Shirley Caesar is a pioneer in gospel music with a career that’s thrived since it began in the 1950s. The “First Lady of Gospel” is still producing chart-topping music and pastoring a church in North Carolina. Her latest collaboration earned her a 13th Grammy win. Pastor Caesar shared with CBN News’ Studio 5 how she felt winning the award.
“You can spell wow. W-O-W-W-O-W…. I was excited. You would’ve thought that it was my first Grammy, and I got my first Grammy way back in ’70, something like that. But I was just so excited that here I am still winning Grammys after all these years. And we asked the question, who did it? God did it.”
Caesar’s gospel career spans roughly 70 years with nearly 150 music releases. That’s more than 60 albums, nearly 50 collaborations, and countless singles. She recounts some of her favorites, including the songs “No Charge,” “Jesus, I Love to Call Your Name,” and “I Remember Mama.”
Caesar said, “When you add it all up, the cost of real love is the song ‘No Charge.’ When you add it all up, the cost of real love is no charge. I like (the song) ‘Jesus, I Love to Call your Name.’ That’s one. But you see, I can sit here, and I’ll be calling because (the song) ‘I Remember Mama.’ That’s one. So let me stop because I’ll call out a whole…. (laugh)… Listen, I’ll have enough songs for a choir. “
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Pastor Caesar shared with CBN News’ Studio 5 her thoughts on holding numerous titles such as “The Mother of Gospel,” “First Lady of Gospel,” and “Queen of Gospel.”
“I like Shirley Caesar. A lot of hard work has gone into whatever all those names were. I’m just so glad to still be here and be alive and working for the Lord.”
That work began as a teenager seeing gospel pioneer Albertina Walker’s gospel group in concert at a church in her hometown of Durham, North Carolina. She recounts back to 1958, being at a Caravans concert and finding a way to get invited on the stage to sing a solo.
Caesar said, “I was like 18. It was only three of them that night. One of them was either sick or somewhere, I don’t know. So, I wrote my own request, ‘please call on Shirley Caesar.’ I felt like that if she heard me that she would want me. And I wrote her a note too. I said, ‘I can sing all of those parts that’s missing.’ I’m not a soprano singer. I’m not a tenor singer. But I just felt that if she could hear what I had, that she would want me. And so, the way that happened was that when they called on me to sing, I remember singing the old song, ‘Like a ship that’s tossed and driven, battered by an angry wave,’ boy, I’m getting happy. ‘When the storms of life are raging and the fury falls on me, Lord, what have I done that makes my race so hard to run? But then I say to my soul, so don’t worry, the Lord will make a way somehow,'” she continued.
She would soon become a part of the Caravans gospel group for 8 years. Through that time, she received some of the biggest lessons.
“You have to learn to get along with crazy folks. I’m telling you, I had a lot of fear in my heart living there in Chicago. And here I am, a female, young girl and running into all these crazy folk. So, I learned, glory to God, that when you ‘put your hand in the hand of the Man that stilled the water,’ and that’s what I did,” she told CBN News’ Studio 5.
Now she is offering advice to young people who are teenagers trying to get into the music industry.
“Well, one of my main questions that I ask them is, what about your education? Have you thought about going to college? And things of that nature because I believe that Jesus plus education equals success. Should I say that again? Yes. Jesus plus education equals success. And the Lord blessed me to go back to school.”
Caesar earned a degree in business from Shaw University in 1983. She also served as a member of the Durham City Council, all while pastoring a church alongside her husband.
Today, Caesar still loves recording music. She is currently busy in the studio working on a new music project, something she still enjoys. But she shared with Studio 5 what she wants God to say if all the music and fame is taken away.
“‘Well done, thy good and faithful servant.’ And I hope and pray that I will prove to be faithful because it would be a sad thing to sing all these years and preach and lift Jesus up and then I become a castaway,” she said. “So, mine is just don’t throw the towel in whatever you have to do. Glory to God, because Lord, if I throw it in, throw it back, please throw it back. I don’t want to give in or give out.”
Pastor Shirley Caesar shows no signs of giving up or giving out.
