Updated August 27, 2002 (first published December 10, 1998) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article)

Southern gospel is not a single style of music, but is a classification for a broad range of harmonizing, country-tinged Christian music that originated in the southeastern part of the United States. Some Southern gospel is lovely and spiritual and seeks not to entertain the flesh but to edify the spirit. (There are also quartets that are not Southern gospel in style; an example is the Old Fashioned Revival Hour Quartet that was featured on Charles Fuller's radio program.) We praise the Lord for all Christian music, Southern or otherwise, which doesn't sound like the world, which has scriptural lyrics, which seeks solely to glorify Jesus Christ and edify the saints, and which is produced by faithful Christians. Sadly, though, much of the Southern gospel incorporates worldly pop, country, ragtime, jazz, boogie-woogie, and rock rhythms, and is oriented toward entertainment. It is the latter that is closely akin to Contemporary Christian Music. As a matter of fact, commercial Southern gospel today is one of the branches of the larger CCM world.

I grew up with Southern gospel. The Southern Baptist churches my mom and dad attended in Florida would have all-day sings on some Sundays. Following the morning service, we would have a glorious "dinner on the ground," featuring tables piled high with the tastiest dishes the church ladies could concoct. The kids would romp around as the tables were prepared, then the pastor would pray and everyone would gorge himself on whichever foods suited their fancy. The variety was incredible. When the meal was finished and the tables cleared, everyone gathered back in the church auditorium for the sing. There would be some congregational singing, then the quartets would start up. Usually these were local groups, but sometimes a professional group would be available. I always liked the congregational singing best.

HISTORY OF SOUTHERN GOSPEL

As we will see, Southern gospel brought four significant changes to Christian music in North America in the 1920s, '30s, '40s and '50s. (1) They commercialized it. (2) They took it out of the churches and put it into hands of publishers and promoters. (3) They jazzed it up with worldly styles. (4) They turned it into entertainment. Gospel music publisher Harper and Associates advertised their Southern gospel music as "Family entertainment with a message, entertainment that a Fair or civic organization can sponsor and not feel like they're getting too churchy." This sounds exactly like the Contemporary Christian Music approach. The Stamps Quartet of the 1930s "not only sang the most popular gospel songs of the day, but gave an all-around entertainment program" (Bob Terrell, The Music Men, p. 39).

Professional Southern gospel quartets were born in the early part of this century as business enterprises. Prior to that quartets were mixed (men and women) and "sang in their churches simply for the spiritual edification of the congregation" (The Music Men, p. 54). The inventor of the professional male gospel quartet was a Nazarene, James Vaughan, who hired a quartet in 1910 to represent his music publishing company (which he had founded in 1902). The Vaughan Quartet performances at churches, revivals, and conventions were a means whereby Vaughan sold music. "In this way the groups promoted their sponsor and created a market for the songbooks" (David L. Taylor, Happy Rhythm, p. 7). By the late 1920s Vaughan had 16 full-time quartets on the road. In 1921 the pioneering Vaughan cut the first record for his new recording company, and in 1922 he built the first radio station in Tennessee, all with the goal of promoting his music. In 1924 the V.O. Stamps Music Company was founded by a Baptist, Virgil Stamps; and he, too, put quartets to work. In 1929 this company became the famous Stamps-Baxter Music Company. These companies established influential music training schools and created the hugely popular all-day and all-night gospel music sings.

The new "Southern gospel" style featured "tag lines in accompanying voices, chromatic lower-neighbor note and passing notes, and in the refrain a walking bass lead with several interjections. The harmony was simple and very rhythmic. A ragtime style was added later to the piano accompaniment (commonly called the 'stomp beat'), which made the sacred and the secular indistinguishable" (H.T. Spence, Confronting Contemporary Christian Music, p. 120).

The pioneer of the ragtime gospel piano style was Dwight Brock, who played in one of the Stamps quartets.

"Brock played a rhythm piano style; some thought it sounded a little like Dixieland [jazz] or razzamatazz. ... Thousands of pianists would copy his style in the years to come. ... IT WAS REVOLUTIONARY BECAUSE IT JAZZED UP GOSPEL MUSIC JUST ENOUGH FOR THE SECULAR PUBLIC TO CATCH ON. Dwight's nephew, Brock Speer, who sings bass for the Speer Family today, said when his uncle was a boy in the early teens--he was born in 1905--he heard a circus drummer playing syncopated rhythms on snare drums, and said to himself, 'I wonder if I could do that on the piano?'" (The Music Men, pp. 38,39).

Though the seeds for these things were present in the 1920s and '30s, it was not until the 1940s that Southern gospel began to promote an entertainment-oriented, jazzed up approach to Christian music on a large scale. Before that the quartets were not very flashy. For example, W.B. Walbert, the manager of the Vaughan Quartet during the 1920s, "was a spiritual man who did not believe that a quartet should do anything showy to detract from the gospel messages in the songs" (The Music Men, p. 33). This attitude did not prevail, though, and even Walbert's own son, James, began playing the piano backwards, playing with his elbows, and otherwise putting on a show to entertain the crowds.

Two of the most influential groups in this direction were the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen. Prior to this, professional gospel quartets commonly sang without musical accompaniment or with traditional strings. The Ranger Quartet, for example, often sang with a guitar. The Statesmen were one of the first professional quartets to feature the piano; and it was not just ANY piano, it was Hovie Lister's ragtime, honky-tonk piano. Sadly, this style has dominated popular Southern gospel ever since. (This does not mean, of course, that the Statesmen sang ONLY jazzy music. Some of their numbers were nice renditions of good Christian music. An example was the beautiful "What a Savior," featuring lyric tenor Rosie Rozell.)

The following brief history of Southern gospel is by a man who researches rock music. He has correctly observed the close connection between jived up Southern gospel of the 1940s and '50s and early rock & roll.

"The white gospel quartets of the 1950s, when [Elvis] Presley started to study them, were every bit as exciting as their black counterparts, USING SHOW-BIZ HYPE, WHIPPING UP CROWDS AND CREATING STARS. Reporting on an all-night sing in Atlanta, Georgia, for The Saturday Evening Post (June 1956), Furman Bisher compared the audience response to the Oak Ridge Quartet to bobby soxers' swooning for Frank Sinatra. 'Women out there shrieked, and a couple of young girls rushed to the stage edge to snap pictures of the tenor who was holding that high note the way a trumpet player prolongs a "ride,"' wrote Bisher. ...

"Presley idolized such gospel stars for the rest of his life. His particular favorites were J.D. Sumner, the tall, stringy bass vocalist with the Blackwood Brothers, who also went to the First Assembly of God Church in Memphis, and Jake Hess and Hovie Lister of the Statesmen Quartet (which actually had five members). An ordained minister, LISTER IS OFTEN CREDITED WITH BRINGING SHOW BUSINESS TO QUARTET SINGING. At the time he said, 'If it takes shaking my hair down, beating a piano like Liberace or Piano Red to keep these young people out of beer joints and the rear seats of cars, I'll do it. The Devil's got his kind of entertainment. We've got ours. They criticize me, say I'm too lively for religion, but I get results. That's what counts'" (emphasis added) (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, pp. 29-31).

Lister's philosophy was pragmatism; whatever works is right. This is exactly the same New Evangelical philosophy that permeates the Contemporary Christian Music field today. Hovie Lister and the Statesmen were forerunners to CCM. God has not instructed us to do whatever "gets results," but to obey His Word regardless of the results. The sole authority for faith and practice is the Bible. If it is Scriptural it is right; if it is not Scriptural, it is wrong, regardless of how well it appears to work. God's Word plainly forbids His people to love the world. It is therefore impossible to please God by adapting the things of the world to the service of Christ. Liberace was a homosexual entertainer who helped corrupt the morals of America. I believe it is a serious error to adopt his sensual, worldly ways to Gospel music. Where does God's Word encourage us to copy the world? To be holy, means to be set apart from and different from the world. Nowhere do we see the Lord Jesus Christ or the Apostles entertaining people in the name of the ministry. We do not see them putting on some sort of worldly show to draw a crowd. We do not see them adapting themselves to the spirit of the age. We do not see them attempting to manipulate people by worldly means. The Apostle Paul plainly stated that he depended solely upon the power of the Holy Spirit. "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:2-5).

Now we continue with Steve Turner's overview of the history of Southern gospel:

"White quartet singing had developed in the 1920s ... they began to develop showmanship and gimmicks during the 1940s. ... Hovie Lister, a dashing young man with long, dark wavy hair and an Errol Flynn mustache, LOVED TO SHAKE IT ALL UP FOR THE LORD. He joined with Crumpler and Jake Hess to form the Statesmen Quartet, which was to become one of the first supergroups of white gospel, catapulting the music to commercial acceptability and SETTING THE STYLE FOR EMERGENT ROCK 'N' ROLLERS BRED ON HOLY MUSIC.

"Although much was made of the evils of dancing, show business, jukeboxes and television, THE SUCCESS OF THE GOSPEL QUARTETS WAS LARGELY DUE TO THEIR PRESENTING MUCH OF THE SAME GLOSS AND EXCITEMENT in an acceptable context. The songs were about loving your neighbor, being holy and not giving in to 'modern religion,' but THE PERFORMANCES DREW FROM POP, BLUES, COUNTRY, RAGTIME AND JAZZ. ...

"Don Butler, now director of archives for the Nashville-based Gospel Music Association, was the Statesmen Quartet's manager during the 1950s. 'They were sensational,' he remembers. 'Hovie Lister had no peer in showmanship. He created a tremendous rapport with the audience. HE COULD TURN THEIR EMOTIONS ON AND OFF JUST LIKE THAT. They also had highly polished harmonies and arrangements. HOVIE WOULD JUMP ONTO A PIANO AND SHAKE HIS LONG BLACK HAIR INTO HIS FACE WHILE THE REST OF THE GROUP DANCED ON STAGE. They were the first quartet to use four individual microphones. Before that everyone had gathered around one mike'" (emphasis added) (Steve Turner, Hungry for Heaven, pp. 29-31).

Bill Gaither, in his history of Southern gospel, admits that Hovie Lister's "approach was loud, fast, swingy, and pop" and that "he would do whatever it took to get the loudest applause, the biggest laugh" (Bill Gaither, Homecoming, p. 133). In fact, some conservative Christian radio stations broke Statesmen records on the air to protest their jazzy music.

The Statesmen's bass singer, Jim "Big Chief" Wetherington, moved his legs in ways strangely reminiscent of how Elvis moved to rock & roll. Jake Hess, another member of the original Statesmen, noted: "He went about as far as you could go in gospel music. The women would jump up, just like they do for pop shows" (Peter Guralnick, Last Train for Memphis, p. 48). Rock historian Peter Guralnick observes that "preachers frequently objected to the lewd movements."

Some of the Statesmen Quartet's music was brought over from the swinging black gospel. "So many of their early hits began to stray away some from the southern, singing convention stylethe music that was coming out of Stamps-Baxterand basically were coming out of the black tradition" (Taylor, Happy Rhythms, p. 32).

Describing the popular Southern gospel quartets of the 1940s and 1950s, Wally Varner of the Melody Masters testifies: "I guess the Melody Masters were one of the wildest organizations, for the lack of a better word, that I've ever worked with. I used to turn flips and things like that. ... In those days GOSPEL MUSIC WASN'T AS SPIRITUAL, IT WAS MORE ENTERTAINING. We had a rambunctious type of program, but we also had some beautiful singing that we would settle down to" (Taylor, Happy Rhythms, p. 22). Another popular group, The Delmore Brothers, "mixed sacred lyrics, blues and boogie with spectacular commercial results" (David Seay, Stairway to Heaven, p. 49).

Southern gospel in the 1970s was still entertainment oriented and highly competitive. "All-night sings occasionally resembled singing contests, as groups often appeared more interested in 'putting it to' one another onstage than entertaining and ministering to the audience" (Ibid., p. 111).

WORLDLINESS

There have been two distinct sides or camps to Southern gospel. We would label them conservative and contemporary. The conservative Southern gospel people have used music solely to glorify Jesus Christ and edify the saints. They have refused to jazz up the music with worldly rhythms and sounds. The singers and musicians who represent this category have tended to live godly, Christ-honoring lives. The contemporary side has used music for entertainment. They have sought to jazz up Christian music with the world's rhythms. The singers and musicians in this category have tended to live spiritually careless, worldly lives.

This distinction has been evident from the inception of Southern gospel. Even in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, there were many churches which refused to participate in the "jazzy" side of Southern gospel and which refused to allow worldly Southern gospel musicians to ply their wares. One of the reasons why so many of the popular Southern gospel groups of that era sang in school auditoriums and other secular venues was because "some churches would not permit these 'jazzy' singers to perform in church houses" (The Music Men, pp. 64,65).

The two different camps within Southern gospel were already evident in the 1920s. James Vaughan did have a commercial goal with his music, but his chief goal was the spiritual edification of his hearers and he did not introduce worldliness into the music. He "emphasized holiness and living a sanctified life, separated from the world" and his groups "avoided any style that would draw attention to oneself" (Homecoming, p. 76). Vaughn lived an exemplary Christian life and "never used tobacco in any form, never swore an oath, and never drank intoxicating beverages" (The Music Men, p. 28). He "knew the Bible as few men did." V.O. Stamps, on the other hand, exemplified the worldly camp. Stamps was a heavy smoker and a glutton who died young of diabetes. He would order two-pound steaks and follow that up with three pieces of pie. At one of his All-Night Broadcasts he drank 46 sodas, most of them Coca-Colas (The Music Men, p. 122). This camp within Southern gospel was far less careful about spiritual matters and had no conviction about putting on a show with their music. The Stamps Quartet even in the early years was described as "an entertaining fivesome" (The Music Men, p. 39). Their theme song was "Give the World a Smile," which featured strong rhythm with the bass singing melody and the upper voices singing an afterbeat. "Then, on the repeat chorus, they sang a boom, boo, pang, pang effect like a rhythm guitar" (Ibid.). Their ragtime pianist was the aforementioned Dwight Brock, who "jazzed up gospel music just enough for the secular public to catch on."

Many of the popular Southern gospel groups of the 1950s and '60s were characterized by worldliness. Drinking, smoking, womanizing, and divorce has been a common feature of Southern gospel. The Statesmen's first tenor, Bobby Strickland observed that Southern gospel quartets often reach a certain level and "then something happens." He believed the reason for this was that "they don't live right" (The Music Men, p. 97).

The Sunshine Boys were formed by Ace Richman, a swing band entertainer who saw that gospel quartets were financially profitable. When he added "Western swing" to gospel songs, he saw that "people liked them even better" (The Music Men, p. 190). Richman was "the man who put swing into gospel." The Sunshine Boys were pure entertainment. They did not testify of Christ or give invitations. Richman told preachers, "We do not testify; we are an entertaining group. You pay us to sing these songs, and we'll sing 'em. But that's all."

J.D. Sumner and the Sunshine Boys were infamous for their worldly lifestyles. They smoked, drank, cavorted with women, etc. "The Blackwoods, three months before their air tragedy, were not the only ones who referred to him [Sumner] and his cohorts in the Sunshine Boys as infidels" (Gaither, Homecoming, p. 160). J.D. Sumner almost lost his marriage because of his moral recklessness. He went on to sing bass with the famous Blackwood Brothers, then with the Stamps Quartet.

J.D. Sumner and the Stamps and other Southern gospel groups performed with Elvis Presley in his sleazy rock concerts at Las Vegas and elsewhere. (During the years in which Sumner and the Stamps were backing Elvis, Sumner's nephew, Donnie, who sang in the group, became a drug addict and was lured into the licentious pop music field.) Ed Hill, one of the singers with the Stamps, was Elvis's announcer for two years. It was Hill who concluded the Elvis concerts with: "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. Goodbye, and God bless you." After Elvis's death, J.D. Sumner and the Stamps performed rock concerts in tribute to Elvis Presley.

The Jordanaires performed as background singers on Elvis Presley records and as session singers for many other raunchy rock and country recordings. The Jordanaires provided vocals for Elvis's 1956 megahit "Hound Dog." The Jordanaires toured with Eddy Arnold as well as with Elvis. They also performed on some of Elvis's indecent movies.

Members of the Speer Family (Ben and Brock) also sang on Elvis recordings, including "I've Got a Woman" and "Heartbreak Hotel."

Laverne Tripp, who sang with the Sierra Quartet and the Blue Ridge Quartet, was well known for his carnality.

The piano player with the Sierra Quartet was a known homosexual.

At one Kingsmen Quartet concert a screaming, hair-pulling fight broke out between the bass singer's ex-wife and his current girlfriend.

The September 2002 edition of Singing News, which covers Southern Gospel Music, contains a full page promoting Dolly Parton's Dollywood entertainment center in Tennessee. Dollywood hosts a 30-day Southern Gospel Jubilee each year. Dolly Parton, who dresses very immodestly and is comfortable in the midst of the moral filth of Hollywood, starred in the filthy R-rated movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."

These sad facts could be multiplied. Someone might protest that I am blackening the entire Southern gospel music field with a relatively few worldly musicians, but that is not the case. First of all, I know and have testified that there are many godly people who sing Southern gospel. There is another point that needs to be made, though, and that is the fact that Southern gospel music as an institution does not rebuke the worldliness of musicians and, in fact, honors worldly people. In spite of J.D. Sumner's worldliness, for example, he has been highly exalted in the Southern gospel music field. Sumner died in 1998, and the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame was built partly in his honor. He was mentioned frequently and honorably at the National Quartet Convention that I attended with press credentials in September 1999. There was no warning about how he exalted wicked Elvis Presley and performed rock music.

We believe the worldly living produced the worldly music. Carnality produces spiritual blindness and powerlessness (1 Pet. 2:11; 1 Cor. 3:1-2; Heb. 5:12-14; Rev. 3:16-17).

"Many Christians see some things, but because their hearts are still in a carnal state (in a sympathy for the world), their sight is distorted. ... A Christian, even if he is faithfully working in the vineyard for Christ, can possibly have a lukewarm life. According to Revelation 3:17, lukewarmness in a Christian's life (and it does not matter if he is a leader in the church or not) produces blindness. Some men who have been viewed as the authorities of music, who have led in the forefront years ago in the Christian circles, are now compromising the principles of God's word with their music. Dear reader, it is an evidence of either lukewarmness or backsliding. Their music has become eclectic and dialectic with sounds of this age" (Dr. H.T. Spence, Confronting Contemporary Christian Music, 1997, p. 8).

Dr. H.T. Spence, vice president of Foundations Bible College & Seminary, is a fundamentalist historian and teacher who has taught music, history, and theology for 25 years. He received part of his music training at Bob Jones University. In the late 1960s he sang with a gospel trio called The Seminaries. At the time he was a Pentecostal and was singing in Pentecostal churches. In his book on CCM he notes that popular Southern gospel quartets were singing in the same churches, and on three occasions his trio appeared with Laverne Tripp and the Sierra Quartet. He describes how Tripp attempted "to influence our young trio to change its style" by dressing in a contemporary manner and by adopting an entertaining stage presence. They refused to heed Tripp's counsel and on the third occasion they walked out of the program. The following is Dr. Spence's testimony:

"I was born in a Pentecostal home in October 1948 at a time when my grandfather was bishop of the Pentecostal Holiness Church. ... I received a call from God for the ministry in my college freshman year (1966), and was chosen to sing in a male trio called The Seminaries; we traveled and ministered to churches on the weekends, representing the seminary I was attending at that time. Although the Pentecostal music was not the best even from the beginning, there were definite changes coming by the late 1960s. ... During the two years I was part of the group, we came in contact with the Southern gospel quartets who were making their appearance in the Pentecostal churches. At times, we were appointed to sing in the same services. One gospel music personality I remember was Laverne Tripp, who then had a reputation for his vacillation to backsliding, including his drinking, yet AN ABILITY TO SWAY A CROWD OF PEOPLE WITH HIS CRYING AND COUNTRY-SOUND SINGING. He was with the Sierra Quartet at that time (whose piano player was a known homosexual). He tried to influence our young trio to change its style, but his flair of clothing and aggressive presence on 'stage' was truly too much for us. During a third mutual service with him, we as a trio walked out. The Pastor met us out at the parking lot and inquired of our action. We told him in a most honorable way that we could not share the service with such a man as Mr. Tripp. The Pastor agreed with our appraisal of him, but he said, 'IT DRAWS THE CROWD.' With that remark, we left. Eventually, sad to state, our piano player married one of the sisters of Laverne and was sucked into the vortex of 'Southern Gospel Music.' Mr. Tripp went on to become lead singer for The Blue Ridge Quartet when Elmo Fagg left the group. During his years with that national quartet, he was given to heaven drinking and drugs. An invitation came to him during that time to go solo on the Las Vegas strip. Some years ago he supposedly came back to the Lord. He has become a permanent fixture with TBN along with his wife and children (who now have families of their own). His own personal recording studio is part of the lucrative business he has come to enjoy through the CCM medium" (Dr. H.T. Spence, Confronting Contemporary Christian Music, 1997, pp. x,xi).

This testimony opens a window into a large portion (though not all, by any means) of the ecumenical, entertainment-oriented Southern gospel scene of recent decades. New books on Southern gospel by Bill Gaither and others tend to ignore or gloss over its worldly facets, but the Bible loudly warns of the dangers of worldliness. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4). Worldliness can be forgiven by repentance and confession, praise the Lord, but it must not be ignored or excused. Worldly ministers produce worldly fruit. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 5:7).

This testimony also reminds us of pastoral responsibility in protecting churches. When Brother Spence and his trio protested against worldly music, the pastor, though admitting that the musicians were carnal, excused it because the people liked it. People-pleasing pastors will answer to God for their cowardly disobedience to the Scriptures.

The worldliness of many of the Southern gospel groups is reflected in their close and uncritical association with secular rockers. This is not only true today but has characterized many of the most popular groups for decades. The Jordanaires performed as background singers on Elvis Presley records and as session singers for many other raunchy rock and country recordings. Members of the Speer Family (Ben and Brock) also sang on Elvis recordings, including "I've Got a Woman" and "Heartbreak Hotel." The Jordanaires provided vocals for Elvis's 1956 megahit "Hound Dog." The Jordanaires toured with Eddy Arnold as well as with Elvis. They also performed on some of Elvis's indecent movies. As mentioned already, J.D. Sumner and the Stamps toured with Elvis from 1969 until his death in 1977, performing backup for the King of Rock & Roll in sin-holes such as Las Vegas night clubs. J.D. Sumner and the Stamps even performed concerts in honor of Elvis, singing Elvis Presley rock & roll hits! I have audio cassette recordings of one of these concerts. Ed Hill, one of the singers with the Stamps, was Elvis's announcer for two years. It was Hill who concluded the Elvis concerts with, "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building. Goodbye, and God bless you." The Imperials and the Oak Ridge Boys also performed as back up singers for Hollywood shows and Nashville recordings.

One of Elvis's favorite gospel singers was Hovie Lister, the leader of the Statesmen. This gospel group made large sums of money from their appearances. The Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen would receive $1,000 to $1,500 per night for their music shows. Not content with this, the Statesmen sold their services to the Nabisco Company in the 1950s. Lister became their spokesman, emceeing for Nabisco commercials. At their peak they were making a half million dollars per year. That would be more like five million dollars per year in today's dollars. The group performed on the Nabisco television show. "In their personal appearances, the Statesmen participated in a complete merchandising campaign on behalf of their sponsor..." (Taylor, Happy Rhythms, p. 53). One photo in David Taylor's history of the Statesmen shows the group performing in front of a large wall mural of a woman dressed in a short skirt as "the Sweetheart of the South" for Nabisco Vanilla Wafers. This was part of Nabisco's advertising campaign surrounding the Statesmen. For their work with Nabisco the group recorded music with Wade Creager's dance orchestra at the Biltmore Hotel in Atlanta.

As already mentioned, the flamboyant Hovie Lister popularized an entertainment-oriented, jazzy gospel music presentation. He was characterized by 'flashy dress, oversized rings, and upbeat entertainment style" (The Music Men, p. 146). Lister and the Statesmen went so far beyond that which was traditionally acceptable in Christian music in the middle of this century that some Christian radio stations would not play their music. In fact, some stations broke their records in protest! This occurred in 1955 when they recorded some gospel songs with a "New Orleans jazz flavor." The instrumental group which backed the Statesmen on the album included country guitarist Chet Atkins, Ernie Newton on the stand-up bass guitar, and Farris Coursey on drums. This was essentially a country-rock band. (The Statesmen pioneered the CCM practice of using unsaved musicians on their recordings.) Hovie Lister played the boogie-woogie piano. One preacher protested by calling it "stripping music" (Taylor, p. 55). Some of the Statesmen Quartet's music was brought over from the swinging black spirituals. "So many of their early hits began to stray away some from the southern, singing convention style--the music that was coming out of Stamps-Baxter--and basically were coming out of the black tradition" (Taylor, p. 32). In one of their early hits, Happy Rhythm (1950), the Statesmen actually used the phrase rock and roll to describe what they were doing! "There's a happy rhythm keeps a-rockin' and a-rollin'." This was set to a "rollicking, boogie setting" (Taylor, p. 34). Their 1961 album contained the song "God Is God," "featuring a rockabilly Chet Atkins guitar solo which was similar to early Elvis Presley releases" (Taylor, p. 86).

This article is concluded in Part 2 of 2.

Both parts can be viewed at the Way of Life web site under the Music section of the End Times Apostasy Database.