The Golden Jubilees & The Gospel Christian Singers

More digging back into the tape vault posts.

We are once again deep into Unky Cliff's Gospel tape stash with a double offering. First up are the wonderful Golden Jubilees and their glorious bass singer Joshua Hankinson. This tape series has really opened my ears to the Jubilee Quartet tradition that preceded the 'Hard Gospel' Quartets like the Soul Stirrers. One thing that seems to be true in this singing tradition as opposed to hard gospel is that it is not so hard on the singers physically and so they seem to enjoy greater longevity.  The second offering today is a perfect example of that, I don't think that any member of the Gospel Christian Singers is younger than 75 years old and yet their harmonies are still sweet.

The Badgett Sisters - Just A Little While To Stay Here

I posted a bunch of these tape rips more than 3 years ago, but many of the current folks would have missed them.

The Badgett Sisters are an American folk and gospel group from Yanceyville in Caswell County, North Carolina, and recipients of a 1990 North Carolina Heritage Award. The trio began singing together in 1933 and consisted of sisters Celester, Connie, and Cleonia Badgett.

Under their father's tutelage, the Badgett Sisters learned to sing spirituals, hymns, and gospel songs in the jubilee style, a form of unaccompanied close harmony learned from their father, Cortelyou Odell Badgett (1905-1978). They sing in the jubilee style, a form popular in the 1930s and 1940s. The Badgett Sisters began performing at the ages of 4-6. All of the Badgetts' arrangements are original.

Having performed around the world, the Badgett Sisters traveled as far as Australia and performed at Carnegie Hall. wiki

Little Buster & The Soul Brothers - Right On Time!

"Little Buster (September 28, 1942 – May 11, 2006) was an American soul and blues musician. He was born sighted, but developed glaucoma at age of three. By the time his vision was completely gone, he was fluent on six instruments, including the guitar. Born in Hertford, North Carolina, he moved to Westbury, Long Island at age sixteen. His first professional gig was at the Brooklyn Paramount, where he was a back-up guitarist for Alan Freed's Rock and Roll shows. He also became a regular at Long Island clubs.

In 1961, Buster composed his first original song "Looking For a Home" while living in Glen Cove. First recorded on Josie/Jubilee after winning a talent contest at Harlem's Apollo Theater in 1964, Buster released "Looking For a Home". He recorded a series of singles there, including his biggest hit in 1968, Doc Pomus' "Young Boy Blues". Buster's last single with Josie was "City of Blues" / "Cry Me a River". His singles and several new compositions were compiled for the 1970 album, Looking For a Home that was finally released by the UK label Sequel in 1997.

Buster changed his focus, concentrating on live blues with his band, The Soul Brothers. Buster married his wife, Mary, in 1969.

In 1995, Buster recorded his Bullseye release, Right On Time. This release brought him worldwide exposure, with a W.C. Handy Award nomination, and a runner-up award for Living Blues magazine's Critics' Award. His 2000 CD Work Your Show opened up mass media exposure via CBS This Morning, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Late Show with David Letterman, on Dan Aykroyd's House of Blues Hour, international music festivals, and articles in Juke Blues, Backyard Blues and 20th Century Guitar magazines.

In 2000, Buster began his own label with friends Steve Kleinberg and Ayanna Hobson, where he released his final CD, Little Buster and the Soul Brothers, Live Volume One. His band consisted of himself on guitar and vocals, Jerry Harshaw on saxophone, Frank Anstiss on drums, Alan Levy on bass and Robert Schlesinger on keyboards. As Andy Breslau said in the liner notes for Right On Time,

    "Edward 'Little Buster' Forehand is a sublimely talented soul singer, a tough blues guitarist and a sure-handed songwriter with a knack for making rhythm and blues songs that evoke the classic 1960s sound. As one of New York's great undiscovered treasures, Buster has played the Long Island club circuit for over four decades."

During four decades many musicians honed their skills in Buster's band. These included Lee Vaughn on saxophone, Val and Cousin Brucie on bass guitar, Lionel Cordew on drums, Jonathan Kampner on drums, Eileen Murphy on drums (now with the Borinquen Blues Band), Chris Candida on drums, Ed Hoey on percussion, Gene Cordew on keyboards, Roast Beef Joe on keyboards, and guitarists Scott Ross, and Stevie Cochran.

In 2004, Little Buster suffered from a series of strokes. In May 2006, he died as a result of complications from those strokes and diabetes. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Long Island Blues Society in 2002 for his efforts on behalf of music. He was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006."

The Menhaden Chanteymen - Won't You Help Me To Raise 'em

Exploring Blues, Gospel, and Southern Soul are certainly not a unique focus to this blog, others out there have done and are still doing fine work. I doubt, however, that many places have explored the Work Songs, an oft mentioned, yet seldom heard musical tradition that is another key building block in the development of Black music in America.

Unky Cliff's Library of Congress tape stash includes a couple of jaw dropping field recordings you simply have to hear, even if it isn't necessarily something you need to keep.

Recorded in 1989 at St. Paul Episcopal Church in Beaufort, the dozen songs on this cassette are traditional work songs of a coastal Carolina menhaden fishery. The Menhaden Chanteymen are recipients of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award.

I'm Gonna Roll Here; Help Me to Raise 'em; My Way Seems So Hard; Mule on the Mountain; Going Back to Weldon;Sweet Rosie Anna; Lazarus; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; Drinking of the Wine; I Wish I Was Single Again; Mama Liza Jane; Remember Me.


The Menhaden Chanteymen are a group of retired African American fishermen who previously worked off the coast near Beaufort. The group, during their working years, used singing to synchronize the pulling of their nets of menhaden, or shad. A leader sang out the first line of the song alone, to be answered with another line sung in harmony by the rest of the crew. The songs derived from many sources, including hymns and gospel songs, blues, and barbershop quartet songs, and they were often improvised.

In 1988 folklorists Michael and Deborah Luster, hired by the North Carolina Arts Council to survey the folk culture of Carteret County, arranged a gathering of about a dozen retired coastal fishermen. Beaufort blues singer and guitarist Richard "Big Boy" Henry, who worked for a time as a menhaden fisherman, helped the Lusters organize the event. Although they had not sung together in more than 30 years, the men recollected their songs almost effortlessly when they began to pantomime the action of working the net.

That year the ex-fishermen performed at a public event sponsored by the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. Since then the group, officially named the Menhaden Chanteymen, has performed for the North Carolina General Assembly and the National Council on the Arts. They have also appeared at New York City's Carnegie Hall and on national television and radio. In 1990 the Menhaden Chanteymen recorded a collection of maritime work songs, Won't You Help Me to Raise 'Em: Authentic Net Hauling Songs from an African-American Fishery, for Global Village Music.