2007

SG History 101 - Christmas Recordings

As we head toward the Christmas season, we naturally think of music that celebrates and commemorates the season. And it’s no surprise that the gospel genre over the years has given us some of the finest Christmas music recorded.

Recordings of Christmas material began in the 1940s for the most part…for decades, Bing Crosby’s 1942 recording of “White Christmas” was the biggest selling record of all time, and its success paved the way for other recordings with a Christmas theme.

Gospel artists entered the Christmas recording field relatively slowly, and as they would in other areas of the genre, the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen Quartets were pacesetters in the recording of Christmas music by gospel artists.

In the late 1940s, the Blackwood Brothers cut several sides of Christmas music, and released them in a 78 RPM album package on the White Church label. The quartet consisting of Alden Toney, James Blackwood, RW Blackwood, Bill Lyles, and Hilton Griswold did wonderful renderings of some of the most well known Christmas carols in that package, worth the effort to obtain if you’re a collector of classic gospel quartet sounds.

The Statesmen also made a pair of early gospel quartet Christmas recordings, the classic 78 of “The Santa Claus Song” (written by Lee Roy Abernathy) backed with “White Christmas” for Capitol Records, and later a version of “Silent Night” (featuring Hovie Lister) also backed with “White Christmas” on their private label. Those above recordings were among the first notable Christmas recordings by gospel quartets.

In the 1950s, other gospel groups began to sing an occasional Christmas song or two, and as recordings of Christmas songs proved to be commercially viable, it was inevitable that more fine recordings of Christmas songs would be coming from gospel artists.

Come the early 1960s, more classic gospel quartet Christmas music would appear. Possibly the best known (and arguably the best of them all) gospel quartet Christmas record appeared on RCA Records, featuring their top two gospel quartet artists, the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen, joining forces on an album with a rather cumbersome title, “The Blackwood Brothers and Statesmen Quartet Wish You A Musical Merry Christmas” (RCA 2606), which had five songs by each group individually and two songs with both quartets singing together.

This record combined secular Christmas material such as “Silver Bells” and the aforementioned “White Christmas” with traditional carols such as “O Holy Night” (the highlight of the album for this writer) and “Silent Night”, along with original songs written by members of each group, such as “Praises To Our King”, “Christmas Means Christ To Me”, and “Christmas Time Is Here”. Certainly the fact of these two great quartets joining forces along with their fine renditions of the material make this album an unqualified Christmas classic, and showed the contributions a gospel artist could make toward the Christmas music tradition. It was reissued in 1969 on the RCA Camden label as “O Come All Ye Faithful”.

Another gospel group that made a noteworthy contribution to that tradition is the Couriers, who in 1963 recorded a collection of Christmas songs on their album “Joy To The World (and other Christmas favorites)”. This fine album was made with the assistance of some of Nashville’s finest musicians who were incognito for the project, and despite the group’s fatigue from recording the album after a long road trip, they did wonderful renderings of songs such as “The First Noel”, “O Holy Night”, the a cappella “The Lord Bless And Keep You”, and pianist L.David Young’s fine lead vocal on “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear”. This album is a worthy addition as well to anyone’s Christmas collection.


During this period, other leading gospel artists recorded Christmas material as well. The Chuck Wagon Gang made “Going Home For Christmas” for Columbia, and the Bill Gaither Trio made two Christmas albums, “Christmas…Back Home In Indiana” for HeartWarming Records, and “He Started The Whole World Singing” for Word. And the Blue Ridge Quartet made two Christmas albums in the 1970s.

One noteworthy Christmas album was done by the Klaudt Indian Family on their private label, “Peace On Earth”, featuring the “Indian Christmas Carol”, which dates back to 1640, and features a part tom-tom, part Gregorian chant type arrangement. Like other recordings by this very talented group, it is strikingly unique and distinctive.

As we head into the 1980s, more notable Christmas albums by gospel groups appeared. The Imperials recorded “Christmas With The Imperials” in 1980, which combined their then new-found contemporary musical approach with a traditional one successfully. And the Couriers came back with another Christmas classic with their 1980 release, “Peace On Earth”, which featured fine orchestral arrangements by longtime group colleague Jerry Nelson, and it is also noteworthy for being the final Couriers release with the combination of Dave Kyllonen, Duane Nicholson, and Neil Enloe.

Not long afterward, the Statesmen released another Christmas collection, “Silent Night”, which was noteworthy for its own fine orchestration and the final recording of the group with longtime baritone Doy Ott. This recording is also hard to find, but well worth it if you like Christmas songs sung by a gospel group.

Also in the 1980s, the most popular gospel groups of the day made noteworthy Christmas recordings as well. 1985 saw the Cathedral Quartet record “A Cathedral Christmas A Cappella”, featuring that great quartet at its vocal best, and Gold City’s 1988 release, “Voices Of Christmas”. Those two albums were reissued jointly just a few years ago.

And not surprisingly, gospel artists have continued to issue Christmas albums now and again. Gold City recorded another Christmas album in 1997, and “Home For The Holidays” features some fine arrangements of traditional Christmas material, and a pair of excellent medleys as well. And not too awfully long ago, the popular trio Greater Vision released a Christmas LP on red vinyl, ”A Greater Vision Christmas” on Daywind. And even more recently, the Booth Brothers released “Treasure These Moments”, which does an excellent job of continuing the tradition of gospel groups doing reverent and enjoyable Christmas music.

But perhaps the most striking Christmas recording by a modern gospel group is the Inspirations’ 1987 Canaan recording “Going Home For Christmas”. What makes it striking is that it is the one Inspirations recording of all that the group has made in the 40 or so years they have made recordings in that it deviates from the regular accompaniment the group performs with.

The songs themselves are done in the familiar mountain flavored sound the Inspirations are known for, but there is a more contemporary approach in the musical backup. Listeners who wonder how the Inspirations would sound with a slightly more contemporary sound need to check out this album, it may be a pleasant surprise for them.

These are just a few of the several fine Christmas recordings done over the years by gospel artists, showing that they can compete on an equal footing (if not surpass in some cases) with those of their secular counterparts.

If you have a chance to obtain any of these albums, I would encourage you to do so. They will provide a pleasant backdrop to your Christmas celebration…and possibly bless and encourage you as well.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

SG History 101 - The Toney Brothers

The 1950s was a very exciting time in the history of gospel music. Many of the genre’s finest singers and groups flourished in that period. In particular, the number of male quartets in that time was perhaps at an all time high, no doubt influenced by the amazing successes of the Blackwood Brothers and Statesmen quartets.

Some of those quartets originating in that time only lasted a short while, others for many years. One very noteworthy quartet that began in the mid 1950s is still singing and doing quite well today. This month, I will look back on one of the finest yet least recognized of those quartets, the Toney Brothers.

The Toneys were born to sing. Family patriarch Alden Toney, Sr. had been singing in early quartets around their native West Virginia during the 1920s and 1930s. The senior Toney taught his boys to sing at an early age using the familiar “shaped notes” method common at that time. He would teach his children songs from Stamps-Baxter songbooks, and with ten sons and five daughters, he was raising a small choir out in Wayne, WV!

Alden’s wife, Cassie, tragically died in 1942. Most of the children were grown by that time, but there were still two teenage daughters and five boys under 12 left at home. As was the case with a number of families in that part of the country under those circumstances, the family bonded even closer together. Cassie’s prayers were answered mightily as all the Toney children came to know Christ as Lord. These events would shape the lives of all the Toneys in the coming years.

The oldest son, Alden Jr., left West Virginia in 1941 to work in the growing automobile industry in Detroit. He was able to find a good church to attend, the love of his life to marry, and he began to find quartets to sing with as well! One of the early groups that Alden made his singing reputation with was one called the Harmonaires.

But as would happen to so many young men at that time, he was drafted into the military to help fight World War II. Alden spent the mid-1940s in the army, even distinguishing himself by his participation in the famous “Battle of the Bulge”.

When Alden finally made it back to Detroit after the war, he resumed singing, and by 1948 moved to Shenandoah, Iowa to sing with the renowned Blackwood Brothers Quartet. He sang with them until 1951, when he returned to Detroit. By then, his brothers Bob and Kyer were also in the service, Bob in the Army and Kyer in the Navy.

Both Bob and Kyer were discharged in 1954, and things were falling into place for the Toney brothers to start their own quartet. In 1955, brother Jim joined the others to start the Toney Brothers Quartet. Like the Weatherfords and the Cathedral Quartet years after them, they became affiliated with a church, Gilead Baptist Church in suburban Allen Park, and soon began appearing on CKLW-TV in Windsor, Ontario, across the Canadian border.

The fledgling quartet went through three non-Toney pianists, the best known of those being Kenneth Apple, before discovering an exceptionally talented pianist in Bryan Jones. Jones’ skills even awed legaendary Blackwood Brothers’ pianist Jackie Marshall, and soon the two became fast friends and even colleagues. Marshall’s famous “Marshall Plan”, a piano course for aspiring students, was actually authored by Jones.

1956 saw the Toney Brothers enter the recording field, where they issued a number of fine singles. “Out Of The Depths” was perhaps the best known of those singles, since it featured the extremely high ranges of the quartet’s treble singers, earning them the nickname of “The Quartet With Three Tenors”. In 1957, the Toney Brothers had acquired such a reputation that they were invited to the first National Quartet Convention in Memphis, where they appeared every year until 2006, the only quartet besides the Florida Boys to appear that long on an annual basis.

It wasn’t just the unique sound that attracted attention to the Toney Brothers, but the fact that the singers were all actual brothers (unlike the Blackwood Brothers, who had non-family members start entering the group in the 1940s) appealed to many fans, and the fact that for many years they were an official church quartet and stressed evangelism along with their singing anticipated trends in gospel music that reached major proportions with the Weatherford Quartet in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the Couriers Quartet of that same time and the Bill Gaither Trio in the early 1960s.

The Toney Brothers were certainly expert practitioners of gospel music as well as trailblazers in the field. Though they sang songs by well known writers such as Mosie Lister, Vep Ellis, Lee Roy Abernathy, and Gaither, they also came up with material of their own, most of it written by Bob Toney, that defined their sound and their mission. Songs such as “I Want To Live In That Fair Land”, “Elijah And The Prophets of Baal”, “The Narrow Road To Glory Land”, and perhaps their most famous song, “I Believe What The Bible Says”, all written by Bob, became favorites of many gospel music fans.

Alas, change is a constant with gospel quartets. And 1961 saw Bryan Jones leave the quartet to move further into ministry work, and continue to play and teach piano. In 1962, Jones played on the album “Dedicated To The Hymns” by the Couriers Quartet, and the following year, played for the Couriers at their appearance at New York’s Carnegie Hall. He would maintain close ties with the Couriers, playing on their 1966 album “Down Memory Lane”, as well as joining them in concert on occasions when he would happen to be in attendance. Jones continued to play and teach piano until his untimely death in 2005. He will be remembered by many as one of gospel music’s greatest piano stylists, and one of its most devout Christians.

An even more dramatic personnel change occurred in 1963, when Alden accepted a position as minister of music at another church in Allen Park and left the quartet. He was replaced by one of gospel music’s finest tenor singers, 19-year old Ron Booth. Booth had talent and charisma and added a new dimension to the Toney Brothers’ sound. Booth stayed until 1967, when he left to join the Rebels Quartet, replacing their longtime tenor Horace Parrish. Booth sang with the Rebels for many years, before resigning and teaching his own sons how to sing. Today, his sons are the core of one of gospel music’s premier groups, the Booth Brothers.

As for the Toney Brothers, when Booth left, Gary G. Toney joined the quartet as bass singer, while Bob moved up to baritone, and Kyer moved up even higher to first tenor. Again, the Toney Brothers consisted entirely of Toney brothers!

The Toney Brothers continued to plug along through the rest of the century, with of course more Toneys (Dave, Gary L., Terry, Jeff, Greg, and Darrell) helping out on vocals and instrumental backing, and a few other noteworthy non-Toneys (Bob Oliver, Mike LoPrinzi, and Dallas Rogers) doing stints in the quartet as well.

Today, the Toney Brothers, now based in Florida, stay busy, with tenor Jon Pennington, lead Royce Taylor, baritone George Amon Webster (formerly of the Cathedral Quartet), and familiar bass Terry Toney continuing the Toney Brothers tradition of fine singing, a strong witness, and faithful service to the gospel music industry and the church which has always been their hallmark since Alden Toney, Jr, began the quartet with brothers Jim, Kyer, and Bob some 52 years ago in Michigan.

Of the original Toneys, Kyer is retired and lives today in Cumming, Georgia…Jim is also retired and lives in McKinney, Texas, Gary G. Toney is likewise retired and lives in Brighton, Michigan. Bob passed away in 2002, and Alden, Jr. passed away just last week.

Longtime gospel music fans will always have fond memories of the Toney Brothers, who did their best to advance the craft and scope of professional gospel music.

I would like to thank Dean Adkins and Darrell Toney for their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this article.