Our copy of The Gospelaires cassette was reunited with Glen. The full interview and transcription are available below, the group’s musical offering Gospel Classics is available in the archive. After this call Glen noted for the record that Anthony Berger joined The Gospelaires at 13 years old before later joining The Kingsmen and afterwards pursuing a solo career. Available on YouTube as well, transcription below.
CF: But yeah, I thank you so much for your time today. I have been going down a rabbit hole the past few weeks trying to find out more information about The Gospelaires and I finally emailed Wildwood Baptist and they got me in connection with you and I am just so glad. I’ve got a little bit of questions here, but I’d love to start off. If you wanna talk to me about, you know, your musical experiences or how you personally got started, you know, I’m definitely all ears and I cannot say enough, how grateful I am for your time.
Glen Davis: Well, my father and my mother’s father they taught singing school doe ray mi singing schools and we had 12 siblings. My mother and dad had 12 children and we all sung and so I had gone to the afternoon singing convention. And this group from this church they sung a couple of songs and they asked me if I would play for them. And so I started out playing for them The Gospelaires and as time went on, one of their baritone singers got sick and so I asked one of my brothers if he would like to join the quartet and sing baritone so he did.
CF: And Ralph?
Glen Davis: Ralph. That’s correct, and then later on our tenor singer he left the group. Ralph’s wife then Alvaly, she joined the group and sung alto.
CF: OK, I saw it when she joined, and I was curious, cause I did see that, you know, it switched from being all men at one point, it did have some women in it. That would probably be when like Bob Reffner left maybe?
Glen Davis: Alvaly sung with us and then we went to an all male group. Hobie Walker and Gary Herron. Gary sung with Jerry and the Goffs then. Well they left and sung with the singing Americans.
CF: OK
Glen Davis: I had started singing the lead part and we got Larry again, who was blind from birth.
CF: Right, yeah. He was actually on my list to ask about. Yeah, I read about him online and noticed he was a blind piano prodigy, and from what I could read he also, you know, would teach people and and was a really passionate guy and I’m glad you brought him up.
Glen Davis: He went to the school for the blind in Nashville, and then he went to Chattanooga to the conservatory down there, and as you say, he then taught piano and tuned pianos.
CF: That’s so impressive.
Glen Davis: He was such a blessing to travel with. You could joke with him, and we would even tell him it was his time to drive the bus. We certainly enjoyed Larry, and he had never played gospel music when he first started playing for The Gospelaires. Of course we changed the bass singers. We first had Bob Wiley, who started with The Gospelaires and then we-
CF:And Billy Hooker?
Glen Davis: Had Marvin Self, who sung with us a while, and we had Billy Hooker, Hobie Walker.
CF: Mhmm
Glen Davis: Then we had Quentin Goins. Quentin was one of the best bass singers around. And then Carlin Crabtree Carlin could’ve gone professional, but he had a girlfriend and didn’t want to travel. Actually, Carl and I we were we were cousins. His dad and I were first cousins and he wanted to send Carl and I to Stamps-Baxter to sing and learn, you know more music out there.
CF: Right is that a school?
Glen Davis: Yes, my oldest brother Harold Davis, he sung with the Stamps-Baxter Quartet, out of Dallas. That’s why Carlin’s dad wanted to send us out there, but Carlin did have an opportunity to sing with a professional group. He turned it down because, like I said, he had a girlfriend and didn’t wanna leave. But anyway, Carlin was a great bass singer too.
CF: Yes, sir, yeah. There’s so much history and do you remember David Passmore much?
Glen Davis: David Passmore and The Gospelaires, we had a recording studio together in Athens.
CF: I saw that back. It looks like it was on 211 Madison, I saw that him and Don Thompson.
Glen Davis: That’s correct, and so then we bought David out and The Gospelaires had the studio there. Warren Sipes, he did most of our engineering, Warren played the bass for The Gospelaires.
CF: Right I tried to get in touch with him, but I actually couldn’t.
Glen Davis: Yeah, and he was a great musician. He and his brother, Wayne, played the lead guitar, and their nephew Philip Maddox, and then Wayne’s son played drums for us.
CF: Oh, I didn’t know they were related. Yeah I’ve seen Phillip’s name in passing.
Glen Davis: And we actually won a contest over and in I believe it was Murfreesboro. We got to sing on the Quartet Convention when it was in Memphis.
CF: Okay, that’s amazing.
Glen Davis: We traveled mostly in East Tennessee, I mean Eastern part of the country. From Michigan all the way down to Florida.
And as far West as Memphis, you know. Paul Belcher booked us a lot up in Michigan. Paul’s great promoter. And so he booked us a lot in Michigan. Sometimes we leave after work on Friday afternoon, and get back just in time to go to work on Monday morning.
But we did mostly just, you know, weekends and we sung with most of the professional groups: The Cathedrals, The Goffs, The Neylands, Karen Peck/ New River.
CF: Oh yeah, yeah yeah she came through Chattanooga before.
Glen Davis: Oh yeah, yeah. But we sung with most of the groups, professional groups.
CF: And was The Gospelaires the only group you were ever a part of?
Glen Davis: Well, Ralph passed away in 2013-
CF: I’m sorry to hear that.
Glen Davis: And we we just didn’t sing after that and Carlin had a group, The Oldtimers Quartet, and their lead singer had resigned. So he asked me if I would start singing with them, so I sung with them until they disbanded. And now Terry Stanfield, Steve Hawn, and I, we sing a trio at the church, and sometimes we go out and sing you, know for different occasions.
CF: That’s amazing. Yeah, you’ve been singing and making music your entire life.
Glen Davis: Yeah, and I’m about to get too old to do it. *chuckles*
CF: Well, I will say, this is gonna be a conversation that’s available for future generations and archived on the website, so it’s extremely important that people can hear this and hear what you have to say about your legacy and your recorded music. Because, I mean, y’all have a great discography, and like you said, you guys were dedicated musicians and tourers, and you gave a good bit of your life to this. So I’m insanely grateful to have the time to give you guys some documentation and to speak with you and to get to put this in a place where it can be looked at forever.
Glen Davis: We sung a lot down around Bremen, Georgia also every Thanksgiving, well and sometimes in between that, but the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, they had a singing and we would go down there, and of course the house would be full, and we would spend the night then sing on Sunday morning for them. But that was always a standing appointment down in Bremen, Georgia had some good friends there.
CF: Well, that’s really amazing. That’s a lifetime of experiences. Thank you for sharing everything with me. I do have another question or two. I was gonna say, do you have a favorite memory or achievement in music that you kind of reflect on that you would say is significant to you?
Glen Davis: Well we sung over in around Cookeville. I can’t remember the name of that little town there above Cookeville but, we sung there and the fellow that booked us there, Doug Wells, booked us and when he passed away, they asked us if we would sing for his funeral. Gerald Wolf and Greater Vision was coming through there. They were friends also with Doug and Gerald stopped, and he played the piano for The Gospelaires to sing at that funeral. But the most important thing, you know, for The Gospelaires was to see people going to the Lord. That was our main purpose.
CF: Well, that’s beautiful. Yeah, that is the main purpose. You guys definitely kept the the goal in sight, and I will say on the Gospel Classics cassette I have here, a lot of the stuff is written by you guys. A lot these are gospel originals.
Glen Davis: Right, we did we did along with, I think, six other groups at one time in the East Tennessee area.
CF: Like the Gaithers, Gloria Gaither, did you know her pretty well?
Glen Davis: Well, we knew The Gaithers, yes, but this group was just local groups and every month we would go to a different town where they were located and put on a concert. And Ron Martin, of course Kyla Rowland’s brother, he was a part of the group of a group that was in that. Well they would be seven groups with our group included, but I had some great, great times then.
CF: Yeah, that’s amazing. I grew up, I was born and raised in Cleveland-
Glen Davis: Oh, really?
CF: Oh yeah, and I’ve grown up in the music and I started up this website this year cause I do a lot of cassette purchases and analog purchases. I realize a lot of this stuff doesn’t exist online. So I’m just making sure it gets on the Internet, and when possible I am offering people the original cassette. So if you are interested in me mailing you this cassette for you to have for your own personal records I’d be more than glad to mail it to you.
Glen Davis: Yeah, that would be great.
You
OK, well I’ll email you this link whenever I get it done typing up today and if you wanna email me your address back where you want me to mail this I would love to get this back home to you.