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FOLKLIFE FOLKLIFE
ASSOCIATION
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Reprinted from
Rejoice! Magazine Winter 1990, used by permission.
The Kings of Harmony are a legendary hard gospel quartet out of Birmingham, Alabama, whose history shows a link in the gradual change from jubilee and harmony singing to the singing of hard gospel with its more emotional appeal. Largely due to the efforts of Doug Seroff, the Birmingham quartet scene has been well documented. Birmingham was a major center for a cappella gospel quartet singing from the '20s to the'50s. Since members of the Kings of Harmony hadn't been located until recently, only a few cursory bits of information about their career have been published so far. Recent interviews with several members of the group by the author and other researchers finally allow a detailed history of this important group. Birmingham was a particularly vibrant scene for community-based quartets in the '20s and '30s. At a time when almost no black quartets in places like Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Nashville, Cleveland, or Cincinnati were recorded, an unusual number of groups from Birmingham caught the notice of major labels and were recorded. From this vibrant scene came a group of youngsters who made a name for themselves. The Kings of Harmony were formed in 1929 and first known as the BYPU Specials. The Baptist Young Peoples Union (BYPU) was the name of the youth groups in the Baptist churches. The original members were four teenagers who were all from the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Birmingham. They were William Turner, lead, Pete Lowry, tenor, Walter Lattimore, baritone, and William Morgan, bass. All grew up in the same neighborhood on the south side of Birmingham. All were originally from Birmingham except William Turner who was born in New Orleans but moved to Birmingham at an early age. Morgan was the oldest, being 19 when the group formed. He had already had experience singing bass with an older group, the Jolly Four of Bessemer. After a lengthy period of rehearsals, the group began appearing in public. They were trained initially by Professor Wylie who had also served as a trainer for the Birmingham Jubilees, who were an important touring group by this time. On Sundays, they used to go from one BYPU church meeting to another at various churches in and around Birmingham. The BYPU Specials quickly built a reputation as being one of the best teenage quartets in town. Birmingham was already in full flowering of one of the greatest explosions of superior gospel quartets at the end of the'20s. The Birmingham Jubilees and the Dunham Jubilees had already taken to the road as professionals, made numerous records and developed notable reputations. The new rising star among quartets at the time was the Famous Blue Jay Singers with their great lead singer Silas Steele. The Blue Jays took the BYPU Specials under their wing. They traveled and did programs together. The BYPUs stayed together around Birmingham from 1929 to 1933, traveling locally, contesting with other groups, and getting better and better. Son Dunham, the leader and great trainer for the Dunham Jubilee Singers, married Bill Morgan's mother in 1928 and spent a lot of time working with his stepson's group. Dunham, still remembered as a fine singer, is also recalled as an even greater trainer and arranger. The group acquired a business manager in Henry Thornton. Finally on July 1, 1933, they ventured out as a professional group, taking to the road to make their living singing. The group went up through Tennessee, into Kentucky and then to West Virginia where they met the Dixie Hummingbirds. Bill Morgan recalls: "That was in Cleveland, Tennessee, when we run up on them. From Greenville, South Carolina, they left home the same day we left home and we didn't even know each other. In Cleveland, Tennessee, we got together and we traveled all over Tennessee and West Virginia. All the way into Philadelphia together. "When we met them we were the jubilee type but we sang a lot of music chords and stuff-but only gospel. We were the only gospel quartet on the road. People don't understand this. We used to sing. We even would sing jazz then to make some money because money was hard to get. "When you heard the Dixie Hummingbirds it was just like hearing a pipe organ play. That's how close they were. Then after we started traveling together, they started singing jubilee, then gospel. They were a very fine group." The coal mining fields of West Virginia were a very fertile ground for performances for groups from Birmingham, like the Blue Jays and BYPU Specials, as well as such South Carolina groups as the Heavenly Gospel Singers and the Dixie Hummingbirds. For several years in the '30s,the Kings of Harmony spent a lot of time in West Virginia. Again, Bill Morgan recalls: "We were working in all the coal mining towns. We worked all over West Virginia and Virginia. We were staying in Welch, West Virginia, at the time." With Welch as their headquarters, the group went from mining camp to mining camp presenting programs. The good employment in the mines and lack of other entertainment made West Virginia favorite stomping grounds for quartets. In 1934, the BYPU Specials "won" their name, the Kings of Harmony.
When the group got to Philadelphia, there was a contest at radio station WCAU and BYPU Specials won out against five other groups to take the title of "Kings of Harmony." The group took the title as their name and they used it after that time. The membership of the group remained the same as they continued to travel until the addition of utility songster William Ed Lewis, in 1936. Lewis had been raised in Townly, Alabama, did various things as he wandered around and ended up in Caples, West Virginia, as a coal miner and singer with a local quartet, the Evening Light Singers. A mining accident left him disabled but available when the Kings of Harmony came to town. He joined the group as utility singer, filling in wherever he was needed. Meanwhile, Thornton dropped out as manager and these tasks were taken up by lead singer William Turner. They did an extensive tour of the South that ended with the group resettling in Houston. Lewis recalls the path the group traced across the South: "We left Caples in May. We went round through Roanoke. From Roanoke, we went through Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We left Winston-Salem and we went to Charlotte. We were in Charlotte when Joe Lewis fought. Anyway, we left Charlotte and went to Durham. From Durham, we went to the big furniture company, Bassett Furniture Company [a company town]. We left there and we came back to Birmingham. We left Birmingham and went to Tupelo, Mississippi. From [there] we went to Memphis, Tennessee. We came back to Birmingham and went to Louisiana . . . . We left Monroe and we went to Jonesboro. From Jonesboro, we came to Houston. We worked out Houston and we worked all of Texas, Dallas, the little towns around Dallas; Waco. . . but we headquarters out of Houston." During this period the Kings of Harmony started using the song which would become their theme song, Have You Any Time For Jesus. Bill Morgan remembers it well: "We picked that up in '36 . . . . We got that out of the songbook, The Gospel Pearls. But we arranged it off of the Mills Brothers', Good Bye Blues. I mean it went over big. They knew us by that song.' The Kings of Harmony took Houston by storm when they arrived. Houston was already the home of what would become two of the great Texas quartets --- the Soul Stirrers and the Pilgrim Travelers. However, none of the local groups could approach the excitement the Kings of Harmony generated on their arrival. They had a different sound and it was soon the subject of widespread imitation. In addition to traveling all over the state, the group got a big break by being asked to work on local radio. "We used to sing at the Wright Hotel. Like on practically every holiday we had a standing engagement at the Wright Hotel, that all-white hotel there. That's how we got on the radio, through them." They had a radio program that went on at two a.m. At this improbable hour, people would wake up, having set their alarms to listen to the group. Other quartet singers from Houston remember these broadcasts vividly as some of the greatest quartet singing they ever heard. Financially, the group was doing well, too, at this point and for a period of time even opened the Kings of Harmony Restaurant which Ed Lewis managed for the group. Eventually, the group decided to go to greener pastures and left Houston in 1938. Returning to Houston, they hooked up with another great lead singer, Carey Bradley. Bradley was born in Mobile but his father moved the family to Bessemer to work for the Tennessee Coal Iron and Coke Company when Bradley was six. He met Walter Lattimore the first day of school and remained friends and knew all of the BYPU Specials as he grew up. Bradley got his start with the Dolomite Big Four while he was in high school. Immediately thereafter, the group traveled around Birmingham and then moved to Lynch, Kentucky. As they continued to improve, they got to be professionals going to Nashville and doing a radio job there for a period of time and then settling in Chicago. They didn't last long there and the group broke up. In 1938, the Kings of Harmony picked Bradley up and he went with the group but only for a few months. Not satisfied with just being a fill-in and not getting to sing much behind Turner, Bradley left the group and went back to Chicago. There he acted as the manager for Boze Music Publishing for a few years, singing solos at the church conventions, promoting new songs for the company, and doing some writing himself. The Kings of Harmony continued on the road and shortly moved to Cleveland. It was there that Bradley received the call to come back to the group and he began to take over the arranging duties. As a result, the sound began to change. "Turner he liked the jubilee type style of singing. . . a little bit like the [Golden Gates]. You know, fast paced. Most of the time, when they did try to do a little gospel, Turner wasn't doing the lead. Lattimore, the baritone singer, they would switch off and Lat would do the lead. But after I came we reverted more to harmony and to the gospel style of singing." Also during this time, Eugene Strong joined the group as a baritone singer. Strong, from Birmingham, had grown up with the other members of the Kings of Harmony and was well known to them. Strong had previously sung with Bradley in the Dolomite Big Four and could sing both baritone and bass but sang baritone as Lattimore took more and more leads. Marion Thompson, a local Cleveland tenor, also joined the group around this time. By early 1942, the Kings of Harmony were clearly the leading quartet in Cleveland, getting extensive media coverage in the black paper there, the Cleveland Call and Post. In March 1942, they set attendance records for the second time at the Cleveland Coliseum with a crowd of more than 3,500. Turner was doing more promoting and managing than singing at this point. By April of that year, he was also managing a young group called the Six Wonders. Having problems with his health, he left the Kings of Harmony and settled permanently in Cleveland, buying a store and getting into politics. He continued actively in the gospel field for many years, both promoting gospel programs and directing a mixed choral group called the Turner Gospel Singers into the early '50s. In February 1943, an article in the Cleveland Call and Post listed Walter Lattimore as the manager of the group and noted they were just back from a tour that had taken them to "Hot Springs, Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, St. Louis, Kansas City, Missouri, and to Chicago." In Cleveland, the Kings of Harmony started a series of "Victory" programs in celebration of their success. The same paper on March 20, 1943, reported the outcome of one of these programs: "During the program last Sunday night at Radio church Mr. Carey Bradley, tenor-baritone of the famous Kings of Harmony, became over-heated while singing with his group, God [Shall] Wipe [All Tears Away] and was carried off the floor by spectators. After several hectic moments he revived, but was too weak from his experience to continue." It was a shock to the group as Bill Morgan recalls: "He sung so hard. He put his whole soul and body in it. We thought he was gone." The next week the newspaper reported the addition of new lead Calvin Collins, formerly of the Evangelist Singers (also known as the Detroiters), brought in, perhaps, to relieve the hard singing that was driving Bradley to exhaustion. However, Collins didn't stay very long. This seemed to be the start of a period of a great deal of flux in group membership. By the summer of 1943, the Cleveland paper was reporting that Lattimore was preaching his first trial sermon. Lattimore continued to preach and was soon ordained in Cleveland. As a result, Bradley became president of the group and took over more and more duties as musical director of the group. At this point, the Kings of Harmony were also in the process of shifting their base of operations to New York City and putting a new emphasis on that part of the country for their touring. To Bradley, the great achievement o f the Kings of Harmony was to bring hard gospel singing to the East Coast at a time when the lighter jubilee singing styles of the Golden Gates, Norfolk Jubilees, and Selah Jubilees held principal sway. Lattimore arranged in November 1944 for the group to do their first recording session. Doug Seroff concludes, "Unfortunately like many other hard gospel groups, they never managed to master microphone technique and consequently their records do not measure up to the reports one hears of their live performances." Their six recordings for Manor records are all fine evocations of hard gospel singing-no compromises to special effects, nothing to offset their intensity and, yet, this one session in the studio seems to give us a very insufficient chance to hear this important group. This was a time when hard gospel singers were turning out churches. Bradley notes this phenomenon: "It wouldn't be just one particular group, on any given day, just like you say in a football game, on any given day one team could beat another. And, of course, I've seen the time that the Soul Stirrers have really dumped the house on top of us, and we didn't even get a chance to sing, you know what I mean? Because they did it so bad until people figured that whoever comes up behind them ain't gonna do no better. We've gotten what we came for. That was what the public came to see; who was going to break the house up. That was really the drawing card. If you had two or three good groups on there, they really came to see which group was going to break the house up; that was it." The emotional power and intensity of this type of singing was partially a result of its physical intensity and the strain it held for the singers. This is reflected in Bradley having to be carried off stage and other singers mentioning that they sang so hard they gave themselves a nosebleed. The level of competition between the top gospel groups was quite intense at this time. "Every time I went for the day. That was not only me, that was the feeling of the whole group. Because, you know, when you became real popular for something it keeps the pressure on .... Therefore, each performance the pressure builds for you to try to hold on to your reputation or establish it higher. So this is what you feed on." The Kings of Harmony traveled and toured with the best quartets of the time. "You take like the Spirit of Memphis, the Kings, the Soul Stirrers, the Pilgrim Travelers, then there was the Flying Clouds out of Detroit. We used to run what we called the AllStar Program. One Sunday we would have it in Detroit, the next Sunday we would have it in Chicago, another Sunday we would have it in Cleveland, it would go around like this. You couldn't get in there." Despite a single recording session, the Kings of Harmony were one of the most respected and most impressive groups at that time. By 1945, the Kings of Harmony had been a professional touring group for over a decade and the pressures and tensions of life on the road led to further splits. Reverend Lattimore was spending more time preaching and running revivals. Over some rift, he left the group and toured for at least a brief period with the Pilgrim Travelers. With Lattimore gone, the Kings of Harmony, more than ever before, was Carey Bradley's group. About that time, bass singer Bill Morgan who had married and settled in New York, decided to give up life on the road and quit the group. Shortly thereafter, Pete Lowry also quit. While with the Pilgrim Travelers, out in Hollywood, Reverend Lattimore also recorded his noted sermon Eagle Stirs His Nest. Joe Johnson, manager of the Pilgrim Travelers, remembers this being very popular. While in California, Lattimore also worked closely with the Paramounts and Rising Stars, the leading quartets in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tiny Powell remembered Lattimore talking of taking over the management of the Paramounts at this time and making them a nationally-known group. Regrettably, all of these possibilities were tragically cut short when Walter Lattimore was killed in a car accident in Texas. He died December 23 or 24,1948. By 1946, none of the original singers remained in the Kings of Harmony. Bradley and Strong were still giving the group its Birmingham style of singing but new singers from all over were brought in. The first replacement for bass Bill Morgan was a former Alabama singer Isaac "Dickie" Freeman. He had been trained by his uncle, Jessie Thompson, the leader of the Bessemer Big Four and sang with the Volunteer Four around John, Alabama. Freeman moved to Cleveland to live with his father during high school and he sang there with the Gospel Tones. Still a teenager, he was picked up by the Kings of Harmony in Cleveland and started his long career as a professional quartet singer. It was with them that he started doing bass features on songs like Preaching the Word of God, Don't Drive Your Children Away, and the song that would later be a trademark song for him with the Fairfield Four, Tree of Level. Freeman stayed with the Kings of Harmony for about 18 months before the Fairfield Four made him a much better financial offer, taking him away right before a big program in Birmingham between the Kings and the Fairfield Four. Bradley replaced him with George McCurn out of Chicago who stayed with the group for several months before singing with a West Coast group called the Golden Harps. McCurn also later went with the Fairfield Four for a period before joining the Pilgrim Travelers. Bradley had a couple of other bassers for short periods. Occasionally, Bill Morgan would come out of retirement to sing with the group. The late '40s found the Kings of Harmony still a well-known name singing in a hard gospel style. As Bradley puts it: "See, we could sing the harmony, we could sing the spirituals, we could sing the jute, and then we could sing gospel. And gospel is the thing that has to be sung with a feeling. So they called the Kings the "housewreckers." Most of the time if we were on the program with a group they all wanted to sing before they let us sing. Because they figured if they didn't, they [wasn't] going to get a chance." Bradley got Charlie Colvert, a short but powerful "spiritual" lead singer from Chicago who sang with the group during this period with McCurn as bass. Sonny McLocklin was the tenor singer at this time. He had been picked up from a group in High Point, North Carolina, and sang high tenor or lead in a style reminiscent of Claude Jeter. This lineup of singers stayed together for a few years of active touring. They made it to the West Coast can a tour booked by the Pilgrim Travelers. By the early '50s, the Kings of Harmony had gone through further major personnel changes and, except for Eugene Strong, all of the late '40s singers had been replaced. Morgan was again in retirement and Bradley had gone on to sing and tour with the Trumpeteers. This new group was managed and musically directed by Pop Strong. The double leads were Willie Morganfield and Walter Bugett. Both singers had come out of northern Mississippi and sang with a legendary group from Clarksdale, Mississippi, the Glorybound Gospel Singers. They were recruited from that group in 1946 by a group called the Soproco Singers, also known as the New Orleans Chosen Five. 1n about 1948, the Kings of Harmony came through New Orleans and recruited Walter Bugett. About one year later, Willie Morganfield joined the group. By this time, Bradley was doing less and less lead singing and kept to managing the group. He finally left the group around 1950 and turned the managing and arranging duties over to Pop Strong. According to Walter Bugett, Strong was a perfectionist who kept the singers in daily rehearsals to keep the harmonies tight and he would choose and arrange songs for the group. Walter Bugett noted, "We had to be there for daily rehearsals or if you missed it, you didn't get paid that night." Despite fairly regular personnel changes, this kind of dedication was important for the kind of quality singing associated with the Kings of Harmony. Willie Morganfield stayed with the group until he was drafted into the Army in October, 1950. Other singers were added at this time. James Williams replaced Morganfield, Lee Ingram came in on tenor with Sonny McLocklin's departure, and Norman Spann came in on bass. Williams was also a minister and acted as the group's manager. Norman Spann, who died recently, was the brother of Thomas Spann, long time bass and manager for the Brooklyn All Stars. Spann and Ingram had both been picked up in New York City after the break up, in the early '50s, of a group called the jubilee All Stars. In 1952, this edition of the Kings of Harmony recorded one session for the newly formed Tuxedo Record label. At the label's request, selections were recorded with a jazz singer named Phyllis Branch, who had also signed with the label at the time, doing the lead. The only time the group ever performed with her was a benefit at the Apollo Theater shortly after the record was recorded. The show included George Shearing and the Ink Spots. Branch came on to do some jazz tunes and then the Kings of Harmony were brought out to accompany her on the song they had just recorded. Regrettably, these recordings don't show the group at its peak and within another couple years one of the great traveling quartets in gospel disbanded. The money had been dwindling, the styles changing and, finally, the group gave up the ghost. In the late '50s and early '60s, Bill Morgan started to do some informal singing as the Kings of Harmony. Eventually, he got still another reincarnation of the group together to tour. It consisted of Dan Elliot (lead, piano, and guitar), Booker T. Crosby (second lead), John Brockington (tenor), Harold Wynn (baritone), and Morgan (still singing bass and acting as manager). The lead singer, Booker Crosby, was an experienced singer from the National Clouds of Joy. They toured for a while, did a bit of recording, but never got a record out. After a few tours, this final edition of the Kings also stopped performing. The Kings of Harmony's long history showed changing styles and the build-up and wane in popularity of a classic a capella quartet. They are one of the missing links that further shows the widespread dissemination of singers and styles coming out of Jefferson County, Alabama, that had a profound effect on black vocal harmony and gospel singing in the middle of this century. This article is based on interviews from 1982 to 1985 by Lynn Abbott, Doug Seroff, and the author with Carey Bradley, Walter Bugett, Isaac Freeman, Lee Ingram, Bill Morgan, and Willie Morganfield. My thanks to all of them. Thanks also to Bob Laughton and Cedric Hayes for discographic information.
Discography Kings of Harmony of Alabama Walter Lattimore, lead; Carey Bradley,
lead; Marion Thompson, tenor; Eugene Strong, baritone; Bill Morgan,
bass. New York City, December 1944 or January 1945. Reverend Lattimore Walter Lattimore with congregation; 1 unnac. -2 pno. c.1951 229 Eagle Stirs His Nest, Elko
917 Kings of Harmony with Phyllis Branch Phyllis Branch; lead -1; Walter Bugett-lead 2; James Williams- lead; Eugene Strong-baritone; Lee lngram tenor; Norman Spann - bass. 1952 T2500 Little Old Bible of Mine
-1, Tuxedo 883 National Kings of Harmony Dan Elliot - lead; Booker T. Crosby - second lead; Harold Wynn - baritone; John Brockington - tenor, Bill Morgan - bass. c. 1957 Cleveland, WLIV Lord Remember Me, Gospel
Heritage LP HT 316 The Birmingham Quartet Anthology (Clanka Lanka 144,000/001), a two record set released in Sweden in 1980, remains the best introduction to the classic quartet music that came out of Birmingham. All of My Appointed Time (Stash ST-114) is an excellent general gospel anthology with one side of quartet material and the other of female soloists. OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST REGARDING BIRMINGHAM QUARTETS
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