Pastor Shirley Caesar Talks Fill This House and Protecting Her Voice

Pastor Shirley Caesar is certain that the Lord isn’t through with her yet.

Celebrating 50 years as a solo gospel artist, Caesar released today Fill This House, the latest full-length record in her 40-plus album catalogue. Featuring the jazzy, Anthony Hamilton-assisted first single, “It’s Alright, It’s OK,” Fill This House’s 11 tracks are packed with healing ministry and a winning attitude – mostly because she’s nowhere near ready to retire.

“If anybody tries to tell me that it’s over for me [or] ‘I don’t think she can make a comeback,’ honey, I strive,” says the 77-year-old North Carolina native during a phone interview. “I strive to make them out a lie. I strive to be my best self. I know that I have more energy left in me than some 25-year-olds.”

The First Lady of Gospel owes her longevity to her mother who cautioned her years ago about protecting her voice. As a singer, Caesar explains, she is susceptible to sinus drainage and colds. So it’s important that she rests her body and her vocal chords while also drinking a lot of warm fluids.

“It’s just like a guitar, bass guitar, lead guitar, a pianist… at the end of a concert, you put that instrument back in a box and you protect it,” Caesar says. “Singers have to do the same thing. You have to protect your voice.”

She drinks a lot of hot tea and warm water to relax her vocal chords before and after recording sessions, concerts and ministering. Another important routine, she says, is…

…drying her hair after a performance.

“As soon as I get back to the hotel, first thing I do is I start drying my hair,” Caesar says, “because I believe that two of the main ways of catching a cold is through the mold of your head and under the bottom of your feet.”

She even keeps a change of clothes with her because she sweats a lot during performances. If she doesn’t get out of her wet clothes immediately, she’ll easily catch a cold – which, she says, lasts a lot longer for her than sinus drainage.

“If I’m doing a concert, usually when I come off all of my clothes are wet. So I have to change and get out of those wet clothes and put on dry clothes,” she explains. “Because if I don’t, I’m telling you, the next day I pay for it with colds and things of that nature.”

Her ability to remain healthy and maintain her powerful voice throughout the decades is the reason why Caesar feels she has more music to share with the world. On Fill This House, her favorite song is “Mother Emanuel,” a personal cut dedicated to lives lost in the June 2015 shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. It was at this historic church, 35 years ago, where Caesar received her first honorary doctorate.

“My mama was standing right up there with me,” Caesar recalls. “So I have some wonderful, wonderful memories even though I regret that this [the shooting] happened. [The church] dates all the way back to the 1700s. So that song, ‘Mother Emanuel,’ I genuinely love it because it tells a true story.”

Listen to “Mother Emanuel” below.