Considered the greatest of the "anointed singers" -- artists who live according to the spirit, and who perform with the ultimate aim of saving souls -- Willie Mae Ford Smith was among the most legendary gospel vocalists of her era; rarely recorded, her enormous reputation instead rested almost entirely on her incendiary live performances, where her dramatic, physical style inspired many of the finest soloists to follow in her wake. She was also the first to introduce the "song and sermonette," the act of delivering a lengthy sermon before, during or after a performance. Smith was born in 1906 in Rolling Fork, Mississippi and raised in Memphis; one of 14 children, she was the daughter of a railroad brakeman who relocated the family to St. Louis in 1918.
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