Gospel Music - Shirley Caesar - I Love Calling Your Name

Caesar's father, Big Jim Caesar, was a gifted gospel singer. He died when Shirley was still a child, leaving behind her handicapped mother and 11 other children. Times were incredibly difficult, but Caesar says she had a wonderful childhood nonetheless, immersed in church and family life. "My brothers, they had quartets ... we were just like chips from my father's tree," she says. "It was marvelous. Pretty much all of the Caesar side of my family are singers, either singers or preachers."

To hear her tell it, Shirley Caesar has never experienced adversity: from getting a whipping to being hungry and penniless in a strange town, it's been "a blessing in disguise" to her.

"Mama told me and my sister Anne to wash the dishes," Caesar says. "I didn't want to do it, I said I'm not going to put that water on my hands. Got in trouble. After we'd gotten that whipping, I would wash and Anne would dry. We knew nothing about having air conditioners then, all we had was the big window. So, when we had the windows up, our voices just penetrated the atmosphere, into the hearts and the homes of people and passersby."

Baby Shirley Caesar, as she came to be known, would sing from then on, every chance she got, traveling on weekends to churches all over the Carolinas and Virginia. In 1957, when Caesar was 19, the premier gospel group The Caravans, headed by gospel music icon Albertina Walker, came through North Carolina to perform. Noting that the group needed a fourth singer to form a quartet, Caesar followed The Caravans to a show in Kinston. "I felt in my spirit that if Albertina Walker heard me sing," she says, "she would want me in her group."

Shirley Caesar has won 11 Grammy Awards, one factor of many that cement her status as a Gospel icon.

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