2007

SG History 101 - Florida Boys Remembered

Normally, when I submit these articles for inclusion in SoGospelNews, one of the main criteria I hold to is that there not be a lot of material published elsewhere on the topic that month, so that I might be able to provide a service for the reader and avid fan that otherwise may not exist in a form readily available.

But this month, I’m making a slight exception to that policy, for the Florida Boys’ story has been told in many places, and quite well in the majority of those places.

But as the resident “historian” for SGN, it would not be right if I neglected to pay tribute myself on the eve of the retirement of one of gospel music’s greatest and most respected quartets.

For as of July 2007, the Florida Boys will celebrate their 60th year as a traveling quartet by retiring, with their final appearance scheduled for this year’s National Quartet Convention. So I thought I’d celebrate the occasion with a brief, affectionate look back upon a stellar gospel music career.

The Florida Boys’ beginnings took place after World War II, when Jesse Gillis Whitfield, an up-and-coming magnate in the grocery business in Florida, decided to form a quartet with some friends of his,…Roy Howard, Edward Singletary, “Tiny” Merrill, and Guy Dodd. Whitfield called this quartet the Gospel Melody Quartet.

Because of Whitfield’s success in the grocery business, the Gospel Melody Quartet was better able financially to survive in the ultra-competitive postwar gospel quartet field than many of their
competitors. The fact that the quartet had a friendly, winning appeal with audiences didn’t hurt any either.

Still, like many other quartets, there were obstacles. The death of Howard in 1950 almost brought their careers to a halt, but as he always did, Whitfield carried on…and Doyle Wiggins would take Howard’s place and keep the group going. As with other quartets, people came and went…but by 1952, the Gospel Melody Quartet had acquired the services of a talented young baritone singer and guitarist named Glen Allred, who had previously been with Wally Fowler’s Oak Ridge Quartet. When Wiggins left for the service in 1953, Les Beasley joined the group as lead singer from the McManus Trio. You can see the nucleus of the future quartet was taking shape.

By 1954, Livy Freeman had joined as pianist, and Buddy Mears as tenor…and another momentous occasion took place. The aforementioned Fowler was becoming one of the top gospel music promoters of the 1950s, and he used the Gospel Melody Quartet often, introducing them as “the boys from Florida with sand in their shoes and a song in their hearts”. Fowler eventually convinced Whitfield to change the group’s name, and the Gospel Melody Quartet became the Florida Boys.

Whitfield was becoming quite the promoter himself, and the Florida Boys’ popularity continued to grow. In 1956, a pianist with bright red socks and and a captivating personality joined the group, and Derrell Stewart would remain with the Florida Boys for more than 50 years.

Still, there were changes. In 1958, Whitfield remarried, his first wife having passed on in 1950. A family man once again, Whitfield felt the need to retire from the road. He appointed his trusty lead singer, Les Beasley, to manage the quartet in his place…which Beasley has done, and done very well, to this very day.

Whitfield’s place in the quartet was taken by Billy Todd, who would be a very popular addition for the next decade and a half, and with Coy Cook as tenor, the group’s lineup would be set for a while.

The group’s popularity was aided by the rise of television, and by 1961 the group had started doing a regional program, the Gospel Soundshop. The show was very popular with gospel music fans, and it set the stage for what was to come later in the group’s story. In 1963, the group appeared at New York’s Carnegie Hall, and recorded a live album there as well.

The popularity of the “Sound Shop” caused television syndicators to take notice, and when plans were made to start a nationally syndicated gospel TV show, the Florida Boys were chosen to host it. The Gospel Singing Jubilee became a staple for fans of gospel music for many years on Sunday morning, starting in 1964 and lasting until the early 1980s.

At about that same time, when Marvin Norcross of Word Records was charged with starting up a southern gospel label for Word, the Florida Boys were among the very first artists on the new Canaan Records, staying there for most of the latter 20th century.

The quartet slowly changed personnel during that time, with Cook leaving in 1967 for Whitfield’s new quartet, the Dixie Echoes, and he was replaced by the versatile tenor and fiddler Tommy Atwood. Todd resigned in 1972 to be replaced by Buddy Liles, who would sing for nearly 30 years with the quartet.

The group went through a bewildering number of tenors in the 1980s, with (among others) Jerry Trammell, Johnny Cook, Mark Flaker, Don Thomas, Terry Davis, Greg Cook, and Billy Hodges. It was Thomas who appeared on what is perhaps the group’s biggest hit, 1982’s “When He Was On The
Cross, I Was On His Mind”.

Allen Cox’s arrival in the 1990s stabilized the tenor position, and in 1994, Les Beasley did what no other quartet manager would consider doing. He stepped down from his lead singer position and hired a talented young man named Josh Garner to replace him. Les’ son Clark had sung occasionally prior to that, but Garner’s hiring helped push the quartet back up to a top position among the industry’s quartets.

And if that move hinted that the Florida Boys intended to remain a force in the quartet field, the arrival of Gene McDonald after Buddy Liles’ retirement in the 1990s proved that they meant business. McDonald’s extraordinary range and depth was perhaps unmatched among bass singers of the day. McDonald quickly became a major showpiece of the group.

By 1997, Beasley had been placed in the SGMA Hall Of Fame, certainly a most deserving recipient. He has been a successful televison producer, one of the industry’s most visible and respected leaders, and he also is credited with naming the Dove Awards as well when that idea was made reality. Beasley and son Clark remain among the leading power brokers in the gospel music industry.

In 2001, Allred joined Beasley in the Hall Of Fame, and the colorful Stewart came along in 2004. Not many groups could boast of having three Hall of Famers traveling and playing key roles with their group.

In addition, the Florida Boys are key figures at the annual Grand Old Gospel Reunion. Older members of the group like Atwood and Todd entertain the crowds there by singing their old songs the way they used to back in the day.

With McDonald’s resignation last year, it’s possible that the three longtime members (and owners) of the group started to consider the idea of retirement, and so the announcement was made in May that the quartet, on the verge of 60 years of continous touring across the land, would finally call it a career.

As I said, there are other published items which go far deeper into the history of the Florida Boys than I did here. This was not meant to be an exhaustive look back at one of gospel’s most renowned and revered groups, just an affectionate look back and a “thank you” to Les Beasley, Glen Allred, Derrell Stewart, Billy Todd, Tommy Atwood, and yes, Josh Garner, Gene McDonald, Buddy Liles, and the late Coy Cook and the late JG Whitfield as well.

Thanks for nearly 60 great years of devotion and service to gospel music, and for Les, Glen, and Darrell, enjoy retirement. You’ve certainly earned it.

SG History 101 - J. Bazzel Mull

This month is another installment illustrating the fact that not all the key figures in the development of gospel music as we know it are singers or performers. But whether they sang, made records, wrote songs,promoted concerts, or whatever, their love for gospel music and their desire to take it to as many people as possible made them all gospel music heroes to those of us who still love the music today.

Our subject this month is one of gospel music’s most beloved behind-the-scenes figures, and a leading figure in not just one part of gospel music, but several.

Way back on October 4, 1914, a young man was born in Burke County, North Caroilna, whose parents and siblings all enjoyed gospel music, as have many youngsters from the Tar Heel State. Jacob Bazzel Mull was also the grandson of what was known as a circuit-riding preacher, those itinerant ministers of the gospel who would ride from place to place on horseback, and preach (or sing) to whoever would gather.

The family gospel singing group was called the Valdese Sacred Band, and young Jacob would pitch in on the banjo. The youngster’s childhood was filled with the warm sounds of gospel music all around him.

Unfortunately, tragedy had already struck young Jacob early in his life. When he was but 11 months old, he fell into an open fireplace. From that day forward, Jacob was legally blind….and he never got any schooling past the third grade. Such a severe tragedy at that early an age would have permanently demoralized most normal youngsters.

But Jacob was not a normal youngster. All the while as he grew, he felt the love of his family and his God, and pressed on not only to learn how to play music and be a part of the family band, but as a part of a strong, God-loving family, he felt the call at a very young age to eventually become an evangelist.

Memorizing Bible verses read aloud to him for a period of many years, the young Mull began preaching at the age of 18, in 1932. His ministry slowly grew over the next several years, and by 1939, he had discovered the fast growing medium of radio as a place where he could broadcast his sermons, and with the power of that medium, his ministry began to expand beyond the borders of North Carolina.

By 1942, Mull had mastered the radio medium to the point where he got his first regular radio program on station WROL in Knoxville, TN. Mull had moved to Tennessee two years before with his very talented brother Romulus, who sang and played the guitar and piano. Romulus would assist his brother in his evangelistic meetings with his musical skills.

Soon, Mull had moved his radio program to a larger Knoxville station, WNOX (famous a few years later for featuring another fine young guitarist, Chet Atkins). The following year, Mull began promoting gospel concerts in the area, something he would do for many decades afterward.

About that same time, Mull met a young lady named Elizabeth Brown at a church revival, and after an extended courtship, they became man and wife on Sept. 11, 1944, sealing a partnership that would last for sixty more years. This joy no doubt helped him deal with the untimely death of Romulus that same year, who died in prisoner of war camp after joining the Air Force for World War II.

All the while, Mull encouraged and promoted gospel singers and their concerts. Elizabeth was very active in Mull’s ministry, as she not only supervised the business end of his activities, but she was his main pair of eyes for decades, reading the Bible and other books to her husband to add to his already formidable knowledge of Scripture and world events.

Elizabeth also became her husband’s broadcast partner as well, hosting his famous radio program, the “Mull Singing Convention of the Air”.

As the program grew and moved to bigger and more powerful radio stations, listeners who loved the sounds of gospel music tuned into it from far and wide. One such listener was a youngster from Alexandria, Indiana who fell in love with the gospel quartets the Mulls featured on their program. From that humble bit of inspiration, young Bill Gaither was inspired to one day make gospel music his life’s calling. No doubt, many other youngsters who would eventually become gospel singers and performers were similarly inspired to make gospel music their life’s work because of the Mulls and their radio program.

All the while, though, J. Bazzel Mull (as he was popularly known by this time) didn’t content himself with just spreading gospel music far and wide. First and foremost, Mull was an evangelist called to spread the gospel. To that end, Mull continued to organize churches all through North Carolina and Tennessee.

Mull’s power as a gospel promoter was never demonstrated more than it was in 1951, when he began to play the records of a gospel group from Texas who had never done concerts to that point in their careers. The simple, charming sound of the Chuck Wagon Gang touched Mull and his radio audiences…so much so that Mull was responsible for promoting that
group’s first concerts. Thanks to Mull’s radio programs and their association with Columbia Records, the Chuck Wagon Gang eventually became the top record-selling group in gospel music…another well-known gospel artist encouraged and inspired by J. Bazzel Mull.

About that same time(the early 1950s), Mull began to expand into the new field of television, starting in 1956 on Chattanooga’s WRGP-TV, later moving to WTVC-TV there in 1959.

Mull’s popularity preceded him, and he was able to secure sponsors for his TV shows quickly, among them JFG coffee and the Soddy’s Men’s Shop. The homespun, casual appeal of Mull and Elizabeth charmed viewers, and the ability of the show to draw many of the top singers of the day in gospel music to perform live on the shows no doubt added to the shows’ wide appeal.

While continuing his two radio shows, Mull continued to produce two weekly television shows, and promote fifteen to twenty gospel music concerts a year for many, many years. Eventually, he branched out into radio station ownership, his well known flagship station being WJBZ-FM in Knoxville, known as Praise 96.3.

Characteristic of Mull’s shows were his raspy voice(made so by years and years of itinerant preaching), and his constant references to Elizabeth as “Lady Mull”, which she is still known as to millions to this day. And after Mull would say something about a sponsor on his programs, he would try to get Elizabeth to second him by saying, “Ain’t that right, Lady Mull?”

On occasion, Mull’s programs would venture out of their studios to live settings, where a long list of top gospel singers would appear before those live audiences. Those shows would extend beyond their normal length, much like the All-Night Sings that were held in other venues.

In 1998, Mull was rewarded for his long years of service to gospel music by being inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame, and in 2003, he was so honored by the Southern Gospel Music Association as well, joining their Hall of Fame.

On September 5, 2006, at the age of 91, J. Bazzel Mull passed away due to complications from a stroke. Being in poor health for some time by then, his family was by his side for his homegoing.

J. Bazzel Mull is yet another example of a man who was determined to do what he did best for what he loved most. As an evangelist, he helped scores of people come to know a living Savior, overcoming a severe lifetime handicap to do so. He never let obstacles deter him from his calling in that area, and he did likewise for the field of gospel music, which he loved since his earliest memories, much like many of the people he helped make popular through his media calling.

It would be almost impossible to speculate as to the number of people blessed by gospel music or encouraged to enter it as a result of the work of J. Bazzel Mull….nevertheless, it’s sufficient to say that J. Bazzel Mull is one of the most important contributors to the history of gospel music during the 20th century, which is why we remember him so fondly today.