The Chuck
Wagon Gang
It is little
short of amazing that a singing group like the Chuck
Wagon Gang could be around for over sixty years without
changing its sound, but that is what this great group of
country gospel singers has done. At one point, the
Chuck Wagon Gang was the second highest selling artist
for Columbia Records. During their recording years,
they sold over 40 million records.
By the late 1970s, the group was still touring but felt
a lack of support from the label they had recorded for
during the previous forty-one years. Columbia had
stopped servicing their songs to radio; thus airplay
had become non-existent. Roy and Ruth Ellen Carter
talked about it. They asked each other the question:
“What can we do to rebuild what Daddy started?” That
became the aim: not to make money, but to truly dedicate
themselves to rebuilding the group to the strongest
position it had enjoyed in years past.
It was at this point starting in 1979 that they began recording for
Copperfield Records for several years. After
pulling all product from the marketplace in 1999,
Copperfield re-launched its Imprint label and started
releasing a 17-album catalog of the Chuck Wagon Gang
product to the mainstream marketplace through
CBUj
Distribution in Nashville, TN. The first releases were TWO never-before-released CHRISTMAS CDS at retail along with the
GREATEST HITS, VOLUME ONE CD.
The Chuck Wagon Gang are best remembered as a close
harmony country gospel quartet. The original lineup was
D. P. 'Dad' Carter, baritone (b 28 Sep. 1889, near
Columbia KY; d 28 April 1963); Ernest 'Jim' Carter, bass
(b 10 August 10, Sherman TX; d February 1971); Rose
Carter, soprano (b 31 Dec., Altus OK); Anna Carter, alto
(b 15 Feb., Shannon TX). Dad and Carrie Carter met in a
singing school and had nine children; the group was
formed in Bledsoe, TX to help make ends meet, debuted
1935 on KFYO Lubbock as the Carter Quartet (no relation
to the famous Carter Family of Virginia). Within a year
they had switched to WBAP in Fort Worth, one of the most
powerful in the state, taking the name of a western band
that had left the station. They were heard five days a
week for 15 years, with minor disruptions during WWII;
Art Satherley began recording them in 1936 on American
Record Company labels, then Columbia after ARC was taken
over by CBS 1938.
Their
earliest broadcasts and first two recording sessions
included secular songs, but the gospel singing was so
popular that it took over exclusively. They recorded 408
selections in 40 years; when their sponsor offered
photos of the group in exchange for coupons from flour
sacks, 100,000 were requested; in 1955 they received a
gold disc for 'I'll Shout And Shine' and were named the
top US gospel group by the National Disc Jockey
Association. Dad played mandolin on early secular
recordings; otherwise Jim's acoustic guitar was the only
accompaniment until '54, when Jim was replaced by
younger brother Roy Carter (b 1 March 1926, Calumet OK)
and a discreet electric guitar was played by Anna's
husband, Howard Gordon (b 30 May 1916, Denton TX; d 3
October 1967). Dad retired 1956, replaced by yet another
son, Eddie, who was not full-time after 1957, replaced
by the first non-family member, Pat McKeehan. Dad's last
records were also the last made in Texas; all the rest
were made in Nashville.
They began playing concerts outside Texas late 1940s,
encouraged by Rev. J. Bazzal Mull, a blind Baptist
minister and broadcaster who sold carloads of their
records through the post; in later years Nashville
session players such as Grady Martin and Harold Bradley
were used on records. Other singers included Haskell
Mitchell, Jim Waits, Howard Welborn, Jim Wesson, Ronnie
Crittendon. They appeared on TV in the 1960s, sang over
the years on the Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana
Hayride; in 1966 at Carnegie Hall, Florida's Gator Bowl
and the Hollywood Bowl; they appeared in film Sing A
Song For Heaven's Sake 1967. Rose retired 1966; Anna led
a group 1968 with her daughter Vickie, son Craig, Jim
Black singing bass, but married Jimmie Davis late that
year and subsequently sang in his trio. The group still
occasionally appeared mid-1980s with Roy and the
youngest Carter sisters Ruth Ellen and Betty, Ron Page
singing bass. Their style never changed: pure Southern
rural 'shape- note' singing (see Gospel music), with
beautiful harmony found in the songs themselves; they
were unusual in the genre in using female lead voices,
and voices of rare liquid beauty at that.
A compilation
in Columbia's Historical Series, available from the
Country Music Foundation, includes tracks from '36--60:
two secular songs from '36--7, 'He Set Me Free' '41
(written by Albert E. Brumley and said to have been the
model for 'I Saw The Light', by Hank Williams), 'When I
Thank Him For What He Has Done' '60 (also by Brumley),
and favorites such as 'We Are Climbing', 'After The
Sunrise', etc. and 'The Church In The Wildwood' '36,
more beautiful (and better recorded) than the other
Carter Family's version of four years earlier. "Later
recordings on the Copperfield label were the best ever",
stated Roy Carter and sister, Ruth Ellen.
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