STILL HOLDING ON: THE MUSIC OF DOROTHY LOVE COATES AND THE ORIGINAL GOSPEL HARMONETTES

"She was a go-getter. She was a hard hitter. She didn't just stand flat footed and sang, she bounced all across the place and sang, and ran up and down the aisles and sang."

That's only one description of Dorothy Love Coates, a Birmingham musician who revolutionized gospel music with her passionate delivery and poetic lyrics. 

STILL HOLDING ON: THE MUSIC OF DOROTHY LOVE COATES AND THE ORIGINAL GOSPEL HARMONETTES tells the story of one of Alabama's most original and influential voices. The one-hour program airs on PBS on Thursday, December 28, 2000, 10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings).


When rural African Americans migrated to Birmingham in the 1920s and 1930s to take jobs in the burgeoning coal and iron industries, they brought their music with them. Gospel music quartets thrived. In 1940, five young Birmingham women, influenced by this music, formed the Harmonettes. By the end of the decade, they had a recording contract, performed on their own radio show, appeared on Arthur Godfrey's shows and played engagements across the nation.

But not until they recruited Dorothy Love Coates did they find the 
distinctive, emotional singer who would set them apart from every other group. A prodigy who grew up in Birmingham's Hopewell Baptist Church, Coates gave energetic, audacious performances that transfixed audiences and made these women the pre-eminent gospel group in the country.

"It is absolute virtuosity to deliver those compositions with that 
kind of fire the way she could do it," says Bernice Johnson Reagon, a professor of history at American University and founding member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a group with roots in the gospel movement.

Dorothy Love Coates recorded 20 albums and published 300 songs, 10 of which were industry hits. She wrote songs about life, hard times, good times, segregation in the South and deliverance. She wrote "He's Right on Time" after a miraculous recovery from pneumonia. "I Won't Let Go of My Faith," "You Must Be Born Again," and "That's Enough" are among her remarkable musical testimonies. Rolling Stone called her one of the great writers of gospel's golden era. Her songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Etta James, the Blackwood Brothers and Ray Charles, among others. Generations of jazz, blues, country and rock singers have tried to imitate her distinctive singing style.

Still writing and performing, Coates lent her voice and music to 
three motion pictures: Ghost, The Long Walk Home and Beloved. STILL HOLDING ON also recounts the many difficulties and hardships Coates endured. Recognition for her successes has been slow in coming. She contends that she lost thousands of dollars to unscrupulous promoters and preachers. Her determination to stay true to her convictions and avoid secularizing her music may have kept her from becoming a major star.

There are smoldering disagreements between her and many of the
musicians she worked with. But STILL HOLDING ON shows that hers is an original, spirited voice that has influenced thousands and brought hope to millions. "I've been anointed to sing gospel music," she says. "I can't walk away from this gift. It just does not work because the spirit has spoken to me in many different ways."

Underwriters: Alabama Humanities Foundation. Producer: University of Alabama Center for Public Television and Radio. Producer: Dwight Cammeron. Format: CC STEREO

Note to our friends in the press: For more information about this program, contact Brent Davis, University of Alabama Center for Public Television and Radio, Tel.: 205/348-8629; Fax: 205/348-6213; Email: brent@cpt.ua.edu. Photos are available at the PBS Online Pressroom: (http://www.pbs.org/pressroom/2000/fall/photos/stillholdingon.html).