Brother Will Hairston (November 22, 1919 – March 17, 1988) was an American

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

singer and preacher in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, called "The Hurricane of the Motor City" and known for his "startlingly socially conscious" Marsha Music, "Bubbling under: Brother Will Hairston: Alabama Bus"
''Detroit Metro Times'', November 10, 2010. Retrieved 21 August 2016 songs of protest in the 1950s and 1960s during the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

Biography

Will Hairston was born into a poor farming family in Brookfield, Mississippi, and went to school in the town of Centreville. After both his parents died, he moved to St. Louis and was drafted into the US Army Air Force during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Once the war ended, he married, and moved with his wife to

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

where he worked in the

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

factory on

8 Mile Road 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

. He was a member of the

Church of Christ Church of Christ may refer to: Church groups * When used in the plural, a New Testament designation for local groups of people following the teachings of Jesus Christ: "...all the churches of Christ greet you", Romans 16:16. * The entire body of Ch ...

, and made his first recordings for the church in 1955, credited as Brother Will Hairston. His first record was "My God Don't Like It", subsequently re-titled "The Death of Emmet Teal" , commenting on the

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

of fourteen-year-old

Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

in August 1955. Guido Van Rijn, ''The Truman and Eisenhower Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs, 1945-1960''
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006, pp. 141-143 Edward Komara, Peter Lee, ''The Blues Encyclopedia''
Routledge, 2004, p. 397 On later records, Hairston was credited as "The Hurricane of the Motor City", an epithet deriving from a time when, he said: "I was singing spirituals at a church once where the

pew A pew () is a long bench (furniture), bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating Member (local church), members of a Church (congregation), congregation or choir in a Church (building), church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview ...

s were not stationary. After a couple of selections some of the members got happy and began to shout. When the service was over someone mentioned that the church looked as if a hurricane had been through it. The subtitle has stuck since then." In 1956, Hairston wrote and recorded "The Alabama Bus" for Detroit record store owner

Joe Von Battle Joe Von Battle (born Joseph Battle, April 3, 1915 – March 27, 1973) was an American record store owner and pioneer black record producer in Detroit, Michigan, between the 1940s and 1960s. He set up the J.V.B. and Battle record labels, was ...

's J.V.B. label. With

Washboard Willie William Paden Hensley (July 24, 1906 or 1909 – August 24, 1991), known as Washboard Willie, was an American Detroit blues musician, who specialised in playing the washboard. He recorded tracks including "A Fool on a Mule in the Middle of The ...

on percussion, the song describes and chronicles the Montgomery bus boycott that followed Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white man. Hairston's recording, described as "emotional" and "gripping", was the first to reference by name Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The following year, Hairston recorded "Shout School Children", which chronicled the enrollment of nine children at Little Rock Central High School, and subsequent events including the delayed intervention of

President Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...

. The recording and his later releases were issued on the Knowles record label in Detroit, and were personally sold by Hairston himself. Hairston returned to the recording studio in 1964, releasing "The Story of President Kennedy", for which he received an appreciative acknowledgement from

Jacqueline Kennedy Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis ( ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A po ...

. The following year, in support of the

Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...

, he recorded "March On To Montgomery", again with Washboard Willie and piano accompaniment by Louise Jackson. In 1968 he recorded "The War in Vietnam", andafter the

assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7 ...

"Rev. King Had A Time". Hairston retired from Chrysler on disability grounds in 1970. In December 1971, he was shot and seriously injured by a white man, but recovered. His final recordings in 1972, with a gospel choir, included "Death Knocked At My Door, Jesus Got the Key", "This May Be My Last Time", and "Minny, Your Dress Too Short", a protestation against miniskirts. Many of his recordings were issued on an LP, ''Brother Will Hairston: Hurricane of the Motor City''. He died in 1988, aged 68. He was survived by his widow, and eight of their ten children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hairston, Brother Will 1919 births 1988 deaths Singers from Detroit American gospel singers People from Centreville, Mississippi 20th-century American singers