Dorothy Love Coates
Dorothy Love Coates (January 30, 1928 – April 9, 2002) was an influential American gospel singer who rose to stardom in the 1950s as a member of The Original Gospel Harmonettes. With her "raggedy" voice and preacher's fire she could outsing the most powerful hard gospel male singers of the era. She was also a notable composer, writing songs such as "You Can't Hurry God (He's Right On Time)", "99 and a Half Won't Do" and "That's Enough".
She began singing with the Gospel Harmonettes—then known as the Gospel Harmoneers—in the early 1940s. That Gospel Harmonettes—later renamed the Original Gospel Harmonettes—had achieved some fame in an early appearance when the National Baptist Convention came to Birmingham in 1940.
The group first recorded for RCA in 1949, but without Dorothy Love. Those recordings were not particularly memorable.
Their first tracks for Specialty Records—"I'm Sealed" and "Get Away Jordan"—recorded with Love in 1951 were far more successful, The group recorded a series of hits in the years that followed before disbanding in 1958.
Dorothy was the driving force behind the group's success, both on record and in person, singing with such spirit that the other members of the group would occasionally have to lead her back to the stage—a device that James Brown copied and made part of his act in the 1960s, but which was wholly genuine in Love's case.
During the years of her retirement, from 1959 to 1961, Dorothy Love—now Dorothy Love Coates—became active in the civil rights movement, working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As she was fond of telling church audiences. While many other gospel artists were slow to address political issues head-on, Coates spoke out against the war in Vietnam, racism and other evils.
Coates died on April 9, 2002, of heart failure, at the age of 74.
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