The Swan Silvertones - My Rock--Love Lifted Me

A pretty fascinating period in the Swan's history - powerhouse singing from every voice here! The move into pure hard Gospel was inevitable when they came to Specialty and here Jeter's vocal hands here include Paul Owens, Solomon Womack, Dewey Young and the irrepressible Robert Crenshaw. Crenshaw was a short-timer due in part to his tendency to 'go off' a little too easily and to challenge Jeter in the upper registers.

As is always the case when talking about the Swan Silvertones, this is some seriously powerful stuff for your Sunday Gospel Hour.

The Swan Silvertones - Saviour Pass Me Not

Gospel at its best y'all. Enjoy!!

The Best Of King Gospel

Some of these artists we haven't heard from yet, and for those we have - it's a great mix of songs.  Enjoy!!

The expert Opal Louis Nations has selected four tracks each by the leading King gospel groups: the Spirit Of Memphis Quartet, Swan's Silvertone Singers (later the Swan Silvertones), the Nightingales (later the Sensational Nightingales), the Trumpeteers, the Four Internes, and the Cumberland River Singers. These quartet recordings were cut in Gospel's Golden Age, between 1949 and 1953.

In his notes, Nations describes how King boss Syd Nathan dipped his toes gingerly into the spiritual waters after spotting the vast potential for race and hillbilly records from his Cincinnati, Ohio outpost. As the 1940s advanced, Nathan must have been impressed by the success of his fellow independent record men with gospel music, but in the early 50s the market became so competitive that he took a backward step.

While Nathan was involved seriously in gospel, he accepted only the best. Take the quality lead singing of Claude Jeter with the Swans' and Jet Bledsoe with the Spirit Of Memphis. In particular, Bledsoe tears up the house on the 1952 live recording of Lord Jesus. A real highlight is the Cumberland River Singers' heartfelt rendition of I Wonder Who Cares, an anguished plea to congregations to fill empty church pews in the troubled era of the Korean War. The Atomic Telephone is another period gem.

The harmonies of all the groups will delight gospel and, yes, doowop fans everywhere. The sound, from the original masters, is superb.

Opal Louis Nations ends his notes with a personal sermon, which speaks for itself: 'Let us hope, with your help, that this long awaited collection sells well enough to warrant further explorations into the treasures of the mighty King gospel catalogue.'

The Swan Silvertones - Heavenly Light

Another good morning on this fine Sunday! The music here has special impact because 10 of these tracks are clearly recorded In Church as opposed to in a studio - the crowd participation adds a whole extra level of magic.

"The Swan Silvertones were an American gospel music group that achieved popularity in the 1940s and 1950s while led by Claude Jeter. Jeter formed the group in 1938 as the "Four Harmony Kings" while he was working as a coal miner in West Virginia. The group changed its name to the "Silvertone Singers" after moving to Knoxville, Tennessee and obtaining their own radio show in order to avoid confusion with another group known as the "Four Kings of Harmony." They added the name Swan shortly thereafter, since Swan Bakeries sponsored their show. Their wide exposure through radio brought them a contract with King Records.

At that point the Silvertones represented an amalgam of two styles: the close barbershop harmonies that they had featured when starting out in West Virginia and virtuoso leads supplied by Jeter and Solomon Womack. The group later lost Womack, but added Paul Owens in 1952 and Louis Johnson in 1955. The three singers with their sharply contrasting styles — Jeter a tenor who could sing falsetto without losing his lyric control, Owens a crooner, and Johnson a hard shouter — played off each other to great effect in songs such as "Mary Don't You Weep."

The group recorded for Specialty Records from 1951 to 1955, when it switched to Vee-Jay Records. They recorded one album with Hob Records after Vee-Jay shut down in 1965, at which point Jeter left the group for the ministry.

When interviewed by Dick Cavet in April 1970, Paul Simon credited the group with inspiring him to write the music for Bridge Over Troubled Water.

The Swan Silvertones were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002.

In January 2011, the Swan Silvertones were nominated for The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards in the Gospel category for Need More Love."

"The Swan Silvertones only recorded for Specialty Records from 1952 until 1955, and it's generally not considered a prime period in their tenure. But this set of newly released performances from the early '50s, most of which even the label lacks information about, show that they did turn in some top-flight outings during that period. Ten of the tracks were done live before hollering, celebrating audiences that weren't attending a concert, but participating in a spiritual renewal. The other eight are studio numbers, but they contain the same intensity and spark that make this a memorable Swan Silvertones document."