Where Can You Order Cds For The Chuck Wagon Gang Youtube

The Chuck Wagon Gang, a land gospel act with a long history, recorded its first sides for Columbia Records 79 years agone this calendar month and released its latest album last year.

The group has sold twoscore 1000000 records and influenced numerous country stars, including Connie Smith, Ray Price, Merle Haggard, Jean Shepard and Marty Stuart, who grew upwards listening to the Chuck Wagon Gang on the radio with his grandfather.

"In that location are two kinds of singers: those that sing at you lot and those that sing to you," Stuart explained. "That group sang to me from the first time I ever heard them. I saw the expect of perfect peace on my grandpa's face when he listened to them. I went, 'Oh, that's gospel music. That's how it's supposed to be.' "

The group'south story, which will exist celebrated on WNPT at vii p.g. Saturday in the documentary "The Chuck Railroad vehicle Gang: America's Gospel Singers," began out of desperation.

David and Carrie Carter worked equally itinerant farmers during the early 1930s, scraping together a meager living in West Texas. When the day's work was done, they'd teach their ix children the basics of music and harmony singing. The family would sing sacred songs and cowboy ballads on the porch each nighttime for their boyfriend farmhands, who could only be seen in the darkness by the glowing red ends of their cigarettes.

When their daughter Effie got sick, the Carters (no relation to the Carter Family of "Keep On the Sunny Side" fame) couldn't afford her medication, so they fell dorsum on the simply other matter they knew how to do: singing. David Carter and two of his eldest children, Ernest and Rose, auditioned for a daily, 15-infinitesimal fourth dimension slot on a Lubbock radio station. They got the job and their first week'due south wages ($12.fifty) in advance. When Effie recovered, she joined the family unit ring, and the trio became the Carter Quartet.

A year later, they moved to Fort Worth for a job on WBAP. They were renamed the Chuck Railroad vehicle Gang, and members each got their ain radio-friendly pseudonym: David became "Dad," Effie "Anna," and Ernest was called "Jim."

"No other group was as closely tied to country radio every bit the Chuck Wagon Gang," says WSM DJ and K Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs, who noted that the Chuck Wagon Gang's music could exist heard on radio into the 1960s, ofttimes on a gospel segment that would be held around the noon hour. Their scenic harmonies and spiritual songs, accompanied by a lone guitar, captured the ears of countless Southern listeners, many of whom were also migrant laborers struggling to brand a living during the Depression.

In 1936, the Chuck Wagon Gang began working with record producer Don Police of the American Recording Corporation and later Columbia Records; Law produced bluesman Robert Johnson and would become on to work with future state legends like Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Marty Robbins and Johnny Greenbacks. The Chuck Wagon Gang would record more than 400 sides for Columbia and sell 40 million records in their 39 years with Columbia. One of their most famous recordings was the group's version of the Albert East. Brumley song "I'll Fly Away," which information technology beginning released in 1949. Though information technology wasn't the first recording of the song, it was one of the most popular, selling more than than i million copies.

Eighty years after the quartet made its radio debut and 79 years subsequently its first recording session, the Chuck Wagon Gang, now led by Dad Carter's great-granddaughter, Shaye Smith, continues to make music inspired past their predecessors.

In 2014 it released its latest anthology, "Meeting in Heaven: The Chuck Carriage Gang Sings the Songs of Marty Stuart." The record is a nod to Chuck Railroad vehicle Gang history, and not just because of the flawless harmonies and uplifting lyrics: over the years the grouping released a scattering of albums of songs by a unmarried composer, including Brumley and Mosie Lister.

"Meeting in Heaven" was cutting live around 1 microphone at Stuart'due south Nashville-surface area home in just two days. It was, says Smith, "the about difficult affair I've ever done but as well the most rewarding thing."

Producer Mick Conley marked the floor where each singer was supposed to stand during each song and while performing, the singers would lean into and away from the microphone, mixing themselves in a manner that the original Chuck Railroad vehicle Gang did during those 1930s recordings.

"We're preserving that history, and hoping people enjoy that sound," Smith says.

The grouping'due south timeless songs are still touching hearts. Their performances have received standing ovations later on the documentary's local premiere at the Franklin Theatre last winter and once more Mon night during "An Intimate Evening with Eddie Stubbs featuring Marty Stuart" at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

"When they start singing, you'll either showtime smile or starting time crying," said Country Music Hall of Famer Connie Smith, who grew upwardly listening to the Chuck Carriage Gang with her mother. "Information technology lifts your spirits, but it'll break your heart, and let yous know that, boy, there is promise."

Chuck Railroad vehicle Gang current lineup:

Shaye Smith

Stan Hill

Jeremy Stephens

Melissa Kemper

Documentary

"The Chuck Wagon Gang: America'due south Gospel Singers" arrogance on WNPT at 7 p.one thousand. Sabbatum. Visit wnpt.org for data about additional airings.