahalia Jackson in awe.
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