Christmas with the Chuck Wagon Gang

My friends Ernie and Lee have been two busy elves lately with their Christmas music shares. If you like unusual holiday selections, those are two stops you should be making on your Internet rounds.

I'm not nearly as industrious as those two fellows, but I do offer a seasonal album here and there. In that regard, I promised Lee some time back that I would transfer this Christmas LP by a favorite gospel group, the Chuck Wagon Gang.

A few words about the Gang might be helpful. The group was started by members of the Carter family of Lubbock, Texas, who began appearing on local radio in 1935. The following year the Carters moved to a larger Fort Worth station, changing their name in the process to the Chuck Wagon Gang, in succession to another group by that name that had been sponsored by radio advertisers Bewley Mills, which produced flour. As "Bewley's Chuck Wagon Gang," the Carters sang all types of music, including an occasional gospel number.

The early Chuck Wagon Gang: Dad, Anna,
announcer and manager Cy Leland, Rose, Jim

For some reason, the group's management thought it best that they all change their first names. So patriarch D.P. Carter became Dad Carter, Lola became Rose, Ernest became Jim and Effie became Anna, notwithstanding the fact that there was another Carter sister named Anna who was not in the group.

Also in 1936, the Gang came to the attention of ARC record producers Don Law and Art Satherly. Late that year, the group journeyed to San Antonio to cut their first records, a mix of country and gospel numbers. It wasn't until 1940 that they focused their material on sacred songs.

The Gang became very popular through their radio appearances and many records for ARC and its successor Columbia. I believe the songs on this LP represent their first venture into the Christmas repertoire.

By the time of these 1954  sessions, the group had experienced a few personnel changes from the early days. Jim Carter left the group in 1953 (he was to return in 1968), and was replaced by his brother Roy. Howard Gordon, who was married to Anna, had newly joined the ensemble as guitarist.

The group on the record: Dad, Anna, Howard Gordon, Rose, Roy

This particular pressing comes from the mid-1960s, but the recordings themselves all date from 1954. Columbia originally issued the eight Christmas numbers on a 10-inch LP that I have never seen, then reissued them in this budget Harmony album, adding two well-known gospel numbers to fill out the program. These are "In the Garden" by C. Austin Miles and "In the Sweet Forever" by Luther G. Presley, the latter best known for his lyrics to "When the Saints Go Marching In."

When this reissue came out, it was the usual practice for labels to transform mono recordings into what was spuriously called "rechanneled stereo." In truth, it wasn't stereo at all, but a misguided attempt to create a stereo effect by parsing the frequency response between the two channels. I have dispensed with this chicanery, summing the channels into a good, honest mono signal.

I enjoy the Chuck Wagon Gang. I hope you will like them as well - you may hear traces of their sound in such groups as the Everly Brothers. The group's first LP, Favorite Country Hymns, was among the early posts on this site. That record, which includes some of the group's earliest recordings, is still available.

Country Gospel by the Chuck Wagon Gang

The Chuck Wagon Gang were one of the earliest and most popular of the country gospel groups. They began in Texas in the mid-30s, were very popular on the radio, and recorded for Columbia for nearly 40 years. The group is still in existence today, but has had many, many changes in personnel from the original lineup of D.P., Anna, Rose, and Jim Carter.

These recordings seem to have been made in the late 1940s. The group's website says that the recording of I'll Fly Away was made in December 1948 - it was the first commercial recording of that classic number.

This is a very early Columbia LP. I'm sure it originally had a cover, but I found it in this Columbia Transcriptions sleeve.

Update (2019): I now have a cover for the LP - see above. Although I'll Fly Away and Looking for a City are from 1948, the other songs are from very early in their career - 1936-40.

VERSION WITH REPITCHED 'A BEAUTIFUL LIFE' 2023