|
ARTICLES
GOSPEL MUSIC
See also
the Blues Encyclopedia
|
Craig
ADAMS Soul
Bag 190 (Mars 2008),20-21
Ben
AIKEN
obit BR 245 ( Xmas 2009),
7
Bill ‘Hoss’
ALLEN BR 237, 20-21
RANCE
ALLEN
JB 69, 38-39
Margaret ALLISON died on July 30,2008 LB 201 (June 2009) , 74
THE ANOINTED JACKSON SINGERS JB 69, 40
BARRETT
SISTERS web site
: www.barrettsistersonline.com
Rev. F.C.
BARNES
JB 59, 52-54
Luther
BARNES
JB 59, 54-55
BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA Bitter battle splits BBofA
Living Blues 197 , 3 (Oct.2008)
HORACE
BOYER
obit JB 68, 58 ; BR 242,
20
SOLOMON
BURKE obit ( 10 Oct.2010 ) (LB 210,66)(BR 254,18)
SHIRLEY
CAESAR JB 66
, 48-51
CAMPBELL
BROTHERS LB 176, 22-29; Block 134, 2 (photo)
CANTON
SPIRITUALS
JB 60, 28-31
Sister Wynona CARR BR239(May 2009),4-8 , BR
242,22
Johnny
CARTER obit BR 243(Oct.2009),12
Lucy SMITH COLLIER
obit (19 Sept 2010) (CBMR Digest fall 2010/Vol.23,no.2)
Calvin
COOKE
LB 184(May 2006) 24-31
Mme
EDNA GALLMON COOKE JB 67, 4851
DILLARD CRUME 1935-2008 obit. JB 65 , 66 ; Block 143 (Lente ’08),43
DIXIE HUMMING BIRDS
ABS mag 6 (2004) , 40-47
Willa Mae DORSEY obit BR 237, 13
Willie C.
EASON
obit. LB 180,87; 16 June 2005 (JB 60,63)
TOMMY ELLISON obit JB 66 ,
63 ; BR 237,13
Johnny FIELDS (5 Blind Boys Alabama) obit
JB 68, 59 ; BR 245 (Xmas 2009),7 ; 9 Sept. 1927- 12 Nov. 200)
Clarence
FOUNTAIN
SB 179, 11-13
Geraldine GAY obit ( 6 April 2010) (CBMR Digest vol.23,no.2,Fall 2010)
Aubrey
GHENT
LB 176, 30-35
Golden Gate Quartet SB 200 , 55-59 www.thegoldengatequartet.com
Blind Arvella
GRAY
LB 180, 71
Walter HAWKINS obit. 20 Nov. 2010 ( JB 70,62) ; BR 252 (
Sept.2010),24 ; SB 200 (winter 2010),19
Rev. Charlie
JACKSON obit (13 Feb. 2006) LB 184,94; JB
61, 64
Rev.
Claude
JETER
LB 176 , 72-79 ; obit
JB 67, 60 ; BR 237,12
Evelyn JOHNSON
(Peacock) obit
(1 Nov.2005) SB 182, 36
Reverend ROBERT B. JONES JB 62, 55-56
The KELLY
BROTHERS / OFFE REECE JB 65 , 46-49
KING ODOM Quartet
B&R 227 (March 2008) 18-20
MARIE KNIGHT JB 68, 48-50 ; LB 192
(Oct.2007) 20-27 ; obit BR 243,
14/ LB 204,67 ; The Gospel of
M.K. + discography BR 250 (June 2010), 18- 24
The LEE
BOYS LB 190 (June
2007), 24-31
Gwen
Mc
CRAE
JB 58, 52-54
MARYLAND GOSPEL JB 64 , 48
Flora
MOLTON BR 245 (
Xmas 2009), 12-14
Gatemouth MOORE obit LB
174, 93 ; SB 176,41
Rev.
Willie Lee MORGANFIELD obit. LB 171,65
Junious
NORFLEET 25 March 2008 (
JB 65 Spring 2008 , 67
ODETTA
obit , LB 199(Feb 2009), 74 ; BR 236 (Feb
2009), 11
Billy PRESTON 6 June 2006 (JB 62,68)
Robert
RANDOLPH
SB 175, 34-36
LOU RAWLS 6
Jan. 2006 (JB 61,62)
MAJOR
ROBERTSON ( Pilgrim
Jubilee Singers) obit JB 69, 60, LB 208 (AuG.2010),81
Roscoe
ROBINSON LB
203 ( (Oct.2009) ,28-33
RONICA & MIGHTY BLAZING STARS JB 62 , 54
George
SCOTT obit
SB 179,36
SENSATIONAL
NIGHTINGALES JB 61, 56-58
SLIM & THE SUPREME ANGELS – Rev. Howard
Slim Hunt JB 63, 40-41
Elder UTAH SMITH Living Blues 198 (Dec.2008), 58-65
Eugene SMITH obit BR 241(Aug.2009), 14
SPIRIT
OF MEMPHIS QUARTET JB 65 , 36-39
Mavis
STAPLES
LB 175, 14-25,38, SB 200, 39-47
STAPLES SINGERS SB 200, 34-38
THE SWANEE
QUINTET JB 64 (late
2007), 44-47
Rev. Leroy
TAYLOR (Soul Stirrers)
obit BR 240, 13
Sister O.M. (Ola Mae) TERRELL 24 Feb.2006 (JB 62,71)
ROSETTA
THARPE headstone LB
199(Feb 2009), 5 ; BR 237,22
IRA
TUCKER obit JB 66 , 62 ; LB 197(Oct.2008),
88
Jerome Van
JONES SB 179 , 36
VICTORY FIVE Blues & Rhythm 226
(Feb.2008) 14-16 Albertina WALKER
obit 8 Oct. 2010 ( JB 70, 59)(SB 201,9)(BR 254,19)
Wilson
WATERS (Fairfield Four) obit. 24
Nov.2005) (JB 60,63)
Ellison
WHITE (Wings Over Jordan
Choir) obit BR 241, 12
Rev. John WILKINS LB 189(April 2007) 34-39 ; BR 244
(Nov.2009),12
LEE
WILLIAMS & SPIRITUAL
Q.C.’s JB 63 , 42
Elder Roma
WILSON BR 81 ( Aug. '93) ;
notes Arhoolie CD429
David
Pop WINANS obit JB 66 , 61
Roy Mr. Malaco'
WOOTEN obit JB 62,70
Clyde WRIGHT SB 200, 59
Marva WRIGHT obit. (23 March 2010) :
BR 249 (May 2010), 25; ( JB 69,61)(SB 199,6)
|
Black
Gospel Fest' , Amsterdam Sept. 2006
Block 137,40
BLUES
MEETS GOSPEL : Living Blues 176
(Jan.2005
Chicago Gospel Festival
2005 ABS 7 (2005) 28-32)
EMI
GOSPEL SB 199, 73
Gospel Odyssey , N.O. Jazz & Heritage Fest'
2006 JB 62,57
idem
South Carolina Gospel Quartet Awards JB 62,58 GOSPEL TRUTH SB 201 , 32-33
Guitar
Evangelists ABS 4
(2004)
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF GOD CHURCH - Sacred
Steel Music LB 176 12-21
MARYLAND
GOSPEL JB 64 , 48
MOUNT CALVARY BAPTIST GOSPEL CELEBRATION
, Maryland 2008 ; JB 66, 53
NEW ORLEANS GOSPEL
2009 JB 68, 51
The RAINBOW
700 & 900 series BR240, 10
SOUTH
CAROLINA GOSPEL QUARTETS
AWARDS JB 62, 58
My own
articles and reviews
..\..\26th Chicago Annual Gospel Music
Festival.doc (Gospel Fest’ Chicago June
2010)
..\..\ABS.THE VICTORY TRAVELERS.doc .
..\..\JAY T.Clinkscales.rtf
../../Gospel
encyclopedia w.intro.doc
..\..\JB.NEW
CHICAGO AND BEYOND.Dr.Odie H.Tolbert.doc
..\..\JUBILEE SHOWCASE.doc
..\..\Soul Bag.Liz
McComb.doc
..\..\J B..THE VICTORY
TRAVELERS.doc
..\..\Mr. OFFE REESE.doc
..\..\TEXAS GOSPEL.doc
..\..\IRA B.TUCKER.rtf
..\..\THE FIVE
BLIND BOYS OF MISSISSIPPI.rtf (discography – From R.Laughton-Cedric
J.Hayes
Gospel discography
1971-2008 still unpublished)
..\..\..\Pictures\Staple
Singers 51 (2).jpg
|
GOSPEL
ARTISTS AND
GROUPS
BIOGRAPHIES
ENCYCLOPEDIA
copyright: Robert SACRE
|
ANDERSON, Robert
b. Chicago, 1919 ;
d. Chicago, June 1995
Anderson began
singing in church as a boy and in the early 1930s he was one of the first
members of the Roberta *Martin Singers considered as the best mixed
(male-female) gospel group of the time in Chicago thanks to Roberta
Martin’s gift for writing lyrical songs , she was also a great piano
player. Anderson was probably her best singer but he was also ambitious
and in 1939, he left the group and began singing duets with R.L.Knowles, a Kansas City singer who was appointed
the lead singer of The First Church of Deliverance, the famous
Spiritualist church of Chicago led at the time by the flamboyant Reverend
Clarence Cobbs. Knowles and Anderson are
credited with bringing the "ad-lib" style to church singing
with jazz-influenced runs, free spirited melisma,
influences of secular music whether pop, blues or swing. Anderson was
even called the "Bing Crosby of gospel" because he was crooning
and delivered an effortless phrasing; he also had a great sense of
timing. Knowles and Anderson successfully toured California and Anderson
once told he even played a small role in "Gone with the Wind"!
He came back in Chicago to open a music studio, ‘The Good Shepherd’,
where he instructed singers and musicians, publishing also his own compositions . In 1943 he stole the show at the
National Baptist Convention with his own rendition of his song
"Something within". In 1946 he made a tour of the South and he
sang on the radio in Birmingham, Alabama, with a tremendous success.
Back in Chicago,
he formed his own group modelled on Roberta
Martin’s but he hired only female singers, the best he could find in
Chicago and in Gary, Indiana.
First, he called
them the Good Shepherd Singers (like his studio) then The Gospel Caravans
By the time he recorded
for United Records, the group was composed of Albertina
*Walker, Elyse Yancey, Ora Lee Hopkins and
Nellie Grace Daniels . It was a very strong
ensemble whose only rivals were The *Ward Singers and the *Davis Sisters
in Philadelphia. Each member could lead and they influenced many groups
and singers like Dorothy Love Coates and her *Gospel Harmonettes,
James *Cleveland who played piano some years with Anderson, quartet leads
like Sam *Cooke, Johnnie *Taylor, Lou *Rawls, etc…who were trained by him
and carried Anderson style into pop music. He started a long friendship
with Mahalia *Jackson who sang a lot of his
compositions. In April 1952, he left The *Caravans and Albertina Walker became the group’s manager, leading
it to stardom. Anderson spent some years leading successfully a male
group but his popularity declined with the rise of Contemporary Gospel
and he worked for a florist . In the 1980s he
recorded for Spirit Feel. In early 1995 he entered the hospital for a
by-pass operation. It failed because he also had diabetes, he suffered a
stroke and some months later, in June 1995, he died ,
the funeral was held at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church whose choir he
had once conducted.
(505)
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995.
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography :
Working the Road-The
Golden Age of Chicago Gospel , (1997, Delmark CD 702); The Great
Gospel Men , (1993, Shanachie/Spirit Feel
(USA) CD 6005).
BASS, Martha
(Martha Carter Bass Peaston)
b. 1921, Arkansas
; d. 21 September 1998, Saint Louis, MO
Martha Bass’
family moved to Saint Louis when she was two years old and Martha joined
the Pleasant Green Baptist Church at an early age under the leadership of
Pastor Reverend G.H. Pruitt . Influenced by the
National Baptist Conventions, she started to read the Bible and to sing
in the choir with a dark, powerful contralto and, from the beginning, was
outstandingly good, like her own mother, Nevada Carter. She was chosen by
Willie Mae Ford *Smith to perform in her back-up group and of all Smith’s
female pupils, Bass came closest to duplicate her vocal power and
resonance, even if Martha’s idol was Mahalia
*Jackson. Trained and obviously inspired by her mentor, she was known as
a "house shouter" with bluesy accents because of her ability to
rouse a church into pandemonium . That is how
she had a short stay of about three or four years with Clara *Ward and
the Ward Singers; she recorded with them for Savoy in 1950 and her
version of Wasn’it it a Pity How they
Punished my Lord was a huge hit; about the same time, her family and
entourage organized a private recording session and two songs were issued
on the Bass label. But then she got married and with two sons and a baby
girl – later to be the famous soul singer Fontella
Bass, married to Lester Bowie the leader of the Chicago Art Ensemble – , Martha chose to raise her family, staying at home
and returning to the Pleasant Green Choir. However she stayed in touch
with the Ward Singers and in 1963 she was hired as sales manager of a
music store the Wards opened to sell printed music, songbooks, records
and greeting cards, the shop was closed two years later and in 1966 with
plenty of free time again and eager to testify her faith and her love of
God, Bass thought it was time to make new records under her own name ;
she ‘advertised’ herself and she was well received in Chicago by Checker
Records, her first album in March 1966 was entitled I’m so grateful
with strong tracks like I do, don’t you and What Manner of Man
is this and her daughter Fontella claimed
she was playing piano and singing in the backing group, it was a sizeable
hit in the Middle East and it led to new albums on Checker, Rescue Me,
in 1968, with, among other great songs, In Times like These
and Now That I Found the Lord and in 1969 , a tribute to her idol,
Martha Sings Mahalia Jackson , her own favourite, a tribute that was not a servile copy of
the model but a personal testimony to the greatest of the gospel singers
ever. In 1972, she recorded her last album for Checker, It’s Another
Day’s Journey" and after that, Martha, who never sang but church
songs, toured some time with her mother Nevada and with her daughter Fontella, also in Europe in the 1980s as ‘From the
Roots to the Source’ but from the late 1980s until her death in 1998, she
was satisfied to be her daughter’s best supporter and she helped her
career any way she could until Selah Records gave the whole family –
Martha, Nevada and Fontella- an opportunity to
make a record altogether in 1990, with Fontella’s
brother and special guest David Peaston (
"A Family Portrait of Faith").
With Willie Mae
Ford Smith and Cleophus *Robinson, Martha Bass
will stay as one of the best gospel singers ever to come out of Saint
Louis, Missouri. Unhappily, she was sadly under-recorded.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Ward-Royster, Willa and Toni Rose, How I Got Over.
Clara Ward and the World-Famous Ward Singers. Philadelphia, Temple
University Press, 1997.
Wilmer, Val . Martha Bass, interview, The Wire (U.K.)
1985
Discography:
None but the Righteous . Chess Gospel Greats, (1992, Chess CHD 9336); Gospel
Sisters and Divas 1943-51, (2002, Frémeaux
et Associés (Fr.) FA5053, 2 CD-box) ; Mother
Smith and Her Children, (1989, Spirit Feel CD1010) ; From the Root
to the Source, (1980, Soul Note LP SN1006); A Family Portrait of
Faith, (1990, Selah Records SLD7506)
THE BLUE JAY
SINGERS ( Famous Blue Jay Singers of Birmingham, Alabama ; Blue Jay
Gospel Singers)
Silas Steele (b.
1913, Brighton, AL) (lead)
Members: James
"Jimmie" Hollingsworth (tenor);Charles Beal (baritone);Charles
Bridges (lead vo);Willie Rose (lead);Dave Davney ( second tenor, lead);Clarence ‘Tooter’
Parnell, Nathaniel Edmonds (bass); Leandrew Woffard (or Wauford) (bass)
The group was
formed by Silas Steele , c. 1925-26, in
Jefferson County, Alabama where the members developed their specific
skills . It was a fertile territory for Jubilee Quartets, as they were
called at that time. Steele joined forces with Clarence Parnell, a former
bass singer with the Pilgrim Singers, another local quartet, to form the
Blue Jay Singers. Parnell had already gained local celebrity as a quartet
singer and Steele, a young baritone and the younger brother of James
‘Jimmie’ Steele, leader of the Woodwards Big
Four Quartet, was beginning to gain a reputation as an outstanding
soloist in his church choir. Parnell and Steele ‘stole’ James
"Jimmie" Hollingsworth, tenor, and Charlie Beal, bass, from the
*Dunham Jubilee Singers - a tradition in gospel quartets - to form their
group. Within a very short time, the Blue Jays featuring young Silas as
the lead ( he was only 13 when he joined the group) were the biggest
rivals of the *Birmingham Jubilee singers. Because Steele had
extraordinary charisma and began to adopt the preaching style of singing
introduced by the sanctified singers, the Jays usually "took the
program" when they appeared on the same bill with the Birmingham
Jubilee Singers. Their style was one that would influence gospel quartets
for the next fifty years : according to Horace
Clarence Boyer, "they celebrated the beauty and character of the
natural male voice with its low sounds and brassy but warm timbre";
they sang with the power of the African American Baptist and Pentecostal
preachers. "They celebrated the African American tendency of
gathering resonance from the fatty tissues of the mouth rather than placing
the tone close to the bridge of the nose and they were not afraid to
celebrate the body in their rhythmic accompaniment to their
singing". These are the qualities that they brought to their first
recordings in 1931, a Dorsey song, the first ever recorded by a quartet ( "If you see my savior"). At the
same time, the gospel quartet movement had spread to Dallas, TX and the
Blue Jays began to divide their time between Dallas and Birmingham. On
one of their trips home, they recruited Charles Bridges, former lead
singer of the Birmingham Jubilee Singers. He agreed because his group had
become inactive since the death of Dave Ausbrooks,
their baritone singer. Bridges felt that they would find no suitable
replacement to revive the group and, with Bridges, the Jays became one of
the most popular quartets of their time.
Their original
double lead swinging technique involving both Silas
Steele and Charles Bridges in their recordings of 1947 are perfect
examples of the popular Jays’ style of the time. While in Texas, the Jays
became close friends and frequent performers with the *Soul Stirrers that
they had influenced in the early 1930s but had been surpassed in
popularity within a few years. They followed the Soul Stirrers to Chicago
in the mis-1940s. After settling in Chicago and seeing the rise of dozens
of gospel quartets, Steele adopted the sanctified preaching style of
talking through a song which later became known as the ‘sermonette’ before or during a song performance . His
preacher shouts became legendary and marked a clear break with their
original style of sweet singing in the jubilee style and a pronounced
entry into gospel. They were one of the first quartets outside the
Tidewater gospel quartets like the *Golden Gates, the *Silver Leafs, the
*Harmonizing Four and others,… to employ the
"clank-a-lank" response as a rhythmic and syllabic
accompaniment to a solo lead.
The Blue Jays had
success until the early 1950s but, by the late 1940s, other groups had
surpassed them in innovation and popularity, causing Steele to seek more
current and fertile ground for his talent and in 1948, Silas Steele
decided to leave Chicago and he dropped out of the Famous Blue Jays
Singers to join the *Spirit of Memphis Quartet and to start a new career,
the Blue Jays were forced to go on without their number one soloist and
this of course was a hard blow to their fortunes. For several years, the
group continued to tour and to record - now with Charles Bridges and
Willie Rose sharing the leads - for Blue Bonnet, Decca and Trumpet before
going out of the scene in the early 1950s. Nevertheless The Blue Jay
Singers will stay as one of the most important and original gospel group
in the history of African American religious music.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
Vocal Quartets,
volume 2 , 1929-32 (1997, Document Records ,Austria,
DOCD-5538) ; Going on Home to Glory. Trumpet Gospel Anthology.
(1991, P-Vine Records (Japan) PCD-2187.
ThE DAVIS SISTERS
Thelma ( 1930 -1963), Ruth (1928-1970), Audrey (1931-1982),
and Alfreda (1935-1989) Davis. Imogene Green (
1930– 1986)
Curtis Dublin,
piano (1928 - 1965)
The family group
was organized in 1945 and quickly became one of the most famous and most
outstanding group of gospel singers in
existence.
Hailing from
Philadelphia, the group was led by Ruth Davis ( a.k.a.
‘The Big Maybelle of Gospel Music’ and ‘Baby
Sister’) whose contralto was deep, powerful, almost manly and moving. She
was idolized by many singers like Aretha *Franklin and Mavis *Staples . Thelma and Audrey sang soprano and Alfreda second contralto. Thelma also helped with the
sermonettes ( spoken narratives conveying the
Bible’s messages) and pianist Curtis Dublin – a cousin of the Davis-
served occasionally as co-lead in the group; after his death in 1965 he
was replaced by Eddie Brown, Evangelist Rosie* Wallace’s husband.
The Davis Sisters
were members of a Pentecostal sect called Fire Baptized founded in 1908
in Atlanta, Georgia and the Davis family was one of the first members of
the Mount Zion Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Philadelphia after its founding in the late 1910s. Of course, the young
women sang in their church, inspired by their parents’ practice of down
home countrified Southern church singing ; a
young Ruth Davis served as a WAC during World War II and in 1945 she
organized her group, she was only seventeen at that time, Thelma was
fifteen, Audrey was fourteen and Alfreda was
only ten! After establishing a reputation as "house rockers" in
their area, they made their official debut in 1946 at their parents’ home
in Port Deposit, Maryland and then, with parental blessing, they followed
the Pentecostal circuit, performing in churches and schools.
Gospel talents
were plenty in Philadelphia during the late 1940s and the 1950s with the
*Angelic Gospel Singers, the *Ward Singers and many more. Gertrude Ward,
Clara’s mother, took the Davis Sisters under her wing, guided them,
taught them courage and instilled performance skills. During the spring
of 1949, she also introduced the group to Ivin Ballen of Gotham Records and he signed them to a
3-year contract . But the Davis Sisters’ first
two-known records were issued on Ballen’s Apex
subsidiary label in 1949 they were accompanied by their cousin, Curtis
Dublin whose piano style was between the sanctified church and the
nightclub, with occasional jazz riffs. The following session, in 1950,
took place in the Gotham studios in Philadelphia and alto singer Imogene
Greene, an outsider from Chicago, joined the group to add depth and
excitement to the group’s performance which she did. She was reluctant,
however, to assume lead in the Gotham studios until the summer of 1952
when she headed up "Bye and Bye" which became the group’s first
hit record. Before that, in 1951 the *Gay Sisters had organized a concert
package at the Atlanta Auditorium to promote their own hit ("God
will take care of you") and the Davis Sisters who were a part of the
program tore up the place and stole the show, they did it again in New
York in 1953 when they appeared before a full capacity audience on Joe Bostic’s Fourth Annual Negro gospel and Religious
Musical Festival at Carnegie Hall.
All in all, some
thirty sides were issued on Gotham between 1950 and 1953, some with
organist Herman Stevens. Many songs of the Davis Sisters were taken
directly from the church services they attended and experienced while
growing up but they were familiar, however with other music (Ruth was
inspired by Dinah Washington) and famous gospel composers like Lucie
*Campbell, Kenneth *Morris or gospel artists like Ira *Tucker and Alex
*Bradford whose "Too close to Heaven" was the Davis Sisters
second big hit in 1953.
With Baby Sis’ in
the lead, the Davis Sisters emerged as the first female group to sing
"hard" gospel which appeared in the early 1950s and was totally
different from the Baptist style of singing which emphasized beauty of
tone, precise rhythm and occasional ornamentation
while hard gospel
is characterized by straining the voice during periods of spiritual
ecstasy, singing at the extremes of ranges, repeating words or syllables,
adding lots of interjections and "acting out" songs with
motions, stoops and movements.
In 1955 the group
moved to Savoy Records, adding Jackie Verdell
to the crew to replace Imogene Greene who came back later, in 1960.
From their first
recording for Savoy (Twelve Gates to the City) to the 1970s, they
added hits to hits and the group became a force in gospel music,
performing exclusively in churches and auditoriums ;
their combination was devastating and for years they were "The
Queens of the Gospel Highway". Unhappily they were ill-fated, Thelma
died in 1956, removing the group’s spiritual centre, Dublin died in 1965,
Ruth in 1970,Imogene in 1986 and Alfreda , three years later. Their deaths were
considered tragic losses in the African American church community.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
Davis Sisters
1949-52 (2003,
Heritage (UK) HTCD47.
THE GAY
SISTERS
Evelyn ( 1924 -
1984), Mildred (Millie) Gay-Chison (1926–28
Feb.2003) , Geraldine Gay-Hambric (1931- )
The Gay family hailed
from Georgia. They moved to Chicago just after World War One . Jerry Gay, the father, ran two second hand
furniture stores and Fanny Parthenia Barnes,
the mother, directed a choir at Elder Lucy Smith’s All Nations
Pentecostal Church on W. 30th street .
Fanny was a major influence on her children :
soon after World War Two, she organized her three daughters into a
singing group and had them schooled in harmony until they were ready to
perform in public; Evelyn (alto, contralto) and Geraldine (tenor) had
studied piano at an early age and for all her talent, Geraldine became
known later as "the Erroll Garner of
gospel". Evelyn and Mildred (tenor) began singing as a duet with
Evelyn also playing piano. One of their first engagements was in New York
and that’s how they befriended Professor James Earl *Hines from Cleveland
who was directing a choir out of the Trinity Baptist Church in Brooklyn
when they met. He encouraged the Gay Sisters to seek their fortunes out
on the West Coast . In 1948, the Gay Sisters
with Fanny serving both as manager and chaperone travelled out to Los
Angeles and attended both The Baptist Alliance and Ministerial Alliance
meetings where ministers could choose artists to feature on their church
music programs. The Gays were regularly chosen and that is how they were
introduced to John Dolphin of Recorded-In-Hollywood Records; they
recorded their first record in late 1949, but it was not successful and
by the summer of 1950, the Gays were back in Chicago, seeking a label to
record them. They tried Apollo Records in New York then Gotham Records in
Philadelphia, without success .But three months later, their luck
changed: they were playing a church in Brooklyn and they were introduced
to Herman Lubinsky of Savoy Records in Newark ; they signed a contract in March 1951 and
recorded four songs with Herman Stevens on organ ; the first single broke
into the charts and the Gay Sisters started to appear at major venues. At
that time, the Gays had built a repertoire of intense Baptist and Dr.Watts hymns and sanctified shouts "right out
of the 1920s" (Tony Heilbut). Evelyn wrote
most of the scores and the group played it straight and refused to let
gimmicks and fancy showmanship get in the way of their act ; they
accepted however to wear colourful robes and to
sport fancy hair-dos. More Savoy sessions followed in May and in July
1951 and the Gays played Carnegie Hall and toured Texas and California.
In early 1955,
Evelyn was introduced to Decca Records and the sisters with their mother
Fanny Parthenia and brother Preacher Gregory
Donald recorded a long session in the Decca studios but one single only
was released in March and, poorly promoted, did not get attention.
Throughout the mid-fifties, a lot of people tried to lure Evelyn away
from her sisters and she was encouraged to lead her own group but it was
not successful even if she became a regular on radio programs and in the
early 1960s, the reunited Gay Sisters recorded vanity recordings on
Evelyn’s own P.E.A. label and toured occasionally. Then Evelyn formed a
group called The Pilgrim Outlets and recorded a single for Faith. In
1966, Geraldine and Gregory Donald, labelled as the Gay Singers recorded for Chess
Records in Chicago but only one single ever surfaced. The Gay Sisters’
last major gig was an appearance at the 1976 Bicentennial celebration at
the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
After Evelyn’s
death, Mildred stayed in the show business, fronting a Dixieland band in
the early 1990s and recording gospel songs for Tony Heilbut
and Spirit Feel Records in 1993.
In June and July
2004, Geraldine Gay, the last of the Gay Sisters still alive, recorded
for The Sirens Records, in Chicago; she played her jazz-influenced piano
to accompany her singing brother Pastor Donald and her nephew Gregory Jr.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Nations, Opal
Louis. « The Gay Sisters ». Blues Gazette (Belgium)
issue 3 (Summer 1996): 18-19 ; Sacre, Robert. "The Gay Sisters". Blues
Gazette (B.) issue 3 (Summer 1996):22
Discography
The Soul of
Chicago,
(1993, Shanachie/Spirit Feel CD 6008); In
the Right Hands . Chicago Gospel Keyboard
Pioneers, (2004, The Sirens Records SR-5010).
THE
HARMONIZING FOUR
The quartet was
formed by four students at the Dunbar Elementary School in south
Richmond, Virginia on September 1927; they rehearsed at the home of John T.Scott, first and tenor singer, with Joe Curby, second tenor, Lawrence Hatcher, baritone and
Willie Peyton, bass; all of them were already singing in local churches
choirs. Music teacher Lawrence Langhorne, a friend of Scott’s became the
group’s first manager. After much practice, the name of the group was
chosen as The Harmonizing Four and they sang regularly at Dunbar, at the
start of each school day especially. By 1930, Curby
had left the group to join The Heavenly Choir and he was replaced by Leon
Gibson who left in 1932 and was replaced himself by Thomas
"Tommy" ("Goat") Johnson. Joseph "Gospel
Joe" Williams (baritone / alto soloist b.1916, Richmond, VA) joined
the group in 1933 and by the mid-1930s, Peyton had been replaced by Levi Hansley .
The group
specialized in close harmony singing, Negro spirituals and hymns with
precise attack and releases and a smooth sound which gained considerable
attention in their area and for sixteen years they sang hymns and
spirituals a capella, always impeccably
dressed, conservative in style and image and they won the trust and
respect of church folk.
"Gospel
Joe" Williams who claimed his main influence was Glen T.Settle ( *Wings over
Jordan Choir) became the new manager and the leader of the group. John T.Scott ,
the last founder member, left and was replaced by
guitarist/pianist/arranger Lonnie Smith before the group’s first
recording session that took place in New York in June 1943 for Decca,
they were billed as the Richmond’s Harmonizing Four and cut eight smooth
polished songs. Then they headed to Richmond where they obtained a
regular radio slot on WRNL, drawing more listeners to the station. The
quartet continued touring appearing at the National Baptist Convention in
Atlanta in 1944 and singing to an audience of 40.000 souls, then they spent several weeks in San Antonio, Texas.
Their notoriety went higher and higher and the quartet was invited to the
White House to sing at the funeral ceremony following President
Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. Vance Joyner quit in 1946 but soon
after, the group was recording again : four
sides for Religious Recording in Chicago (1947) as "The Richmond
Harmonizers of Richmond" (sic) , 4 sides for Coleman (1948), 2 sides
for MGM (1949), with moderate success. In July 1951 the wedding ceremony
of Sister Rosetta *Tharpe to Russell Morrison
at the Griffith Stadium in Washington D.C. was recorded live and issued
on an album, the Harmonizing Four had been invited and rendered four
songs. At the same time, the group had been signed by Gotham Records in
Philadelphia and more than forty songs were recorded and issued between
1950 and 1956, with new changes in the composition of the group: Levi Hansley quit in 1953 and was replaced first by James
Walker (tenor) for a few months only –he joined the *Dixie Humming Birds-
then by Clarence Ross (bass); Tommy Ellison also came in 1955 and settled
with the group, but briefly, like Jimmy Jones (bass) who came to replace
Ross but left after a couple of memorable recordings and Ross came back .
In 1957 the group
(with Johnny Jones again) signed with Vee Jay
Records in Chicago and definitively went up to stardom with their
spiritual and hymn singing gaining global acclaim.
All their Vee Jay singles and albums ( some 60 songs) sold very
well from 1957 till 1967, despite more changes of personnel and new
trends in the tastes of their public: by 1962 Smith had to hang up his
acoustic guitar and was replaced by a long series of young male electric
players (Sterling Holloman, Jesse Pryor, Clement Burnett…) ; at that time
they switched to Atlantic Records (1967-68) then to King Records (1969) ,
Chess Records (1972),
Jewel (late 1970s)
and a variety of labels. The 1990s line-up, its older participants
engaged in semi-retirement or dead ( Jimmy Jones died in 1991) consisted
of Tommy Johnson, Lonnie Smith, Ellis Ellison, Eddie Green, Calvin Meekins but the group, as such, has been inactive
since the mid-1990s.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
Harmonizing
Four 1950-55
, (1995, Heritage, U.K. HTCD 29); The Harmonizing Four, 1957
(1993, Vee Jay NVG2-604).
KNIGHT ,
Marie (Roach)
b. Sanford, FL,
1918,
As a child, Marie Knight
came in Newark, New Jersey . Her parents were
members of the Old Tabernacle Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and Marie
started to sing in their sanctified choir when the was five
; she attended the COGIC conventions in Memphis and even served as
secretary of the Ministerial Alliance. When she was 20, thanks to her
beautiful contralto, she was already a well-known soloist in the COGIC
circles with their theme song, ‘Doing all the Good we Can’ and
other songs like Thomas *Dorsey’s ‘Today’ .In the early 1940s, she
joined the revival team of Frances Robinson, a Philadelphia Evangelist ; around this time, in Texas, she married a
COGIC minister and she started to sing on revival meetings across the
country and she also worked with male quartets. She made her first
recordings in 1946 for Haven Records with a capella
jubilee groups like The *Sunset Four.
She formed the
first female duo of the history of gospel music with Rosetta *Tharpe in 1947 and this association was incredibly popular during the nine following
years. They recorded some twenty songs for Decca Records, with the
swinging Sammy Price Trio. Most were hits, like ‘Didn’t it rain’,
‘Beams of Heaven, ‘Precious Memories’, etc… At the same time, she
underwent personal tragedies: a fire killed her mother and her two
children and she was on the verge to quit singing but then she got moral
rescue from Prophetess Dolly Lewis and she perked up although the times
were changing: in the 1950s, the popularity of black gospel music went
down and many artists crossed over to the much more lucrative R&B
market ; Marie Knight did it too, in 1954, duetting
for instance with heavy-weight boxing champion Jersey J.Walcott
; it was, at best, poor R&B and, at the same time, she recorded a
couple of gospel records. When her contract with Decca ran out in 1955
she was signed by Mercury Records and made better records, one foot in
R&B, one foot in gospel like "Songs of the Gospel"
with back up singers and guitarist Mickey Baker . From 1956 till the mid-1970s, she was a pop
singer, with occasional hits, leading to international tours ( Europe,
Australia,…) but, at the same time, she went on performing gospel at
churches, with her friend Ernestine *Washington in New York, for
instance. In 1973 she was ordained an Evangelist ; her come-back album
for Blue Labor, with Louisiana Red on guitar was excellent ; on it, she
sang in duo with her sister, Bernice Roach Henry on a couple of songs (Florida
Storm,…), and the session was reissued on CD in 1996. At the end of
the 1970s, she came back in the Savoy recording studios producing a
strong gospel album.
During the 1980s
and 1990s, Mary Knight worked as an Evangelist in her church, The Gates
of Prayer in New York, she went on writing songs ,
ready to record again and to tour extensively, everywhere in the world if
there was an opportunity.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Kochakian, Dan. "The Legacy of Sam
Price". Whiskey,Women,And…
12/13 (December 1983):10-26.
Discography:
Today (1975), (1996, The
Blues Alliance TBA-13006); Marie Knight, Hallelujah What a Song ( 1947-1951)
, ( 2002, Gospel Friend Records PN 1500 ; Sweden)
THE ORIGINAL
GOSPEL HARMONETTES
During the 1940
National Baptist Convention held in Birmingham, Alabama, Evelyn Starks
Hardy (b.1922) a local pianist, composer and arranger who played for the
convention decided to form a group with second soprano Mildred Madison
Miller Howard (b.1923), second alto Odessa Glasgow Edwards (b. 18 July
1921, Birmingham, ALA ; d. 22 February 2004, Birmingham, ALA), first
soprano ,Vera Conner Kolb (b.1924) and first alto Willie Mae Brooks
Newberry (b.1923), they named themselves The Gospel Harmoneers,
a name changed to The Lee Harmoneers when they
started to tour with Georgia Lee Stafford and to The Gospel Harmonettes when, approached to sing for a half-hour
weekly radio program on station WSGN, they sang on this weekly program
for a year and became regional stars, touring Alabama and several East
and West states. In the spring of 1949, they appeared on A.Godfrey’s "Talent Scouts" program and won
a recording contract with RCA Victor. Eight songs were recorded and
issued but yielded little results; however they continued to travel and
to gather large audiences drawing to them the attention of gospel talent
scouts working with Specialty Records, like Alex *Bradford and J.W.
*Alexander and they were signed to Specialty in 1951. At that time,
Dorothy McGriff Love (b. 1928) who had sung with the group on several
occasions in the 1940s and a Reverend *Brewster’s disciple, became a
regular member of the group that was renamed The Original Gospel Harmonettes . The first releases were hugely successful and they
were followed with a string of hits spanning a five year period, Love
starring from the beginning as an extraordinary soloist
, a gifted songwriter, a hard gospel singer with a sanctified
timbre and a preacher’s delivery and Miller proving to be another
formidable singer, matching Love nuance for nuance. Their shouting style
brought in a whole new era in Gospel music and their influence is still
heard everywhere today. In 1953, they appeared at Carnegie Hall and in
1954, Love who by this time had married Carl Coates of the *Nightingales,
recorded perhaps her finest composition, You must be born again,
with Herbert ‘Pee Wee’ Pickard on piano (he was also the studio
organist). The Harmonettes appeared at the
Apollo Theatre, Madison Square Garden and concert halls all over the
United States and the Bahamas, they recorded briefly for Andex in 1958, followed by a 4 year stint with Savoy
Records (1959-1962), a single cut for Motown (1962) and a longer
association with Vee Jay Records, in Chicago
(1963-66); then followed an album for both Hob and Okeh
(1968) before the group signed with Nashboro in
1968. At that time, the group included Dorothy Love-Coates, lead, Mildred
Miller Howard, lead, Lillian McGriff (Dorothy’s sister), Cleo Kennedy and
Willie Mae Newberry Garth ; they were
accompanied by Reverend Charles Kemp on piano. The group disbanded in
1971 and Coates organized the Dorothy Love Coates Singers who made
several tours in Europe and appeared in concert at Harvard University.
Throughout their
days, the Harmonettes brought a new intensity
to gospel that could only be matched by the frenzy of a sanctified shout,
with dignity and elegance.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
The Best of D.L.Coates and the Original Gospel Harmonettes ( 1991,
Specialty/Ace(UK) CDHD 343); Get on Board ( 1992, Specialty/Ace
(UK) CDCHD412); The Original Gospel Harmonettes
featuring D.L.Coates . Camp Meeting & God
is Here (1993, Vee Jay CD NVG2-607); The
Best of D.L.Coates & the Gospel Harmonettes (1995, Nashboro
NASH4508-2).
THE
MEDITATION SINGERS
The Meditations
were organized by Earnestine Rundless in 1947
in Detroit out of The Voices of Meditation choir at the New Liberty
Baptist Church. The group quickly became the Motor town’s most famous
female gospel group with Lillian Mitchell, soprano, Carrie M. Williams,
lead, Loraine Vincent, soprano and Delloreese
Patricia Early ( Della Reese; b. 1932) lead and Marie Waters (Della’s
sister), contralto/alto accompanied by Emory Radford , piano and James
*Cleveland, piano. When Della Reese quit in 1954 to sing popular music,
she was replaced by Earnestine’s daughter, Laura Lee Rundless,
a teenager then, who was also bound to pursue a successful career in
popular music and soul singing from 1965 on.
Between 1953 and
1959 they personified the gospel sound in Detroit and the surrounding
area, introducing instrumental accompaniment where an ‘a capella’ quartet style was dominant before them.
Earnestine Rundless was born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi but was
reared in Chicago. When she went to see the Soul Stirrers, she met E.A.Rundless, one of the singers, whom she
married ; soon
after, her husband quit the quartet to enter the ministry and they moved
to Detroit in March 1945 where Reverend Rundless
was called to pastor the New Liberty Baptist Church. Grown up singing in
choirs, Earnestine had a rough, emotional and strong voice and she leaned
more and more toward the sanctified style of singing .
Della Reese was
born in Detroit, she attended high school there and studied at Wayne
State University before being recruited by Rundless ; she had
been singing in church choirs since she was six years old ; she was an
accomplished and experienced singer when she joined the Meditations in
1947.She left in 1954 and went into secular music, beginning a very
fruitful recording career in 1955 as pop singer and actress, showing the
influence of Dinah Washington (herself an ex-gospel singer).
In September 1953,
The Meditation Singers made their first single in Detroit for De Luxe Records in Joe Von Battle’s studios – with James
Cleveland on piano; in 1954 they were signed to Specialty Records, making
the recordings in Chicago ; the sales were poor and Specialty dropped the
group until 1959 when Alex *Bradford urged the company to sign them
again; at that time, Laura Lee was lead/alto singer and James Cleveland
was back with the group (baritone and piano), he was already known as one
of the best gospel composers of his time and Specialty complied, a
recording session was held in July 1959; unhappily the company was
getting out of gospel in the early 1960s and it was the end of the
association. The Meditations went to Hob Records and recorded three
albums (1960-62), then Cleveland went his own way to glory and fame as a
composer and choir leader while the Meditations recorded a gospel album
with ex-member Della Reese for Jubilee Records and appeared on Reese’s
television shows ; in 1962 Reese took the
Meditations on a tour of colleges, auditoriums, night clubs and casinos .
They travelled to Europe for a jazz festival in the late 1960s and
recorded for a series of labels, including Sar,
Gospel (Savoy), D-Town, Chess/Checker, and Jewel among them. The group
disbanded in the early 1980s
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
The Meditation
Singers - Good News (1993, Specialty/Ace(UK) CDCHD465); The
best of Jubilee Gospel . Heaven Belongs to You ( 1999, Westside (UK)
WESM 588)
THE SELAH
JUBILEE SINGERS
Thermon (Thurmond) Ruth (aka T.Ruth) (b. 6 March 1914, Pomaria,
S.C.) lead
with Nathaniel Townsley (tenor),Monroe Clark (baritone), John Ford (lead,tenor), Clifton Antley
(bass) and Andrew Antley (piano);Fred Baker
(lead, guitar) , J.B.Nelson (bass), John Kaiser
(baritone);Melvin Coltden (baritone), Norman
"Crip" Harris ( tenor).
This group
recorded secular music under the name of the Larks.
T. Ruth’s family
moved from South Carolina to Brooklyn, N.Y. around 1922. They joined St.Mark Holy Church (Pentecostal), under a lady
pastor (Bishop Eva Lambert) and by twelve, Ruth organized the Selah
Jubilee Six with members of the church choir ; they sang every Sunday in
their church for about ten years; the service was broadcast ands they sang on four radio stations .They started
out as disciples of the *Fisk Jubilee Quartet but in 1937, Bishop Lambert
took them down to Houston where they met the *Soul Stirrers, discovered a
new style of religious singing and exchanged songs. Back in New York,
they became part of a rapidly changing gospel quartet scene under the
influence of the *Golden Gate Quartet whose popularity was prodigious.
Ruth also acknowledged the Mills Brothers and the Charioteers as an
influence on the ‘rhythmic spirituals’ style he developed with his group
; they recorded for Brunswick in 1931 (however the matrix numbers suggest
it was Columbia) but the seven tracks remained unissued. By 1939, the
group was called The Selah Jubilee Singers and they came to the attention
of J.Mayo Williams who signed them to Decca and
issued fourteen sides in the same year (some with Sam Price on piano).
This led to no money but to plenty of appearances and show dates, doing
more sessions for Decca while still singing every Sunday night at their
church. In 1941, Ruth decided to take the group on tour down South, to
North Carolina, but the Antley brothers and
Monroe Clark who were reluctant to travel were replaced by Fred Baker, J.B.Nelson and John Kaiser .
They did a little U.S.O. Camp Show work and, stranded in Raleigh, N.C.,
they were hired by WPTF , a 50.000 watt radio station and worked there,
in the morning, five days a week, during a couple of years, with plenty
of show dates every night . They made frequent trips back to New York to
perform and to record for Decca (until 1944) but their radio program became
one of the most popular and influential black broadcasts of that era,
their brand of jubilee quartet singing influenced a legion of young
harmony singers on the East Coast.
In 1943, most
members of the group quit and Ruth hired baritone Melvin Coltden and legendary second tenor Norman "Crip" Harris(both ex-*
Norfolk Jubilee Quartet) to make a nationwide U.S.O. tour (1945-46) with
ex-Golden Gate Quartet and ex-*Southern Sons Bill "Highpocket" Langford (tenor, guitar) and new
members Theo Harris(baritone) and Jimmy Gorham (bass) . The Selahs spent the late 1940s in Raleigh, broadcasting
regularly on WPTF again and singing in churches and auditoriums ; they
also recorded as The Selah Singers for a series of labels, including
Manor, Continental, Lenox, Arista, Mercury,
Capitol, Cross (as Sons of Heaven) and Jubilee among them. They used to
do jubilee songs and Ruth wanted to do gospel or even secular music but
their audiences did not accept it and Ruth decided to leave the Selahs and to lead another group in New York with
guitarist Alden (Tarheel Slim) Bunn , Junius Parker, Gene Mumford, David McNeil and Pee Wee
Barnes , a group that sang under many names, like the *Jubilators (Regal), the Four Barons ( Regent) and the
Southern Harmonaires (Apollo Records) in 1950 ,
but are best remembered today as The Larks ( 1950-54 ;Apollo and Lloyds
Records ) .
But the Selah
Jubilee Singers still existed as a group and they came back in New York
where Ruth joined them for a Savoy recording session in 1955. After that
everyone went his own way, Ruth stayed busy as disc-jockey, concert
promoter and m.c. at the ApolloTheater
in New York, then in Philadelphia, Raleigh, Durham and New York again.
The Selahs were reunited for the last time in
1968 as The Jubilators for a recording session
(Veep-Gospel Records).
They will stay in
gospel history as the only one quartet to break through the Mecca of
talent that was New York and to become a major force in gospel during the
Golden Age.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1992.
Seroff, Doug, "The Whole Truth
about T.Ruth" , Whiskey,Women,And… no.9 (July 1982);
14-18 ; Update & Discography, Whiskey,Women,And…
no.10 (November 1982); 28-33.
Horner, Charlie,
" The Whole Truth about T; Ruth – The Larks" part 2, hiskey,Women,And… no.10 (November
1982);24-27
Discography:
Complete
Recorded Works in Chronological Order, 1939-1945 (1996, Document Records
(Austria) DOCD 5499 vol.1, DOCD 5500 vol.2) ;The
best of Jubilee Gospel . Heaven Belongs to You (
1999, Westside (UK) WESM 588); Selah Gospel Train,1945-49 (
1999, P-Vine Records (Japan) PCD-5547.
THE STARS OF
FAITH
Williams, Marion (
August 29,1927, Miami, FL – July 2, 1994)
The group was
formed in 1958 when Marion Williams and Henrietta Waddy
quit the *Ward Singers after an argument about their fees and salary with
the manager, Mrs Gertrude Ward
. Williams contacted other members of the Ward Singers like Kitty
Parham, Frances Steadman and Esther Ford who agreed to become members of
the group she was organizing and The Stars of Faith were born. Ford was
quickly replaced by Mattie Harper but would return on several occasions
(1973).
Marion Williams
was born in Miami , Florida and brought up in a
Pentecostal church.
She developed her
taste for shout songs at fast tempo and her unique talent to climb and
stay easily into the highest of the soprano register then to drop to the
bottom of it and deliver growls like sanctified preachers. In 1947, she
joined the Clara Ward Singers in Philadelphia and was a driving wheel for
the group who had hits, packed houses and won a lot of money, partly
thanks to Marion. Henrietta Waddy (b.1902- d.
1981) was born in South Carolina, she had a
rough, unsophisticated alto that blended perfectly with her partners’
voices in the Ward Singers then in the Stars of Faith. Kitty Parham ( b.Trenton, NJ. 1931; d. 3
July 2003 ) grew up in the Church of God in Christ and was a leading
soprano soloist in that denomination. She was a welcome addition to the
Stars. Esther Ford (b. Detroit,MI,1925) was also
a C.O.G.I.C. singer and an associate of Mattie Moss *Clark before coming
to the Stars. Her Soprano and her multi-octave range highlighted more
than one songs of the Stars. Mattie Dozier
Harper (b.1934) was a member of the Sallie *Jenkins Singers and recorded
with Alex *Bradford before joining the Stars; her mezzo-soprano tones
could change into growls and hollers on command, she did well with the
Stars of Faith.
In 1961, the Stars
had the honour to appear on Broadway in
Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity and in 1962 this show toured
Europe several times with the Stars, Alex Bradford and Princess *Steward
and became the sensation.
Frances Steadman
(b. Greensboro, N.C. 1915) lived in Baltimore and was brought up in both
the Baptist and sanctified churches; she was – and stays - one of the
most talented contraltos in gospel ; she sang with the *Waldo Singers,
Mary Johnson Davis Singers, Clara Ward Specials and the Ward Singers
before joining the Stars and she became the leader of the group when
Marion Williams quit to start a solo career in the early 1970s; Frances’
daughter, Sadie Frances Keys (b. 1933) is also a member of the group like
pianist and tenor Eddie Brown (ex-Famous *Davis Sisters). They toured
Europe on an annual basis, appearing at the Montreux
Jazz Festival (1983) , in churches and
auditoriums and recording for Black & Blue and Ebony Records.
In 1995 the
surviving Ward Singers were reunited for one concert with Steadman,
Parham, Ford and Willa Ward . In the meantime,
the Stars occasionally sang back-up for Marion Williams and they go on
touring the USA and Europe, regularly.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Heilbut, Tony. "Queens of Negro
Spirituals and Gospel". Jazz 75
(Switzerland) no.6 (December 1975):15-18.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
Marion
Williams. O Holy Night (1993, Savoy SCD14032); Marion Williams. My Soul Looks Back,
(1994, Shanachie/Spirit Feel 6011); The Best
of the Stars of Faith . In The Spirit (1995,
Nashboro NASH4519-2); The Stars of Faith
Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Glory Glory Hallelujah (1990, Black & Blue (France)
59.186 2)
THE SWANEE
QUINTET
The "Suwannees" was first a gospel trio formed in
Augusta, Georgia by Charlie Barnwell, Rufus Washington and William
"Pee Wee" Crawford in the mid-1940s .
The became the Swanee Quintet when they added
two other members, James "Big Red" Anderson and Reuben W.Willingham on lead vocals in 1945 while Crawford
concentrated on his guitar playing that became the trademark of the
group, very popular in Georgia and South Carolina. Like the *Harmonizing
Four, they stayed an example of the downhome
unaffected quartet singing, keeping the same membership for decades and
unlike most groups who gained popularity in gospel, the Swanee Quintet always kept Augusta as their home
base, cultivating their rural sound.
Like many groups,
they were featured daily on a local radio program in Atlanta to spread
the gospel message and, most of all, to advertise their singing in
churches and performances in auditoriums ; they did it with much success
for ten years during which time they won the Golden Cup Award for seven
consecutive years and that’s how they came to the attention of Nashboro Records and recorded their first session in
December 1951; the success was moderate and they had to wait until March
1956 to enter the Nashboro recording studios
again ; twenty songs were recorded and issued on singles, one of which, Sit
Down Servant, scoring a big hit on the gospel market with Crawford’s
bluesy guitar riffs, Willingham ‘s preaching and singing and the
background vocals of Anderson, Barnwell, Washington , a dream team bound
to enlighten the Swanee Quintet’s recordings of
more than thirty years of presence on the gospel highway. A big move
happened in October 1956 when the quintet became a sextet (without change
of name) by the addition of a second lead singer, ‘Little’ Johnny Jones , his light tenor was a welcome contrast to
Willingham’s harsh admonitions and personal testimonies appealing to his
audiences because of the references to black people’s general experience
of hard times in poetic phrases. Jones, influenced by Sam *Cooke, could
break effortlessly from his tenor solos into melodious falsettos
contrasting with Willingham’s growls and baritone. Between October 1956
and 1964, the group recorded forty four songs issued on singles, they
were sometimes accompanied by piano, organ, bass and drums , but
unobtrusively ; every one of the singles met a great popular success in
black communities and the Swanee Quintet became
one of the most celebrated groups in the South , appearing at the Apollo
Theatre in New York in 1955 and stealing the show, in the Carnegie Hall
in New York City in 1957 and touring extensively into forty four states,
with a motto: "We put God in everything we do". The best
examples of Jones and Willingham ‘s empathy and
fascinating complicity from this period are probably "New walk"
and "Lowly Jesus" both on the same single (Nashboro 653) but nearly each of the other songs is
worth a mention and commendations.
As the years were
passing by, there was little change to the Swanees’
personnel and sound, they stayed with Nashboro,
keeping up with musical fashion, sounding secular at times (in a bluesy
"The fire keeps a-burning" for instance) or even pop (in
"Just one more time" and "Holy Ghost Got me").
Willingham went on giving out with heavy calls to salvation and Jones
continued to combine sweetness with power, occasionally preaching or testifying .
In 1964, they
recorded the first album of a long series for Nashboro
and Creed Records and in 1966, they sang hard Gospel songs with the James
Brown Road Show; Brown even produced a session for the Swanees in May 1966 with his band’s brass section,
issued on Federal Records . Shortly after that
session, Willingham left the group to enter the ministry and perform as a
solo singer for Nashboro, although on his first
recordings in 1969, he used the Swanee Quintet
as a backing group. Johnny Jones also left to try an unsuccessful and
short pop career and he came back to the Swanees,
from time to time.
The new leads were
Percy Griffin and Clarence Murray, two other tremendous vocalists who
kept the group in the fore in modern gospel but times were changing and
the advent of contemporary gospel in the 1970s put a virtual end to the Swanee Quintet musical activities .
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Discography:
What About Me?
– Anniversary Album, (1992, Ace Records (UK) CDCHD 432)
The Reverend
Willingham Collection, (1995, Nashboro NASH4622 2).
WALKER , Albertina (Tina)
b. 1930, Chicago,
IL
One of the finest
gospel singer of all times, Walker began singing
at West Point Baptist Church when she was eleven. In 1947, she joined the
Gospel Caravan, a group led by Robert *Anderson ; in 1952, she organized
her own Caravans with other members of the Anderson’s
group
: Ora Lee Hopkins, Elyse Yancey and Nellie Grace
Daniels. The Caravans that were, from the beginning, one of the best
female group of their time, bound to produce more gospel superstars than
any other group or choir, recorded a dozen songs for States Records in
1952 and 1953 bearing witness to close, earthy harmony, percussive
attacks and precise rhythm ; Walker was the only
soloist in the original group and it was the beauty of her voice, a
throaty contralto, her sincerity and her singing style that drew
attention.
By 1953 and with
the addition of Bessie *Griffin (b.1927 New Orleans, La ; d.1990), the
Caravans began a long association with Gospel /Savoy Records (while still
recording for States) and to change into an ensemble of soloists ;
Griffin ‘s light contralto was fluid, she sustained tones for long
periods, inserting growls, pitch, embellishments and singing for long
periods of time. She left the Caravans in 1954 to start a successful solo
career. She was replaced by Cassietta *George
(b. 1928, Memphis, Tennessee) whose clear, thin but huge voice astounded
the audiences; she also composed more than 25 songs while with the
Caravans. Gloria Griffin and James *Cleveland joined the Caravans the
same year while Dorothy *Norwood (b. Atlanta, 1930), the master
storyteller, and Imogene Green (b.1931,Chicago)
joined in 1956. Norwood’s alto, capable of great warmth, graced a lot of
songs but she left in the late 1950s to go solo and to the superstardom
she is enjoying in the 2000s. In 1957, James Cleveland, pianist and
arranger for the Caravans persuaded Inez *Andrews (b. 1929 Birmingham, Alabama)
to come and join the group; she was a singer with a preacher tone, a
metallic contralto and a slow, majestic delivery contrasting with the
light alto/ mezzo soprano with a rapid vibrato of Shirley *Caesar (Baby
Shirley, b. 1938, Durham, N.C.) also new to the Caravans and whose
extensive range and preacher delivery, dramatization of songs and intense
activity on stage ( she could run up and down the aisles on tunes with
‘run’ in the lyrics, mimic sweeping on " Sweeping through the
city") could energize and unleash an audience’s passion and
enthusiasm. An Evangeslist since 1961, Shirley
Caesar left in 1966 to organize her own groups, choirs and to become the
most popular gospel singer and Evangelist of the 1990s and 2000s.
From December 1962
to the late 1970, Albertina Walker and The
Caravans recorded copiously for Vee Jay,
Gospel/Savoy and Hob Records, then, in the 1980s, Albertina
Walker started a very successful solo career skilfully
blending traditional and contemporary gospel ,
according to her audiences. She was named an honorary member of the famed
*Fisk Jubilee Singers by the President of the Nashville University. She
performed all over the USA, Canada, Europe and the Carribean
Islands, she received countless honors and awards including nine Grammy Nominations
and she is a favourite of the media and the
show business, appearing in movies, like Save the Children and Leap
of Time, or off-Broadway productions ( The
Gospel Truth) , hosting radio and television programs and recording
regularly for Benson Records , she still is a vital force in gospel
music.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Reagon, Bernice Johnson. ed. We’ll Understand it Better by and by.
Pioneering African
American Gospel
Composers. Washington,DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992
Sacre, Robert. "Albertina Walker". Blues Gazette (B) issue 3
(Summer 1996):20
Discography :
The Best of the
Caravans,
(1977, Savoy SCD7012); The Caravans ( 1993,
Vee Jay NVG2-608); Albertina
Walker. You Believed in me, (1990, Benson CD02673); He Keeps on
Blessing Me (1993, Benson S1416-1001-2); Let’s Go Back : Live in
Chicago (1996, Benson 84418 4234 2)
WASHINGTON
Ernestine
"The Songbird
of the East", "Little Momma"
b. 1914, Little
Rock, Arkansas ; d. July 1983, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Ernestine Beatrice
Thomas Washington started singing at age four. Her mother was a popular
sanctified singer in the Little Rock black community. A friend of Rosetta
*Tharpe, Ernestine completed high school in
Little Rock and was engaged in domestic work while still singing in
church. At the annual Conventions of the Church of God in Christ she met
and married the Reverend Frederick D. Washington (1913- 1988) who
travelled with his wife to Montclair, New Jersey, where he founded the
Trinity Temple Church of God in Christ and where Ernestine developed her
reputation of soloist and vocalist strongly influenced by Arizona *Dranes : high-pitched mezzo soprano/alto voice with a
fast vibrato, at range extremes (upper and lower), setting a rhythm to
fit the text and mood of the song, a great sense of melody and rhythm and
percussive attacks . In the early 1940s they moved to Brooklyn, New York
where Washington founded the Brooklyn Church of God in Christ, named the
Washington Temple in 1951 in his honor and where he pastored
until his death, also serving as Auxiliary Bishop of the Jurisdiction of
New York. Ernestine first recorded in 1943 (four songs for Regis/ Manor/
Arco) and two tracks in 1944 with The *Dixie Humming Birds (same labels).
By 1946, the
Reverend Washington had become a fixture in Brooklyn, one of the most
respected ministers in the C.O.G.I.C. and Madam(e) Ernestine B.
Washington, or the "Songbird of the East", as she was called
then, was the featured soloist of the denomination on all official days
and the gospel queen of the Washington Temple C.O.G.I.C., a beautifully remodelled theatre with a large, middle- and
upper-class and very devout congregation, plenty of instruments (organ,
piano, guitars, drums, percussions) and six big choirs . At the annual
November convocation of the Church of God in Christ in Memphis, it was
Ernestine’s pride to sing the solo before the sermon of the presiding
bishop. Yet, she recorded in 1946 with the legendary William Geary
"Bunk" Johnson and his New Orleans style jazz band (four songs,
Jubilee/Disc Records) ; working with secular
musicians was generally subject to the contempt of the church membership
but this time, the people of her church somehow felt complimented that a
jazz star was called upon to accompany one of their own . She made more
records for Manor Records with the* Heavenly Gospel Singers (1946 ), the*
Southern Sons (1947) and her singers and/or Reverend Frederick D.Washington (1947-48) ; also with the Milleraires in 1954 (Groove) and her first album, in
1958, showed her in her best sanctified style, with the Congregation of
Washington Temple C.O.G.I.C: accompanied by her longtime pianist and
organist Alfred Miller and the members of her church choir, she gave way
to the full power of her voice and the style that made her famous . This
type of performance brought her fame as she toured throughout the Unites
States and abroad (1958-59). At that time, she recorded a last album for Delden Records with the Celestial Choir directed by
Professor Henry O.Coston before devoting the
rest of her life to her church and her choirs. At her death, she was
mourned in two crowded services at Washington Temple, complete with all
the dignitaries of the C.O.G.I.C.
Bibliography:
Boyer, Horace
Clarence. How sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel.
Washington, DC: Elliott & Clark, 1995
Hayes, J.Cedric and Robert Laughton, Gospel Records
1943-1969. A Black Music Discography, 2 vol., London, U.K.: Record
Information Services, 1992
Heilbut, Tony. The Gospel Sound:
Good News and Bad Times. New York, Limelight, 1985.
Discography:
Sister
Ernestine Washington, in Chronological Order 1943-48, (1996, Document Records,
Austria, DOCD-5462)
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