Within the realm of Soul and Gospel, Rebert Harris occupies a position slightly analogous to Louis Armstrong in Jazz. Not quite as huge because while Pops wrote the language that Everyone used in both solos and singing, Harris is responsible for creating the archetype that Men sing by for many years after in both Gospel and later Soul. The Women's side had already been pioneered by Mahalia Jackson and Rosetta Tharpe but Rebert was the first man to show them how to solo.
The Soul Stirrers are an American gospel music group, whose career spans over eighty years. The group was a pioneer in the development of the quartet style of gospel, and a major influence of soul music, doo wop, and motown sound, some of the secular music that owed much to gospel.
The group was formed by Roy Crain, who had launched his first quartet, which sang in a jubilee style, in 1926 in Trinity, Texas. In the early 1930s, after Crain moved to Houston, he joined an existing group on the condition that it change its name to "the Soul Stirrers." The name "Soul Stirrers" yields from the description of one of Roy Crain's earlier quartets as "soul-stirring". Among the members of that group was R. H. Harris, who soon became its musical leader. The Soul Stirrers formed as a Jubilee quartet, transformed their sound, influenced by many hard gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Rebert Harris, also from Trinity, Texas, brought several changes to the Soul Stirrers that affected gospel quartet singing generally. He used a falsetto style that had its antecedents in African music, but which was new to the popular jubilee singing style of the time. He pioneered the "swing lead", in which two singers would share the job of leading the song, allowing virtuoso singers to increase the emotional intensity of the song as the lead passed between them without disturbing the four part harmony. That innovation led the Soul Stirrers, while still called a quartet, to acquire five members; later groups would have as many as seven but still consider themselves "quartets", which referred more to their style than their number.
The Soul Stirrers made other important changes in those years: ad-libbing lyrics, singing in delayed time, and repeating words in the background as both a rhythmic and emotional support for the lead singers. The Soul Stirrers along with other quartet performers, dropped the "flatfooted" style of jubilee quartets before them and expanded their repertoire from spirituals and traditional hymns to the newer gospel compositions. The group also loosened the rigid arrangements that jubilee quartets had favored to permit individual singers within the group more space for individual development.
In 1936 Alan Lomax recorded the Soul Stirrers for the Library of Congress's American music project under the Aladdin Record label. They later moved to Chicago, where they broadcast a weekly radio show (WIND) with other famous groups including Golden Gate Quartet, and The Famous Blue Jay Singers. As the gospel quartet style of singing became more popular, groups would perform in competitions called "song battles" to further increase the genre's popularity.
As World War II began, it became more difficult for many gospel quartet groups to make a living. This resulted in many quartets making a living by doing "live performances at churches, schools and neighborhood centers," (Rubin). Despite the economic situation, throughout the 40's and leading into the 50's, many gospel quartet groups were able to pursue their careers successfully. The Soul Stirrer's nationwide touring gained them an even larger audience, as they delivered the emotional fervor that popular jubilee groups, such as The Golden Gate Quartet, did not.
The Soul Stirrers signed with Specialty Records, where they recorded a number of tracks, including "By and By" and "In that Awful Hour". Harris, the most popular member of the group, soon quit, however, in order to form a new group. He was briefly replaced on lead by Paul Foster, then by the unknown Sam Cooke.
