Dorothy Love Coates (January 30, 1928 – April 9, 2002) – Holding On And Won't Let Go (1969)
This funky jam was featured on the great gospel singer/songwriter's 'Till My Change Comes album, one of the last LP's she recorded with the Gospel Harmonettes.
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Dorothy Love Coates was a gospel singer/songwriter with a powerful, inspirational, much-imitated vocal style. She was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and active in the Civil Rights Movement, using her gospel stardom to speak out for freedom, equality, and justice.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Dorothy Lee McGriff’s father was a minister who abandoned their family when she was six and divorced her mother soon afterwards. She nonetheless grew up deeply involved with the Baptist church, where she began playing the piano at age ten. Together with her siblings, she sang in the family gospel group the McGriff Singers.
In 1944 she married Willie Love of the popular early gospel group the Fairfield Four, although they divorced before long. Earlier that decade, she had begun singing with a vocal group called the Gospel Harmoneers, who would later change their name to the Original Gospel Harmonettes. They recorded their first singles with Love in 1951, and had a number of gospel hits until the group broke up in 1958.
Unlike many other gospel artists of her era, she resisted all invitations to cross over and sing secular music. But she was much imitated. Her vocal style was powerful and direct, and she had a forceful stage presence, singing with such energy and spirit that the other Harmonettes would have to lead her back to the stage. None other than James Brown copied this and made it part of his act.
Love married Carl Coates in 1959, one of the singers in the gospel quartet the Sensational Nightingales. From 1959-61, she became involved with the Civil Rights Movement and worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. She then re-formed the Gospel Harmonettes and began writing new material that addressed social issues, like the gospel freedom song "Human Bondage” that opened their 1967 LP The Handwriting On The Wall on Okeh Records.
For their album 'Till My Change Comes, released on Nashboro Records in 1969, Coates wrote all but two of its ten tracks including the powerful closing cut “Every Day Will Be Sunday” and the faith anthem “Holding On And Won't Let Go.”
She wrote most of the songs on Seeds of Truth (1972), the final LP she recorded with the Gospel Harmonettes, including the epic jam “I've Got To Make It.” Her first solo album A New Day Dawns was released the following year on Nashboro, which again featured mostly her own material. She co-wrote, played piano on, and recited the unique track “Kind People,” with lyrics by her sister Lillian Caffey.
For her 1977 album These Are The Days on Savoy Records, among the cuts she wrote were the upbeat cut “Heaven” and its funky title track.
In 1978 she released A City Built 4 Square on Savoy, the second-to-last studio album she would ever record. It featured the epic “The Kingdom Of Babylon Is Falling Down,” co-written with Lillian Caffey who also sang lead.
Rest in Peace, Dorothy Love Coates.
Further info:
“Dorothy Love Coates, Singer Of Gospel Music, Dies at 74,” obituary, The New York Times, April 12, 2002.
“She's Right on Time: Dorothy Love Coates and the Transformation of Gospel Music in the Service of the Civil Rights Movements,” by Randal Fippinger, MALS Final Projects, Skidmore College, May 16, 2015.
#gospel #soul #DorothyLoveCoates