Gospel According to Bill Russell

William “Bill” Russell (1905–1992) is best known as one of the preeminent experts on early jazz, having been a principal contributor to the seminal collection Jazzmen (1939). In the early 1950s, however, Russell, enthralled by Mahalia Jackson’s voice and New Orleans roots, became Jackson’s unlikely personal assistant in Chicago. During Russell’s intensive period of involvement with Jackson, he helped Jackson with musical and menial tasks while also maintaining a diary that detailed the gospel’s singer’s day-to-day activities. This was undertaken with an eye on what proved to be an aborted attempt to write Jackson’s biography. But Russell’s remarkable journal, documenting Jackson’s participation in a Chicago gospel scene that involved close and continuous interaction with singers, preachers, and congregations, offers a one-of-a-kind picture of Jackson the tireless church singer.