By Melanie B. Smith, The Decatur Daily, Ala.
July 29–LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn.
When one of four young men turned a handle to start a Ford in 1910, he cranked up a whole musical industry.
The four singers from Lawrenceburg, Tenn., were the first successful traveling gospel quartet. Their pioneering work helped develop today’s multi-million dollar Christian music industry.
Every summer Lawrenceburg celebrates its gospel music heritage and native son James D. Vaughan, the music publisher who put the quartet on the road.
This year’s Vaughan Quartet Festival, with concerts Friday and Saturday, marks the 100th anniversary of what has come to be called Southern gospel music.
At the Vaughan Museum, which is in a bank building on the town square, curator Tom Crews said that someone would have come up with the idea that launched the music, even if Vaughan had not.
“But probably no one else would have worked as hard as he did,” Crews said.
The first quartet sang to 1,500 people at a five-day Cumberland Presbyterian assembly in Dickson, Tenn., and sold 5,000 of Vaughan’s shape note song books.
“The quartet idea of four male voices singing gospel sings originated with James D. Vaughan. All of the other quartets singing today owe their existence to this idea,” a museum booklet said.
Eric Bennett, who grew up a farm boy in the Battle Ground community of north Cullman County, has been part of a quartet for 28 or so years. Bass singer with the professional group Triumphant Quartet, he said family members inspired his love of the music.
His brother-in-law played with the King’s Messengers and brought home albums from The Kingsmen and other groups.
“Once you listen to the harmony, it gets in your blood. I absolutely loved it,” he said.
Triumphant will join other quartets this weekend to perform in Lawrenceburg.
Series of firsts
Vaughan’s company sold more than six million song books over its 62 years, boosted by the many quartets he put on the road. Other publishers soon copied the marketing success.
Vaughan set up the first permanent singing school in Tennessee in 1911, set up the first radio station in the state in 1922 and created programs to air on it. In 1921 one of his quartets made the first recording by any Tennessean, Crews said.
The pioneering radio station reached into Canada, spreading the music far from Lawrenceburg. A fan wrote Vaughan in 1923 that the music of “famous Quartets” could be heard in homes, and it was cheaper because “you do not have to feed them.”
Today in the Lawrenceburg museum, Crews shows old song books, photos, recordings, posters, printing equipment, a piano and pump organ and even Vaughan’s typewriter. He said more than 50,000 people have visited since it opened in 1999.
Veteran Hovie Lister, founder of the popular and influential Statesmen Quartet, came in 2000.
“He filled the place up. He played the piano and we sang and had a good time,” Crews said.
Crews is related to some of the genre’s most famous singers, The Speer Family, who came out of Double Springs. Crews’ mother was a sister to Lena Brock Speer. Their father, C.A. Brock, founded a music publishing company in Athens.
The Speers linked themselves to Vaughan’s company in 1934. The group’s youngest member, Ben Speer, who is Crews’ cousin, is known today for work with gospel entrepreneur Bill Gaither.
Other well-known Alabama gospel singers include Limestone County native Jake Hess and the Happy Goodmans from Sand Mountain.
The sound endures
Southern gospel, or as some academics call it, “white gospel,” continues on after a century and even as other forms of gospel music thrive. Other styles include urban or black gospel and contemporary Christian.
Bennett said Southern gospel music, when it is good, “is as good as music can get.” Some singers equal those in any genre, he said.
“They are not doing it because they can’t do something else,” he said. “They do it because they love it.”
Southern gospel’s music and lyrics touch people’s lives, Bennett said.
“We love to entertain people and make them laugh, but we turn around and minister to people,” he said of Triumphant Quartet.
Church singing
Margaret Suggs of Decatur grew up on the music, and she was happy to hear one of her favorites, Southern Cross Quartet, perform at her church, Ninth Street United Methodist Church on July 25.
“Their sound is truly exceptional,” she said.
Southern Cross member David Woodard said he loves harmony and learned to sing it from his mother’s albums.
“She was a member of the Statesmen Quartet fan club. When I first got a stereo I would listen to those records,” he said.
The music does not seem to be dying out as some worry, Woodard said.
“Bill Gaither seems to be doing pretty well with it. Of course it’s updated, but the foundation is just the gospel quartet stuff,” he said.
Woodard, who also sings with Natchez Trace, is himself linked to the genre’s heritage. On his dad’s side, siblings of his grandfather wrote shape note music. His great uncle established M. H. Woodard Music in Hartselle, publishing song books from the 1930s to the 1960s.
“At the old family reunions after lunch, you could expect there was singing going on, and you could bet it was shape note,” he said.
Other Southern Cross members are Terry Reburn, C.J. Swann, Shelia Standridge Swann and Ken Looney.
Part-time groups that sing locally or tour regionally help continue the tradition.
Southern gospel music stands firmly as a form of Christian entertainment, said scholar James Goff Jr., author of “Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel.”
“Along the way to becoming a popular genre in its own right, it had both influenced and been influenced by the larger music culture in America,” he said.
Christian music sales topped $600 million by the end of the 20th century, according to “Close Harmony.”
Terms to know
“Shape-note” music developed mostly in the rural South, promoted as a system of notation easy for learners. A shape represented a note, such as a rectangle for “la,” or A. Singers often became loyal to a particular song publisher, teacher or style of singing. Shape-note publishing and singings continue today.
The term “gospel music” first showed up in the late 19th century. It referred to a more popular type of songs than the hymns sung Sunday mornings in church. The genre diversified within white and black communities and borrowed from other American music forms.
“Southern gospel” became accepted as the preferred description for traditional white gospel quartet music by the 1980s.
Source: “Close Harmony:
A History of Southern Gospel”
Vaughan Quartet Festival
Three concerts celebrating Southern gospel music’s 100th anniversary will be in Lawrenceburg, Tenn.
Triumphant Quartet, Blackwood Brothers Quartet, Dove Brothers, Florida Boys and others will perform in Crockett Theater. Concerts are Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m.
A special video and the singing of old Vaughan songs will be part of Saturday evening’s lineup.
For tickets, call 800-547-6500.
August ‘Songfest’ at Trinity Methodist
An evening billed as “great Gaither-style gospel singing” will be at Trinity United Methodist Church on Aug. 7 and 8 from 6 to 8 p.m.
“Songfest 2010″ will feature a combined choir performing classic hymns and gospel standards such “Jesus Is Coming Soon.” It is a benefit for Meals on Wheels, and offerings will go to the program, said Ray Phillips, choir director at Trinity.
The music will be traditional with familiar old songs telling the gospel story. Phillips said such music is fading in some churches today.
“You hear fewer and fewer songs about the cross, the blood (of Jesus) and the Redemption,” he said.
He said he expects about 75 singers and anyone is welcome to rehearse and join in. The format will be similar to Bill Gaither “Homecoming” concerts.
Songfest will be recorded each evening and CDs will be for sale. The theme will be “Look Up High.”
Rehearsal will be Saturday on Aug. 7 from 9 a.m. to noon at the church at 795 N. Seneca Drive.
Phillips asks anyone interested to contact him by Sunday by calling 353-8213 or 227-5998 or e-mailing radaraudio@charter.net. Songbooks are $15.
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<a href="http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/148050282tag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/148050282Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:56:54 GMT 00:00″>Southern gospel still strong at 100: Lawrenceburg celebrates heritage of pioneering genre