AN APPRECIATION : A Godsend to Gospel Music

“I’m not worried about the undertaker!” exclaimed buoyant Shirley Caesar at a tribute concert for the Rev. James Cleveland, the extraordinarily influential gospel figure, last October. “I’m thankful for the Upper-taker!”

Cleveland, his friends and fans would bittersweetly agree, has finally fallen into the hands of both.

His death last Saturday at the age of 59 came as no surprise to those who have kept track of his long, debilitating bouts with severe respiratory problems, but nonetheless will be felt as a crushing blow to the black gospel music world, which has depended on Cleveland for decades not just as a record-maker but a mentor, producer, primary source of new material and fountainhead of artistic recognition for the form.

Homage was paid to Cleveland Thursday afternoon by gospel station KMAX-FM at the site of his Hollywood Boulevard star, and a further round of tributes has been scheduled for the weekend. Tonight at 7:30, a memorial service will be held at the Cornerstone Institutional Baptist Church (at Slauson and Western avenues), which he founded in 1970. On Saturday at 11 a.m., there will be a public funeral at Shrine Auditorium.

These final send-offs come just a few months after scores of singers and musicians gathered on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage to pay tribute to the “King of Gospel,” and though it was billed as a golden anniversary celebration of Cleveland’s 50 years in music, with scant onstage mention of his ill health, there was little mistaking its real purpose: to say thank you to Cleveland before he was gone.

In this respect, it recalled a similar tribute offered to Sammy Davis Jr. the previous year, with dozens of African-American music legends having foresight enough to pay their respects directly to the man who cleared their path instead of saving their flowers for his headstone.

Cleveland, comporting himself in a stolid, near-regal fashion apropos to his nickname, was clearly touched by the musical outpouring, perhaps as fine a collection of gospel talent ever gathered for a single occasion--the reunited Caravans, Andrae Crouch, the Hawkins Family, Tramaine Hawkins, Billy Preston and the Mighty Clouds of Joy among them.

Like Davis, again, Cleveland was a silent center of attention, well past the point of performing himself and barely able to say thank you by the time of the tribute, due to a tracheotomy. The absence of the honoree’s voice was in this case perhaps not felt as deeply, as Cleveland was not so much revered as a singer as he was a mover and shaker, a writer and producer, a talent builder and discoverer. Indeed, he was credited with popularizing the mass choir, though he founded countless small ensembles as well.

His influence extended well outside the church realm: Having tutored a juvenile Aretha Franklin while living in her minister father’s home in Detroit, he went on to produce her legendary Grammy-winning, double-platinum gospel album, “Amazing Grace,” in 1970, a mainstream breakthrough for traditional music.

And though literally hundreds of his compositions were staples of the African American church--the program for last year’s tribute at the Music Center listed 427 songs he wrote and/or arranged--they were also recorded by bands as far afield as Gordon Gano’s gospel-punk Mercy Seat group.

Ironically, Cleveland’s star burned brightest when he was helping others shine, and his contribution will be remembered more in terms of influence than in gold records or Grammy nominations, though his shelves and walls claimed more than a dozen of the former and 19 of the latter. If gospel stars are quick to acknowledge his leadership in the field, all too few secular performers are aware of the debt owed Cleveland, whose oft-raucous, unabashedly syncopated style formed a bridge between Mahalia Jackson and much of today’s rhythm & blues.

Given Cleveland’s legacy of Christian transportation and transcendance, neither tonight’s service nor Saturday’s funeral is likely to be an especially somber occasion.