timeless
Pharoah Sanders (1940-2022, tenor saxophone), Lonnie Liston Smith (1940-, piano), Norris “Sirone” Jones (1940-2009, bass), Majib (aka Najeed) Shabazz (drums), live, France (Antibes), 1968
One of the things I love about these guys is their name: you could hardly get
any simpler, any homelier.
Harmonizing Four
TV broadcast (TV Gospel Time), early 1960s
“That’s Alright”
***
“I’m Going Through”
*****
Recordings, 1957
“Farther Along”
***
“Motherless Child”
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lagniappe
It was 25 years ago . . . that four boys in the Dunbar Elementary School Glee Club in South Richmond [Virginia] decided to see what they could do with some close four part harmony. The director of the glee club encouraged their first efforts and pretty soon the Harmonizing Four developed to the point that the were invited to sing for civic meetings, clubs, schools, and churches all over the city.
—Program, 25th Anniversary Tribute to the Harmonizing Four, Richmond, Virgina, 1952 (quoted in Jerry Zolten, Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music [Oxford 2003])
*****
odds & ends
• Elvis Presley was a huge fan of these guys, particularly bass singer Jimmy Jones. (Jones left the group in 1958, after these records were made but before this TV appearance, to form his own group [Jimmy Jones and The Sensationals]; he was replaced by Ellis Johnson.)
• One of the group’s members, Lonnie Smith (rear right on “That’s Alright”), is the father of keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith.
music clip of the day 