By 1937, Jackson had made her first set of recordings with Decca Records. Her first side, "God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares," only saw moderate commercial success. Despite her A&R representative's suggestions, she refused to make a blues record, remembering her pledge to sing only gospel music. As a result, she lost her contract with Decca. Then married to her first husband, Ike, Jackson decided to buy real estate and invest in her own business, a beauty shop. High-paying offers for work in the theater rolled in, and though Ike protested, Jackson kept her vow. Gospel music was becoming popular in Chicago churches, and Jackson was building a community of gospel musicians. Among these was Thomas Dorsey, a talented Atlanta-born African American composer and pianist who had migrated north with a vision for gospel music. He chose Jackson out of all the singers in Chicago to be his partner, and, as a traveling act, the two ushered in the Golden Age of Gospel.