Francine Reese Morrison, an internationally known gospel singer and minister from Fort Worth, died early Saturday after a long illness. She was 80.
Ms. Morrison was the first black person to participate in a governor’s inauguration when she sang at the inauguration of Gov. John Connally, said former longtime Star-Telegramcolumnist Bob Ray Sanders, a friend and fan.
“She has sung at political conventions and on special occasions honoring many great Americans, including singing for Martin Luther King Jr. when he visited Fort Worth in 1959, for Jesse Jackson when [House] Speaker Jim Wright had a private fundraiser for him, and she sang at the opening of the Houston Astrodome,” Sanders said.
She sang all over the world, including in Russia at a time when that country was cracking down on religion, Christianity in particular, Sanders said.
“I could sing from Bach to boogie,” Ms. Morrison, a Paris, Texas, native, told the Star-Telegram in 2005, when she was 69. “But I just never did.”
In 1984, she told the paper, “I try to touch people’s spiritual side. When I’m singin’, I’m prayin’. I’ve never believed that you have to take the devil’s money to pay the Lord’s bills.”
Ms. Morrison was born Aug. 16, 1935. She had two brothers and a sister, all now living in Fort Worth, according to Ms. Morrison’s daughter-in-law, Gwen Morrison, a Tarrant County College District board member.
Gwen Morrison said her own three children were her mother-in-law’s only grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements were pending at Baker Funeral Home in Fort Worth.
“She was always very joyful,” Gwen Morrison recalled, adding that her mother-in-law was very close to her grandkids. “That was the thing I remember, her relationship with them. She wanted them to call her Mimi, and when she got her doctorate, they started calling her Dr. Morrison.”
In addition to singing gospel, Ms. Morrison, a licensed evangelical minister who held a doctorate of divinity, preached the Gospel. In 1980, she founded The Everywhere Church in South Fort Worth, a nondenominational, interracial church that met for a time in her living room. Soon, the congregation moved into a storefront. The church disbanded in January 1990.
Ms. Morrison still got her message out. She had her own radio and TV shows and toured Europe and South America, and she conducted an annual evangelical tour of Mexico and appeared regularly at Christian convocational and revival events throughout the United States, according to a career highlights composite by fan and friend Bill Benge of Fort Worth.
But it was that soulfully haunting voice that defined Ms. Morrison’s legacy. Her singing ability often drew comparisons with legendary gospel vocalist Mahalia Jackson.
“Hers was a soulful, deep-rooted gospel voice that could touch the heart and sting the soul” is how Sanders described Ms. Morrison’s pipes. “Depending on the song she was singing, it was like hearing the very sound of the angel Gabriel’s trumpet —every part of your being felt every piercing note.”
Ms. Morrison was a big admirer of Jackson. In 1961, she was ecstatic to be invited to perform with Jackson at a concert in Chicago, she told the Star-Telegram in 2005.
“The greatest thrill of my life was singing with Mahalia Jackson,” Ms. Morrison said. “A lot of folks say I sound like her. She invited me into her home in Chicago. Nothing topped that in my life.”
Ms. Morrison’s life was full with accolades and memorable performances. In addition to the inauguration and Astrodome performances, she has recorded three bestselling gospel albums and appeared with such gospel heavyweights as Ethel Waters, James Cleveland and the Blackwood Quartet.
In 1959, she played piano and sang at a small gathering that including the visiting Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Ms. Morrison was named Fort Worth’s Outstanding Woman in Arts and a Living Legend by the Fort Worth Gospel Music Association. The Junior Black Academy of Arts and Letters designated her Dallas/Fort Worth Black Living Legend.
Ms. Morrison moved into a nursing center in about 2001.