There are many groups whose name has been around almost since southern gospel has existed. Many of those names still belong to touring groups but generally none of these groups has a founding member, and even some don’t have a long-term member still with them.
The Blackwood Brothers of today don’t have James, RW or even Cecil. They have Jimmy, who some considered a shadow of his father.
The Stamps of today have Ed Enoch and a bunch of young fellas that nobody has ever heard of. As far as I can tell this new group hasn’t produced any albums and hardly tours at all. JD Sumner is gone, and with him went the Stamps, it seems.
The Melody Boys are still truckin’ along, but Gerald Williams can’t seem to keep the same four men together for longer than two years tops.
The Florida Boys come closest to holding on to their glory the longest, but when Les, Glen and Darrell retired for good, a completely new group took over the name, but this new group consisted of people whose names were never connected with the FB’s before. It was almost the same as if Andrew Ishee, Squire Parsons, Jay Parrack, Mark Trammell and Chris West got together and started calling themselves the Statesmen.
The Palmetto State Quartet, the Kingsmen, the Dixie Echoes and the Inspirations probably come the closest, and I’m kinda stretching even here because as long-lived as they are, the DE’s and the Insp’s haven’t been around anywhere near as long as the other groups I’ve mentioned.
That being said:
The PSQ is still a name people talk about, and has managed to successfully reinvent itself several times, and is to my mind easily the oldest group still thought of as a success. Somehow they managed not to get identified as One Man and his Backups like some other groups have, but it can be argued that they are still not what they used to be.
The Kingsmen still get people to come see their shows and still produce albums that people buy, and still have their long-term bass singer with them, but many people feel that the current group is a shadow of its former self and without Jim Hamill can never truly be the Kingsmen.
The Dixie Echoes still have a healthy following, and their fans love what the current group is doing, but one has to admit that this group will probably never achieve the heights of popularity they had while Dale Shelnut was still alive.
The Inspirations are an anomaly. For longer than almost any other group can claim, they hung on to many of their founding members. Even Jack Laws stuck around long after “retiring” and Archie Watkins is probably the longest-lasting tenor with one group in SG history. They even still has the original founder. I gotta say, though, the Inspirations might as well change their name to the Institutions because part of their popularity stems from how they never change despite the ever-changing face of gospel music.
There are some younger groups, such as the GVB and Gold City, who still pack ‘em in, but compared to the groups I’ve already mentioned, these people are children.
Are there any I’ve missed. I admit I’m hardly the expert here.
