Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music JERRY ZOLTEN OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds This page intentionally left blank Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music Jerry Zolten 3 2003 1 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zolten, Jerry. Great god a’mighty! the Dixie Hummingbirds: celebrating the rise of soul gospel music / Jerry Zolten. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–19–515272-7 1. Dixie Hummingbirds. 2. Gospel musicians—United States—Biography. I. Title. ML394 .Z65 2003 782.25'4'0922—dc21 2002005453 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To my mother, Betty, my wife, Joyce, and my son, Zach In memory of my father, Bam In memory of my mentors, Gerald M. Phillips, James S. Hill, Willie “Preacher” Richardson, and Walter Settles This page intentionally left blank Preface ix 1 “A Wheel in a Wheel, ’Way Up in the Middle of the Air” 1 (1916–1928) 2 “I Just Got On My Travelin’ Shoes” (1929–1938) 17 3 “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More” (1939–1942) 49 4 “Twelve Gates to the City” (1943–1944) 79 5 “Move On Up a Little Higher” (1945–1949) 117 6 “My Record Will Be There” (1950–1951) 155 7 “Let’s Go Out to the Programs” (1952–1959) 203 8 “Loves Me Like a Rock” (1960–1976) 261 9 “Who Are We?” (1977 and Beyond) 301 Notes 322 Bibliography 338 The Dixie Hummingbirds on Record 347 Credits 357 General Index 359 Index of Groups 366 Gospel Song Titles 368 Contents This page intentionally left blank I was one of thousands of white kids who, in my case growing up outside of Pittsburgh in the late 1950s and early 1960s, discovered the exciting and—at the time—exotic world of black music hidden away at the lower end of the radio dial. The station was WAMO out of Home- stead, and the music—primarily jazz, rhythm and blues, and doo-wop—was impossible to ignore. In my town, McKeesport, the station and the music came to signify teen rebellion, an intelligent underground alternative to the bland pop that then dominated main- stream airwaves. By the time I graduated from high school, I had amassed thousands of choice 45-rpm records by African American performers the more obscure the better. It was around then that I chanced on a segment of the WAMO broad- cast day that I had never before heard. Sunday mornings, after all, were not prime time teen listening hours. In fact, had I not been out Saturday night from dusk till dawn, I would have missed the Sunday morning broadcast altogether. I no longer remember who hosted the program, but the music was inescapably captivating, emotive beyond anything I had ever heard during regular weekday broadcasts—rocking choirs, screaming preachers, sanctified divas, and sublime vocal groups with a soul feel that at the time was simply not present on the secular side. It was a revelation that fueled my desire to discover the world of black gospel music. Over the years, I sought out records that pulled me deeper and deeper into the history of the genre. The 12-inch 33–1/3s in the card- board sleeves and the 45-rpms took me back only so far, but the 78-rpms opened a window on the rich landscape of black religious music stretching back across decades. In time, I sought out live performances of the music, sometimes at local churches, other times at festivals and concerts where famous acts were scheduled to appear. It was in that context that I first met some of Preface [...]... is prototypical of the founding fathers of modern black gospel music His experiences growing up in the 1920s 2 Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds in a black community in the segregated South had everything to do with the Dixie Hummingbirds the direction they took, the music they performed, and the impact they ultimately had on gospel music as a genre As for the music, black gospel is nothing... and the big band swing, there was the Dixie Hummingbirds The mighty Dixie Hummingbirds They sang through the Great Depression, the terms of thirteen presidents, four major wars, five generations of Americans, and seven decades of the twentieth century The Dixie Hummingbirds They personify perseverance, talent, and dedication Now, the iron men of gospel are celebrating their seventyfifth anniversary The. .. Claude Jeter of the Swan Silvertones, Morgan Babb of the Radio Four, Thermon Ruth of the Selahs, Carey “Squeaky” Bradley of the Kings of Harmony, Isaac “Dickie” Freeman and the late James Hill of the Fairfield Four/Skylarks, Ed Sprouse of the Blue Ridge Quartet, Willa Ward-Royster of the Famous Ward Singers, Margaret Allison of the Angelic Gospel Singers, Horace Clarence Boyer of the Boyer Brothers, Arthur... The Dixie Hummingbirds are indeed an American institution Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the gentlemen of song— the legendary Dixie Hummingbirds —Isaac Hayes 1 “A Wheel in a Wheel, ’Way Up in the Middle of the Air” (1916–1928) Ezek’el saw the wheel, ’way up in the middle of the air, Ezek’el saw the wheel, ’way up in the middle of the air, The big wheel moved by faith, The little wheel moved by the. .. within the orbit of James Davis’s influence He was the kid who stood in the wings at Harlem’s Apollo Theater back in the 1950s, watching and absorbing as his father, Davis, and the others worked their soul- wrenching magic on the crowd, people screaming and shouting, some doing holy dances right there in the theater aisles The Hummingbirds were at the top of their game and James Davis was calling the shots... one of the largest cotton mills in the world under one roof.”4 But while the jobs were plentiful for African Americans in Greenville, as in every other southern city, segregation was the law of the land there, and civil rights were routinely denied to African Americans James Davis, founder of the Dixie Hummingbirds, 2000 Photo by Sam Zolten 6 Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds A story in the. .. LeRoy Crume of the Soul Stirrers, Joe Ligon of the Mighty Clouds of Joy, and Marie Knight Thanks to Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Solomon Burke, Sam Moore, Isaac Hayes, Tommy Hunt of the Flamingos, Otis Williams of the Temptations, Prentiss Barnes of the Moonglows, Hank Ballard of the Midnighters, Jerry Butler of the Impressions, “Little” Anthony Gourdine of the Imperials, and Jimmy Merchant of the Teenagers... Up in the Middle of the Air” 13 We were raised in a sanctified church, the Bethel Church of God Holiness in Greenville The membership wasn’t too large and the choir wasn’t too large We called it the ‘Junior Choir,’ and then we started to be the ‘Junior Boys.’ There were just four of us.” The old wooden church stood on the corner of Meadow and Bailey, just down the street from the Davis house The services... gratuitous Davis was with them in 1928 at the start He saw them through the Great Depression when they were barely known outside of Greenville County, South Carolina He stood at the helm through their best years when the Dixie Hummingbirds helped shape the sound of soul gospel music But the glory days were past and gone, and Davis, now in his 80s, long retired, a bit reclusive, was living in the inner city Philadelphia... wheels The first was the circle of racial apartheid He grew up in a small southern town, part of an African American community forced by the white majority to exist within the confines of institutionalized segregation The second was gospel music Though at the center of all African American music, it was always a sphere of entertainment unto itself Davis and the Hummingbirds would be giants within the genre, . Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music JERRY ZOLTEN OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds This page. everything to do with the Dixie Hummingbirds the direction they took, the music they performed, and the impact they ultimately had on gospel music as a genre. As for the music, black gospel is nothing. purchased back when the building and the neighborhood had been top of the line. 2 Great God A’mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds When the idea to chronicle the story of the Dixie Hummingbirds orig- inally