Sing Hymns with the Johnson Family Singers, Plus a Bonus

I have not indulged my enthusiasm for gospel music for some time now. So here is a new post devoted to my old favorites, the Johnson Family Singers from North Carolina. I also am throwing in a bonus, in the form of a remastered Johnson album from the early days of the blog, expanded with four newly transferred tracks.

The main event is Sing Hymns with the Johnson Family Singers. It's an elaborate package with LP and a 24-page booklet incorporating photos and a four-part family hymnal. I've scanned the booklet and included it in the download.

By the time the package appeared in 1959, the Johnsons had been together for nearly 20 years. They first gained recognition for their radio appearances, and then for their Columbia and RCA Victor recordings. Daughter Betty Johnson became a well-known singer in her own right, scoring a few pop hits in the 1950s.

Seated: Jim, Ma (Lydia); standing: Bob, Kenneth, Pa (Jesse), Betty

Nearly a decade ago, I transferred the group's first RCA album, Old-Time Religion, in its double-EP form. I've now remastered that set, and added to it new dubs of four additional songs that only appeared on the 12-inch LP version. You can find that 1955 album via the original post.

Back then, I remarked about the recording's slick feel. The tendency became even more pronounced on the Sing Hymns LP. The unnamed producer (possibly Chet Atkins) augmented the sound of the five Johnsons with studio singers, presumably so the ensemble would swell like a church choir. Then too, legendary engineer Bill Porter gave his new plate reverb unit a workout in an attempt to impart a more church-like acoustic. The result is not unpleasing, but it also swamps the tight sound of the Johnson family. (Please note that there is a momentary audio burble on the second song that I could not fix.) Note (September 2024): this recording has now been remastered for better sound, including a new transfer for proper stereo on side B.

Although I enjoy both albums (and hope you will as well), I will admit that my favorite Johnson Family song is "You Take Your Road." It is much closer to the approach of the Statesmen or the Blackwood Brothers. I included that single in a collection of RCA gospel sides some eight years ago. The set is still available here.

After Betty became a successful solo artist, Columbia issued a collection of the group's early singles called The Johnson Family Singers Featuring Betty Johnson. I'll try to transfer that set soon.

LINK to Sing Hymns with the Johnson Family Singers

Southern Gospel on RCA

Throughout the early LP era, the major record companies were looking to broaden their business by expanding into genres that had previously been the province of smaller companies - and by borrowing the best material from these genres to provide potential hit songs for their mainstream artists.

Today I'll present a selection of items from the 1956-57 RCA Victor catalogue to illustrate some of the exceptional southern gospel acts that the label had signed in an attempt to broaden its artist roster, and the repertoire they were recording.

Blackwood Brothers

Like many pop genres, many southern gospel songs fit into a limited number of "types," and this first number quickly demonstrates two of them. The first is the upbeat "lesson" song, in this case "The Good Book," which was taken from a Producers' Showcase original television musical called "The Lord Don't Play Favorites," starring Louis Armstrong, Dick Haymes, Buster Keaton, Robert Stack and Kay Starr. (I am not making this up - TV was very different in the 50s.) The quite remarkable performance here is by one of the greatest southern gospel groups - the Blackwood Brothers Quartet. (Read more about their history here.) RCA had signed them as early as 1952, and in 1954 - in a bid to broaden their appeal - placed them on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts TV program, a contest program that the Blackwoods won. The flip side of this record (actually the second song on this promotional EP) was an example of a straight gospel song, "Give Us This Day."

I am very fond of the Blackwood's sound - it's flamboyant and garish, like much pop music since then, but also virtuosic and utterly sincere, unlike much of that same music. I've also included a second single of theirs that combines two songs by one of the best-known writers in the genre, Mosie Lister: "Then I Met the Master" (a famous record) and "The Touch of His Hand."

The Statesmen Quartet

The Blackwood Brothers often toured with the second group I'm presenting here, the Statesmen Quartet with Hovie Lister. That's Hovie, the group's leader and pianist, in the front in the photo at right. (Hovie and Mosie Lister were not related.) Just like the Blackwoods, the Statesmen appeared on (and won) the Talent Scouts program in 1954. They are represented in the playlist by another lesson song, "Practice What You Preach," which features their outstanding bass singer, Jim "Big Chief" Wetherington (far right in the photo). The other Statesmen song is "Brand New Star," a maudlin death song, another common song type. You can read more about the Statesmen here.

When the Statesmen Quartet appeared on Talent Scouts, they performed "This Ole House," a song by Stuart Hamblen, which became a tremendous pop hit in the version by Rosemary Clooney (with a mighty assist by the great bass Thurl Ravenscroft). A former cowboy star and country singer, Hamblen had turned to gospel music after a conversion experience at a 1949 Billy Graham revival on the West Coast - at a time when he was on the country charts with a song called "I'll Go Chasin' Women." Changing his act and life around completely, Hamblen soon had recorded one of his most enduring songs, "It Is No Secret (What God Can Do)" and was on the radio with a program called The Cowboy Church of the Air.

Hamblen at a Graham rally

One of Hamblen's biggest records was not issued under his name - it was "Open Up Your Heart (and Let the Sunshine In)," a 1955 hit for the Cowboy Church Sunday School, essentially the Hamblen family. Hamblen recorded the song at a very slow tempo, then sped up the master to make his daughter, who sang lead, sound much younger. As an extra added item, the download includes the issued version as well as a pitch-corrected version, so you can hear what it should have sounded like without the manipulation. (The original isn't my transfer and the sound isn't that good.)

Open Up Your Heart was a Coral record. Hamblen then moved on to RCA, where he and his family recorded his songs "Dear Lord, Be My Shepherd" and "Beyond the Sun," under their own names. These are the Hamblen selections in today's playlist.

George Beverly Shea

Our next artist also was associated with Billy Graham, and has appeared on this blog before, on the soundtrack LP from Graham's film, Oiltown, U.S.A. He is the beloved baritone, George Beverly Shea, who is heard here in the spiritual "Take My Mother Home" and the song "There's a Time," which was co-written and conducted by Charles Grean, who was an RCA A&R man.

Grean provides the segue to our next artist, the Johnson Family Singers, who have been featured before on this blog. He not only was the manager of Betty Johnson at one time, he was married to her. He also managed Jim Lowe, who wrote the Johnsons' first song in this set, "You Take Your Road," another one of those bouncy lesson songs. (This song contains one of my all-time favorite mixed metaphors - "You take your road and I'll take mine / And we'll all get to heaven at the very same time / The ladder doesn't matter / it's the way that you climb.") The final song in our set is the Johnsons' "May God Be With You."

Like Stuart Hamblen, the Johnsons had their own radio show for quite some time. The download includes examples of both programs.

The sound on these records is fairly good. They all were sourced from RCA's unique promo EPs, like the one depicted at top.

Johnson Family Singers

The Johnson Family Singers

"Each Sunday morning at this time Columbia presents fifteen minutes of hymns and sacred songs with the Johnson Family Singers... a father, mother, and four children. Southern-born, steeped in the tradition of the Deep South, the Johnson Family Singers bring to the well-beloved, familiar songs of Christian people everywhere a sweetness and simplicity of interpretation."

This is the way the Johnson Family Singers were introduced during their radio heyday of the 40s. It gives a bit of the background of this group, captures their style - but the fact that it was being read on one of the major radio networks also conveys that the Johnson Family Singers were a commercial success.

Betty with Ma (Lydia) and Pa (Jesse) Johnson

This 1955 record - one of the group's earliest albums (it may be the first; I'm not sure) - also conveys some of that duality. The record is earnestly presented, but it's also contains several of the most well-worn pop gospel staples. The group is backed by studio musicians, who are quite good but also give the record a slick feel.

If this sounds critical, I don't mean it to be. The Johnson Family Singers are favorites of mine, and they spawned a very good pop singer, Betty Johnson (on the left in the cover photo), who was often seen on American television in the late 1950s and made several excellent albums.

Note: this album has now been remastered and augmented with four additional songs found on the 12-inch LP version. Addendum (September 2024): this LP is now available in ambient stereo via the link below.

LINK to Old Time Religion