GOD & TEXAS: Arizona Dranes sings!

As a young child, Arizona Juanita Dranes lost her eyesight due to an influenza outbreak. Born near Greenville, Texas, with a mixed African-American and Mexican-American heritage, life became harder when her parents divorced. By 1900, the seven-year-old was living at The Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Colored Youth in Austin.

The purpose of the Institute was to teach special-needs students marketable skills. Some of the courses offered included broom making, cooking, rug making, shoemaking, and music. A.J. embraced music, with the piano as her preferred instrument. Researchers found that by age 11, A.J. was brilliantly performing the classical works of Mozart and Beethoven. She also excelled in vocal performance by singing complex arias while accompanying herself on the piano.

After graduation, A. J. spent time in the dance halls and juke joints of Deep Ellum in Dallas and Deep Deuce in Oklahoma City. No doubt it was in these venues that she learned to play a rowdy form of piano styles akin to ragtime, barrelhouse, and boogie-woogie blues.

But her life took a turn toward God when she met members of the Pentecostal Church of God in Christ (COGIC). As her devotion to Christ deepened, A.J. began to combine her classical and blues skills with Gospel music. The result was a Pentecostal worship sound that still resonates today. Dranes began traveling with COGIC evangelists as they started churches across the country. Crowds came to hear her inspirational and emotional renditions of old hymns and new worship songs.

In his book, “He Is My Story: The Sanctified Soul of Arizona Dranes,” writer Michael Corcoran recounts a 2003 interview with 90-year-old Helen Davis. She recalled seeing Arizona Dranes leading worship at a local church in the 1920’s by saying, “She’d get the whole place shouting,” Davis said. “She was a blind lady, see, and she’d let the spirit overtake her. She’d jump up from that piano bench when it hit her.”

Such Gospel legends as hymnwriter Thomas Dorsey, and singers Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, credited Dranes with a fresh breakthrough in sacred music. Between the years of 1926 to 1928, Dranes recorded several records that became very popular. It is said that musical artists like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis patterned their unique piano techniques on Dranes’ style.

While the opportunities were there for her to pursue commercial success, Dranes kept her talents in church. Some of her favorite songs that expressed her commitment to Christ included “Sweet Heaven is My Home,” “My Soul is a Witness for the Lord,” and “Lamb’s Blood has Washed Me Clean.” Never married, few noticed when A.J. Dranes died in 1963. But the world is a better place because she used her talents and skills for the Lord.

Arizona Dranes fulfilled 1 Peter 4:10 ESV, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

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