Gospel singer, radio host ministered through music
MadameWalter Andrews, the celebrated gospel singer and 30-year host of radio stationKGNU’s venerable Gospel ChimeHour, diedMarch 24. Shewas 81.
Though her given name was traditionally male, Andrews was all woman.
Her honeyed voice grew richer when she introduced her favorite songs on the air and when she launched into a blues-tinged hymn as she led theCity ofRefugeTabernacle’s Heavenly Echoes choir. She loved to dress up for church, and kept her hat and church clothes in her Dodge Neon so she could change after the Gospel Chime Hour concluded at 9 a.m. and be ready for services an hour later.
Andrewswas born inTexas. As a child, she sang in front of Sunday congregations, flanked by her parents.
“They could both sing; I mean, baby, they could tear a church up,” she remembered in a 2011 Denver Post interview.
“They would hold my hand, Daddy on one side, Mama on the other, and I’m just a little thing in the middle. And my mama would say, ‘Come on, gal, we have to sing this.’ They fixed it so I could come in on harmony.”
She sang “Farther Along” at her mother’s funeral when she was 5 years old. Her father died not long after that, and Oklahoma relatives took her in.
By age 6, she was singing at church revivals, dressed in patent leather shoes, a white gown and bows in her hair. In the same Denver Post interview, Andrews recalled that someone predicted that her “voice was going to be heard all over the world.”
“I said to my mama, ‘Mama, where all over the world?’ ” she recounted.
“Andmymamasaid, ‘Don’t ask me, gal … the Spirit says all over theworld.’ And sure enough, I went all over the world. Radio.”
Madame Walter
An- drews, as she later was christened by the pastor of theCity of RefugeTabernacle, regarded her radio showas aministry of music. On Sundays, she rose before dawn to drive from her home in Thornton to KGNU in north Boulder.
She took along a suitcase of records to play along with music from KGNU’s archives. As she introduced the songs, she liked to picture the homebound listeners who often called to tell her, “Your programis all the church we have.”
“She was so happy to share her music,” said fellowKGNUhost Ginger Perry. “She was the perfect ex- ample ofwhat Christwould be if he came back to earth.”
Andrews, whose two husbands preceded her in death, spent her final seven years in the care of Lady Stephfano, daughter of BishopWilson.