Gwendolyn Rosetta Capps Lightner

Gwendolyn Lightner was born in Brookport, Illinois in 1925, the fourth of six children, to parents Mase and Florence Capps.{{cite news |last1=Thurber |first1=Jon |title=Gospel music innovator put new 'oomph' into services |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3Y2M-33N0-0094-50KF-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 7, 1999}} She began playing piano when she was 8 and by the age of 10 she was playing for her church choir and for school activities.{{cite news |last1=Thurber |first1=Jon |title=Gospel music innovator put new 'oomph' into services |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3Y2M-33N0-0094-50KF-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 7, 1999}} After graduating from high school she attended Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, where she completed her classical training. Her move to Chicago in the early 1940s to attend the Lyon and Healy Academy of Music led to a growing interest in gospel music and her into contact with many of the city's most prominent gospel musicians (among them, Kenneth Morris, Sallie Martin, Roberta Martin, Emma Jackson, and Mahalia Jackson).{{Citation| last = DjeDje| first = Jacqueline Cogdell| contribution = Lightner, Gwendolyn| year = 1993| title = Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia| editor-last = Hine| editor-first = Darlene Clark| volume = I (A-L)| pages = 720–721| place = Brooklyn, New York| publisher = Carlson Publishing, Inc.}}{{cite news |title=DEATHS ELSEWHERE |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3XBS-8H40-00RP-M079-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=September 7, 1999}} Kenneth Morris had begun using a new, improvisational style of piano accompaniment for gospel music that scholars call "the bounce," and when Lightner heard it, she asked Morris to teach her how to play that way. This resulted in her creation of a sound that melded Morris' looser "bounce" style with the more classic style of gospel she grew up with.{{cite news |last1=Thurber |first1=Jon |title=Gospel music innovator put new 'oomph' into services |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3Y2M-33N0-0094-50KF-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 7, 1999}}

Lightner was a member of the Emma L. Jackson Singers when the group received an invitation to perform from the minister of Grace Memorial church in Los Angeles. They toured Los Angeles for several weeks in 1946, and during that time Lightner made the decision to stay and manage Lillian Doty's Los Angeles Gospel Music Mart studio.{{Citation| last = DjeDje| first = Jacqueline Cogdell| contribution = Lightner, Gwendolyn| year = 1993| title = Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia| editor-last = Hine| editor-first = Darlene Clark| volume = I (A-L)| pages = 720–721| place = Brooklyn, New York| publisher = Carlson Publishing, Inc.}}{{cite journal |last1=DjeDje |first1=Jacqueline Cogdell |title=Gospel Music in the Los Angeles Black Community: A Historical Overview |journal=Black Music Research Journal |date=1989 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=35–79 |doi=10.2307/779432 |jstor=779432 }} At the time of her arrival there was not a significant gospel music tradition in Los Angeles. Music in church services consisted primarily of traditional hymns. She was hired, together with James Earl Hines, a nationally known gospel singer and choir director, by the Reverend John L. Branham of St. Paul Baptist Church, himself a native of Chicago, who wanted to bring the midwest gospel sound into his church services.{{cite book |last1=DjeDje |first1=Jacqueline Cogdell |last2=Meadows |first2=Eddie S. |title=California soul : music of African Americans in the West |date=1998 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520918146}}{{cite news |last1=Thurber |first1=Jon |title=Gospel music innovator put new 'oomph' into services |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3Y2M-33N0-0094-50KF-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 7, 1999}}

In 1946, Lightner and Hines founded St. Paul Baptist Church's Echoes of Eden choir, which would go on to be credited with revolutionizing the Los Angeles gospel music scene. From 1947 to 1949, Lightner served as the choir's first pianist. Echoes of Eden, whose membership reached over 100 singer, made its Los Angeles radio debut in February 1947. The program, which broadcast from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m., would eventually be heard in seventeen states by a listening audience of one million people, one of the largest on the West Coast at the time.{{cite book |last1=DjeDje |first1=Jacqueline Cogdell |last2=Meadows |first2=Eddie S. |title=California soul : music of African Americans in the West |date=1998 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520918146}}

After St. Paul Baptist Church, Lightner went on to become choir director and pianist at Grace Memorial Church of God in Christ and Mount Moriah Baptist Church.{{Citation| last = DjeDje| first = Jacqueline Cogdell| contribution = Lightner, Gwendolyn| year = 1993| title = Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia| editor-last = Hine| editor-first = Darlene Clark| volume = I (A-L)| pages = 720–721| place = Brooklyn, New York| publisher = Carlson Publishing, Inc.}} In 1956, she became the musical minister for the Bethany Missionary Baptist Church, where she would remain for the next 43 years. She also taught music at the Victory Baptist Day School for almost 30 years.{{cite news |last1=Thurber |first1=Jon |title=Gospel music innovator put new 'oomph' into services |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3Y2M-33N0-0094-50KF-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 7, 1999}}

Lightner was affiliated with a number of gospel groups in Los Angeles, including: the Rose of Sharon (1946–47) women's gospel trio, the J.Earle Hines Good will Singers (1947–49) and later the J. Earle Hines Goodwill Community Choir (1950s), the Sallie Martin Singers (1952–53), and the Voices of Hope community choir (1957–74).{{Citation| last = DjeDje| first = Jacqueline Cogdell| contribution = Lightner, Gwendolyn| year = 1993| title = Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia| editor-last = Hine| editor-first = Darlene Clark| volume = I (A-L)| pages = 720–721| place = Brooklyn, New York| publisher = Carlson Publishing, Inc.}} She organized and co-directed Voices of Hope with Thurston G. Frazier, and the group would go on to become nationally known through many live concert appearances and two albums for Capitol Records ("We've Come This Far by Faith," and "Walk on by Faith").{{cite book |last1=DjeDje |first1=Jacqueline Cogdell |last2=Meadows |first2=Eddie S. |title=California soul : music of African Americans in the West |date=1998 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520918146}} Lightner would also play piano on other gospel recordings by the Pilgrim Travelers, the Soul Stirrers, and Brother Joe May (all for Specialty Records). She is perhaps best known as the pianist for Mahalia Jackson (1968–72), whom Lightner accompanied for several world tours and many television appearances.{{Citation| last = DjeDje| first = Jacqueline Cogdell| contribution = Lightner, Gwendolyn| year = 1993| title = Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia| editor-last = Hine| editor-first = Darlene Clark| volume = I (A-L)| pages = 720–721| place = Brooklyn, New York| publisher = Carlson Publishing, Inc.}}

Lightner served as pianist for the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. for over fifty years.{{cite news |title=DEATHS ELSEWHERE |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3XBS-8H40-00RP-M079-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=September 7, 1999}} She was also director of music for the Western Baptist State Convention and Congress of Christian Education.{{cite news |last1=Thurber |first1=Jon |title=Gospel music innovator put new 'oomph' into services |url=https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3Y2M-33N0-0094-50KF-00000-00&context=1516831 |access-date=26 February 2020 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 7, 1999}}{{Citation| last = DjeDje| first = Jacqueline Cogdell| contribution = Lightner, Gwendolyn| year = 1993| title = Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia| editor-last = Hine| editor-first = Darlene Clark| volume = I (A-L)| pages = 720–721| place = Brooklyn, New York| publisher = Carlson Publishing, Inc.}}

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Category:1925 births

Category:1999 deaths

Category:American gospel musicians

Category:American women pianists

Category:American music arrangers

Category:American choral conductors

Category:20th-century American women

Category:20th-century American people