All-TIME 100 Songs

‘Move On Up a Little Higher’

For decades, gospel music kept itself as isolated from the secular pop world as it could manage. The record that made Mahalia Jackson “the Queen of Gospel” was sacred music through and through, but pop by default — it sold millions of copies. The two-part single had a simple arrangement, just piano and organ (the instruments any church would have on hand) supporting the rolling roar of Jackson’s voice. That’s all it needed. The Rev. William Herbert Brewster’s composition is practically a sermon in itself, a string of descriptions of Christian glory that hovers around a few crucial phrases in lieu of a refrain; Jackson’s delivery has the rhythm of preaching and the force of a lightning storm. There was more to “Move On Up” than religion and music, though: its clear subtext concerns black Americans’ gradual ascent to economic and social power. As Brewster put it, “There were things that were almost dangerous to say, but you could sing it.”

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