Chicago Gospel Fest’ 2010
Inez Andrews
Chicago Gospel
Fest’ June 2010 (photos : Robert Sacre,
University of Liege)
Albertina Walker
|
ARTICLES GOSPEL MUSIC
Articles/
CD reviews/… Gospel Tent - N.O. Jazz & Heritage GFest’ 2006
JB 62,57 MARYLAND GOSPEL
JB 64 , 48 MOUNT CALVARY BAPTIST GOSPEL CELEBRATION , Maryland 2008 JB 66, 53 NEW ORLEANS
GOSPEL 2009 JB 68, 51 SOUTH CAROLINA
GOSPEL QUARTETS AWARDS
JB 62, 58 ..\..\26th Chicago Annual Gospel
Music Festival.doc
(Gospel Fest’ Chicago June 2010) ..\..\ABS.THE VICTORY
TRAVELERS.doc ..\..\THE FIVE
BLIND BOYS OF MISSISSIPPI.rtf (discography) AUDIO CLIPS mp³ ..\..\..\Biblettes of New Jersey - All Through These Years.mp3 ..\..\..\Cincinnati
Goldenaires - Gone The Last Mile.mp3 ..\..\..\Flying
Clouds of Augusta,GA - Don't Let The Devil Ride
(Pitch162).mp3 ..\..\..\Gerald
Sisters - Soon One Morning (HSE LP 1433).mp3 ..\..\..\Jackson
Golden Aires - So Hard To Say Goodbye (D-Vine 212).mp3 ..\..\..\Singing
Corinthians of Los Angeles - Sweet Home (Proverb 1005).mp3 ..\..\..\Southern
Faith Singers - Trouble In My Way (Jewel 131).mp3 ..\..\..\Supreme
Angels - Soon I Will Be Done (Nashboro LP7195).mp3 ..\..\..\Swan
Mellarks - A Tribute To Dr. Martin Luther King.mp3 ..\..\..\Sweet
Singing Cavaliers - There Is No Failure In God (Savoy LP14544).mp3 ..\..\..\Wondering
Souls of Ohio - You Need Jesus In Your Life (RejoiceLP3107).mp3 ..\..\..\Music\FunkForSinnersMix.mp3
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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