Many gospel music fans believe that the Cathedral Quartet was one of the finest groups to ever sing gospel music. Their popularity is legendary, and their influence lives on today in gospel music. They are arguably among the most admired artists to ever sing Christian music.

The quartet was led by two of the finest and most beloved men in gospel music history. This month I'’ll begin a two-part study into the two men who led, shaped, and represented the Cathedral Quartet during their 35-year existence.

I’ll begin this month with the story of their lead singer, Glen Payne.

Glen Weldon Payne was born on October 20, 1926 in Royce City, Texas (near the town of Rockwall). He grew up hearing gospel music at an early age. His church-going and God-fearing parents nurtured a love of gospel music into their young son, and although they were by no means wealthy, they supported Glen’s appetite for and desire to sing gospel music at an early point in Glen’s life. Glen got a very solid grounding in the shape-note style of gospel singing which was taught primarily back then.

In 1938, Glen’s grandparents took him to see the famous Stamps Quartet sing. Like many youngsters so inclined, the dream of singing gospel music professionally was firmly planted in Glen’s mind. But how would Glen realize his dream?

Shortly after that concert, Glen’s grandmother died. Glen’s grandfather would soon remarry, however, and his new grandmother saw Glen’s desire to sing, and noticed his talent. She was determined to help Glen realize his dream of singing.

Since the Stamps School of Music was located in Dallas (not far from where the Paynes lived), Glen’s step-grandmother took pen in hand and wrote V.O. Stamps a personal letter, telling the famous gospel music pioneer that if she had any money at all, she’d give it up to allow Glen to go to the Stamps School, and learn how to sing gospel music formally.

Upon receiving the letter, V.O. Stamps was so moved by the love that Glen’s step-grandmother showed for her grandson that he replied to her, telling her not to worry about the tuition. V.O. continued that he would personally see to it that a place would be reserved for young Glen at the Oak Cliff session that coming June. The seeds of a great gospel singing career had been planted.

Glen wasn’t a student very long before he was given his first singing job with a Stamps quartet he would sing in a quartet with none other than V.O.’s talented brother Frank. This was quite an honor for a youngster not even out of his teens.

Glen’s budding singing career was interrupted by a call late in World War II to serve in the U.S. Army. On his way to the Far East by ship, the war ended. In later years, Glen would tell people that “they knew I was coming and gave up”.

So Glen came back home to resume his work with the Stamps Music Company. Not only did he sing with various Stamps quartets, he also taught singing himself for a while after World War II ended.

Glen sang with the Stamps-Baxter quartet as well as Frank Stamps’ All-Stars, and by 1951 he joined the Stamps-Ozark Quartet. Glen was developing a reputation as a most fine lead singer indeed.

Glen’s next singing job would prove to be a watershed in his career. Former Stamps’ employee and singer Earl Weatherford had a quartet that was beginning to attract a lot of attention in the gospel singing world. In 1957, Glen joined the Weatherford Quartet, and within a year, that lineup of Earl, Glen, Earl’s wife Lily Fern, bass singer Armond Morales, and pianist Henry Slaughter became known as one of the top quartets in gospel music. Arguably there was never a smoother sounding quartet in gospel music history.

At about the time Glen joined the Weatherford Quartet, the group became the regular quartet for an Ohio minister with a beautiful church in Akron. Rex Humbard would be the Weatherford’s employer for the next six years, providing a steady income in a line of work not known for that sort of thing. Glen’s talents were being used in church ministry, something that brought him a great deal of personal satisfaction and accomplishment.

That personal satisfaction was never more evident than in 1958, when Glen married the girl he fell in love with at the church, Van Lua, who Glen described as the “prettiest girl in the church choir”. Their wedding was televised on Humbard’s syndicated TV show, and Glen and Van Lua would be lifetime partners thereafter, going on to have three children, who in turn would bless them both with many grandchildren.

Along the way, as with many gospel groups, people came and went. Bobby Clark had joined the group when Lily Fern had to take time off to begin a family, and Danny Koker joined to play piano and sing after Henry Slaughter left for a time.

1963 turned out to be a tumultuous year for Glen and the Weatherfords. Earl missed the road and the freedom to sing wherever he wanted to when he wanted to, which he couldn’t due to the group’s church commitment. After trying to accommodate Earl’s wishes while trying to keep the quartet committed to church services and the attendant work, Humbard finally issued an ultimatum to the members of the quartet. If they wanted to keep singing with Earl, they could leave the church and go with him. And if they wanted to remain with the church, they would have to leave the quartet.

By this time Glen’s loyalties were with Humbard, so he reluctantly left the Weatherford Quartet, and was assigned by Humbard to a trio with Clark singing tenor, and Koker singing baritone and playing the piano. Since the church was known as the Cathedral of Tomorrow, the group became known as the Cathedral Trio.

The trio was very well received. They blended well vocally, and Koker’s arrangements gave them a unique style that soon attracted attention in the gospel music world, no doubt helped by the tremendous reach of Humbard’s television ministry.

After a year or so, Humbard wanted to make the group a quartet, since that was the prevailing and most popular sound going in gospel music. The search was on for a bass singer, and by 1965, another ex-Weatherford Quartet member, who Glen knew briefly from his days with the quartet, George Younce, was brought in to comprise the Cathedral Quartet. Younce had come aboard from one of the most successful quartets going, the Blue Ridge Quartet, and both Glen and George were excited to be singing together again.

Quickly, the new quartet developed a reputation as one of the best-sounding quartets in the industry, thanks to Clark’s trained tenor voice, Glen’s strong lead singing, Koker’s equally strong singing and his piano and arranging skills, and Younce’s versatile bass voice. The Cathedral Quartet’s reputation was spreading far and wide, particularly after recording a pair of albums for HeartWarming Records in the mid-1960s that were quite advanced for their time, and critically acclaimed as well. “With Strings” and “With Brass” took gospel quartet singing to new and different levels.

By 1968, Clark left the quartet, and the following year, Koker did as well. It was mostly up to Glen and George to fill the ranks and keep the quartet going, and they were able to find people to keep the sound consistent and the quartet viable. But by 1969, the same desires and issues that confronted Earl Weatherford began to play on Glen and George as well. Humbard wanted his singers to do counseling and a number of other pastoral tasks, which neither Glen nor George felt comfortable or called in doing. They were singers, and there was more and more demand for them in concert settings.

So, in 1969, the Cathedral Quartet opted to leave their position at Humbard’s church, and go into a traveling gospel music career full time. This made Glen essentially a quartet manager, and this was a new phase of his gospel music career. At times it was a real struggle for both him and George, for without the support of Humbard’s church, the two found it hard at times to keep the quartet going. Members came and went at a more rapid rate, and there was pressure from their record company, Canaan Records, to sell more records or lose their contract.

But by the mid 1970s, the Cathedral Quartet began to turn its’ fortunes around with songs such as “The Last Sunday” and “Statue of Liberty”, and simultaneously, Glen and George developed quite a stage presence in personal appearances. They quickly became the stabilizing forces within the quartet, and through even more ups and downs in the following years, Glen Payne and George Younce kept the Cathedral Quartet on a steady rise to the top of the gospel music world, reaching their peak of fame by the early 1980s.

As the quartet’s manager, Glen kept his quartet booked on a solid basis on most Wednesdays through Sundays, sometimes even singing in as many as three different venues on a Sunday. At times, Glen and George would sleep on the bus on a Sunday night, even after the quartet had returned home.

And as the quartet’s lead singer, Glen’s work on such hits as “The Prodigal Son”, “We Shall See Jesus”, “It’s Almost Over”, and “Sinner Saved By Grace” were instrumental in not only defining the sound of the Cathedral Quartet, but keeping them atop the gospel music world well into the 90s, warding off the challenges of such quartets as the Kingsmen and the Gold City Quartet.

And as a businessman, Glen was able to diversify and maintain a publishing company as well as ownership in recording studios and even a record company. He was always a model for the right way of doing things, whether it be singing, managing, business, or just being a role model and influence on aspiring singers.

And along the way, honors poured in. Numerous Dove awards, 11 Grammies, Singing News Fan Awards all of these became routine accomplishments for Glen and the Cathedral Quartet. In addition, Glen was placed in the Texas Gospel Music Hsll of Fame in 1993, the GMA Hall of Fame in 1995, and the SGMA Hall of Fame in 1997 all this while remaining at the top of the gospel music world with the Cathedral Quartet.

By 1999, Glen’s longtime comrade and partner George Younce was in ill health, and Glen himself was getting weary of the road, and it occurred to both men that the time had come to finally call it a career and retire the Cathedral Quartet. Plans were made for a final farewell tour for the group, and after it got underway, Glen was diagnosed with liver cancer. It was almost as if the curtain was being drawn on the Cathedrals in a most dramatic way.

During the tour, Glen was hospitalized. But ever the trouper, when it came time for the National Quartet Convention, Glen was still part of the quartet’s stand via telephone from the Vanderbilt University hospital. At George’s request, Glen sang “I Won’t Have To Cross Jordan Alone” over the telephone and it brought down the house at the convention. It was one of the most moving moments ever associated with live gospel music or the convention.

But six weeks after the initial diagnosis, and just five days short of his 73rd birthday, on October 15, 1999, Glen Payne passed away. In the words of Bill Traylor, a colleague and friend of Glen’s for some 30 years, "He (Glen) was a man of honor and integrity and he loved God, his family, and those in gospel music with all his heart."

Glen Payne’s legacy lives on and will for some time. He is an integral part of the gospel music lineage that began with the Weatherfor Quartet, and went on through the Cathedral Quartet, straight through to Legacy Five, Signature Sound, and the music ministries of artists such as the Talleys, Greater Vision, and the Mark Trammell Trio.

Next month, we’ll look at the other half of the Cathedral legacy, George Younce.

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