Doris Akers

21 May 1923—26 July 1995

DORIS MAE AKERS, often known as “Miss Gospel Music,” was born 21 May 1923 in Brookfield, Linn County, Missouri, to Floyd Akers (1887–1958) and Pearl M. Kelly (1896–1988), eighth of ten children. Floyd and Pearl had married 21 June 1909 in Linn County, Missouri, an interracial marriage. They divorced some time after the birth of Bernice in 1926. When Pearl remarried to John Lawson (1892–1974) on 24 Feb. 1929, Doris and some of her siblings became part of that household, living in Kirksville, Adair County, Missouri, while three of her brothers stayed with their father. Doris showed an early interest and aptitude for music, learning how to play piano by ear, and writing her first gospel song, “Keep the fire burning in me” at age ten. As a teenager, she formed a jazz group called the Dot Akers Swingsters.

In 1945, Akers moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the music industry. The following year, she was added to the Sallie Martin Singers as a singer and pianist. Martin helped Akers publish her first professional song, “A double portion of God’s love,” in 1947; it was recorded and popularized by Joe May in 1950 (Specialty SP-373). In 1947, Akers formed her own group with Dorothy Simmons and Hattie Hawkins, known alternately as the Akers and Simmons Trio or the Simmons-Akers Gospel Singers. Around the same time, she and Simmons also started their own publishing company, Simmons and Akers Music, which subsequently printed some of Akers’ other compositions. Simmons had been a founding member of the Sallie Martin Singers in Chicago and would have been familiar with the operations of the Martin and Morris publishing company. The Simmons-Akers trio toured extensively and was invited to perform at the National Baptist Convention when it convened in Los Angeles in 1949. Around 1950, Hawkins left the group. Personnel in late 1954 included Christine Kittrell and Ruth Black, making a quartet. One iteration of the group included Helen Henderson.

The Simmons-Akers ensemble in its various combinations recorded several singles, including “He Delivered Me / Jesus Is the Name” (Dolphins of Hollywood 131, 1950) and “My Expectation / He'll Never Let Go of My Hand” (Super Records 507). Simmons and Akers, apparently in a transition of personnel, recorded solos and duets in 1954. One such single was “He’s Everywhere / I Found Something” (Songs of the Cross SC-105, 1954), both songs written by Akers, with Akers overdubbing multiple voice parts. Another disc featured Dorothy Simmons singing “Meet Me in Glory Land,” a song by Akers, and the on other side Doris Akers sang “Lead Me, Guide Me,” with the label indicating “Doris Akers singing all three parts” (Imperial Records 5271, 1954). Their last recording was an LP, Sing Praises Unto the Lord (RCA Victor LPM-1481, 1957).

The Simmons-Akers Singers lasted until 1957, when Doris was invited to develop and direct a large gospel choir for the Sky Pilot Radio Church (a.k.a. Sky Pilot Revival Center), pastored by Rev. Aubrey Lee. The Sky Pilot Choir had approximately 100 voices, and it is often regarded as the first interracial gospel choir in Los Angeles. For Christian Faith Recordings, they released The Sky Pilot Choir (SP-6041), The Sky Pilot Choir Vol. 2 (SP-6039), and Doris Akers Sings with the Sky Pilot Choir (SP-6047), the latter being released after Akers’ departure. When Akers left the choir around the end of 1962, leadership was taken over by Shirley Mays, who had been an accompanist for the group. A reunion album came a decade later, Doris Akers and the Original Members of the Sky Pilot Choir (Manna Records MS-2020, 1973). After Akers left the Sky Pilot Choir, she took the reins of The Gospel Jubilee Choir of Los Angeles and directed music at the Wings of Healing Church, carrying that responsibility through most of 1963 and into 1964, until she transitioned into a career as a touring soloist.

As a soloist, Akers recorded Forever Faithful (RCA Victor LPM 2644, 1962), Sing for You with the Statesmen Quartet (RCA Victor LPM 2936, 1964), Doris Akers Sings with a choir and orchestra directed by Ralph Carmichael (Christian Faith DA-6045), Doris Akers Sings in Church for Missions (Crusade LPM 2703, 1964), Highway to Heaven (RCA Victor LPM 3335, 1964), Doris Akers and The Ministers (Worship, WLPS 803), Doris Akers Sings in Canada (Praise PRS-114), and Sweet, Sweet Spirit (Manna Records MS-2003). In 1966, she appeared in a film called Sing a Song for Heaven’s Sake (Victor Lewis / Marathon), singing “I Believe” as a solo and “Every Time I Feel the Spirit” with The Imperials. Through her publishing relationship with Manna Music in California, she released four volumes of Favorite Gospel Songs and three volumes of the Doris Akers Choral Series.

Leaving the big-city life, Akers moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1970 and continued to serve as a soloist and choir director, especially associated with Pentecostal churches. While there, she recorded Are You Ready to Sing with the United Gospel Choir of Columbus (Golden Rule GR-2003), Lord, Give Me a Song (Zondervan ZLP-803), Glad Tidings with Temple’s Harvest Time Choir (Crusade LP 2702), Happiness is God (Capriccio C7DA), Feel the Spirit Movin’ (Celestial LPM-627), All God’s Children: Doris Akers Sings the Best of Bill and Gloria Gaither (Heart Warming Records R-3263, 1974), and Trinity Singers: Live in Concert (Trinity Broadcasting), recorded in Charlotte, North Carolina, with evangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker. As a songwriter, she co-wrote with Mahalia Jackson “Lord, Don’t Move the Mountain,” which was recorded by Inez Andrews (Songbird SB-1203, 1972) and sold over a million copies.

In November of 1988, Doris and her sister Bernice Tillman moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where their sister Nellie Bright was living, and Doris took a position as Director of Music at Revival Temple, 12 St. & 2nd Ave. SE. Their mother Pearl and brother Edward had both died in Cedar Rapids earlier that year. In 1990, Akers moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and served as music director at Grace Temple Deliverance Center, pastored by Dr. Willa Grant Battle. In the early 1990s, she recorded two videos for the Gaither Homecoming series, the two-part set Turn Your Radio On (1993) and Old Friends (1993), then Gospel Pioneer Reunion (1994; not released until 2016). After breaking her ankle in August of 1994, she learned she had spinal cancer. Her cancer progressed rapidly; she died at the Heritage of Edina nursing home on 26 July 1995.

Akers is credited with writing over 500 gospel songs. Among her many accolades, her work has been honored by the Smithsonian Institution as a National Treasure, and shortly before her death in 1995, she was given a lifetime achievement award by the NAACP. She was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001. She was one of the first and foremost gospel artists to cross racial boundaries. Akers herself was born of a black mother but inherited her father’s fair skin, thus she is often counted as an African American composer and performer. Gospel historian Horace Clarence Boyer said of her music:

Akers’ compositions are unique for their elegant and sophisticated lyrics and for their melodies, which draw less from Negro spiritual and gospel characteristics and more from European art music and American popular music. . . . For many years Akers’ singing partner was Dorothy Vernell Simmons (b. 1910), a gospel singer and choir director. . . . Her lyric soprano, agile and with a high range, blended sonorously with the mezzo-soprano-alto of Akers. Akers’ compositions and the singing of the Simmons-Akers Duo were the inspiration for Edwin Hawkins’ arrangement of “O Happy Day” and the new gospel sound from Los Angeles.[1]

Similarly, biographer Erin Stapleton-Corcoran remarked, “She was the creator of the so-called ‘Doris Akers/Sky Pilot sound,’ an innovative style of directing and arranging gospel choir music that continues to influence gospel music composition and direction today.”[2]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
23 February 2021
rev. 30 Apr. 2021

1. Horace Clarence Boyer, How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel (Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995), pp. 208–209.

2. Erin Stapleton-Corcoran, “Doris Akers,” Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, ed. W.K. McNeil (NY: Routledge, 2005), p. 7.

Featured Hymns:

Lead Me, Guide Me
Sweet, Sweet Spirit

Collections of Hymns and Songs:

Doris Akers Favorite Gospel Songs

Vol. 1 (1965): WorldCat
Vol. 2 (1966): WorldCat
Vol. 3
Vol. 4

Doris Akers Choral Series

Vol. 1 (1965)
Vol. 2 (1967): WorldCat
Vol. 3

Archives & Manuscripts:

African American Sheet Music Collection, Stuart A. Rose Archives, Emory University:
http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/8xx0x

Related Resources:

Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje, “Los Angeles composers of African American gospel music: The first generations,” American Music, vol. 11, no. 4 (Winter 1993), pp. 412–457: JSTOR

Horace Clarence Boyer, “Doris Akers,” How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel (Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995), pp. 208–209.

Pat Pheifer, “Doris Akers dies; composed more than 500 gospel songs,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis: 28 July 1995), p. 6B.

Erin Stapleton-Corcoran, “Doris Akers,” Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, ed. W.K. McNeil (NY: Routledge, 2005), pp. 6–7.

Bil Carpenter, “Doris Akers,” Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2005), p. 12.

Cedric J. Hayes & Robert Laughton, “Doris Mae Akers,” “Simmons-Akers Trio,” “Dorothy Simmons,” “Sky Pilot Choir,” Gospel Discography 1943–2000 (Canada: Eyeball Productions, 2014), vol 1, pp. 17–18; vol. 2, pp. 901, 902, 912.

Doris Akers, Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/person/Akers_Doris