CHAPTER 8: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE WOLFE FAMILY

G: It actually started with my mom and grandfather doing a duet. Her father. She was

seventeen or eighteen.

J: No, she was much younger than that.

G: I’m saying the duet part. She did some solo stuff…

J: Mom had a situation where a guy came through wanting her to sign a record

contract. He wanted her to sing rhythm and blues, and she would not sing rhythm and

blues. She wanted to sing gospel, and he would not cut gospel. So she said, “I won’t

do any business here.” And she elected not to do any business. At some point in her

life that had happened.

J: He had probably just heard about her, and he was seeking her to do blues. Actually,

it was blues, not R&B. But she said she’d rather do what she was doing.

G: Her and her father were a duet for a long time. When she started having children,

she basically taught the whole family from the oldest brother down. We were a family

group. We were called the Eagles Nest Spirituals at first. We changed after a long

time, when I came along, to the Wolfe Family.

S: That was named after the Eagles Nest church down there, right?

J: You know the Klan burned that church down.

G: That happened in the early seventies.

S: Any particular reason they did that?

J: Well, I guess before they started burning churches, they were burning churches.

G: The church was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the older children

started graduating and going to college, or going their separate ways, the younger

children would step up and do the music thing.

S: So it started out with Bill and you, and Sophia?

S: All nine of you were in the gospel group at one time?

G: Not at the same time. But we all did it.

J: When we left for college, Gary picked up on it.

G: The music thing basically stuck with me. As far as music is concerned, me and

James are the only ones who stayed in the music business.

S: After being in the family group, did you start out trying to make it professionally?

G: After James had basically gotten serious off into the industry is when I thought I

could possibly have a real chance in the music business. Coming from Arkansas slims

the chances by itself. After he got in, he bought mom her first piano. She learned how

to play when she was close to forty years old.

S: When did you buy the piano? That’s the one in the offices.

J: I bought the piano in 1960. About ’65. I was fifteen. And I bought another one later

on. She came here with her money and asked me to help her find the kind of piano she

wanted. She had already cut records, and had her own money, revenue. So she

bought a real nice piano then. So I bought two. The first one I paid fifty dollars for. It

was an old upright.

G: It was a Steinway, and it had a Cadillac symbol on the front of it.

J: Sure did. The next one I bought was a Kimball. Upright also. Then she bought a

real nice one. Paid three thousand dollars for it. The one I bought I paid fifty for, and

the other one I bought for 700.

S: Which one is the one outside your office?

J: That’s not any of them. That’s an antique I found up in East Tennessee. That one

there is 1865. It’s not even meant to be played.

S: You were all in the family gospel group at one time. What kind of churches did you

play in and what was your touring like?

G: We played in all kinds. They didn’t call them tours. They called them programs.

We would do three or four in a days time, traveling from one church to another, packed

in a car.

S: How many of you were there at any given time?

G: Probably seven at a time. Six at a time. We were packed like sardines. No

equipment. Mom played piano, and I think you played one time in the family group,

James. Fay played, but she didn’t play much.

J: They sang and did that, but I was the only other one who really played piano. I

taught Mama how to play piano. I played by ear. I took band in high school, so I could

read music. I played a brass instrument, baritone horn. When Mama got the basics
down, she became an ear player. She was putting her own chords together. She could

really play well.

G: She played on the style of pianists that played for Mahalia Jackson, Clara Ward

singers, the Angelics, that style.

J: We did a capella for many years. It was me, Bill, Mama, Daddy, Sis, Fay and Kay,

and sometimes Bobby. Most of the time Bobby. That’s the way it was. When me and

Bill graduated and went to college, Gary came on. Bobby, Fay and Kay stayed on,

right?

G: And Monita.

S: When your dad was playing, he did some singing?

G: He sang bass. He did some singing. That was the only time he didn’t stutter.

S: And he sang when he was around, is the other factor.

G: He would probably sing half the program and go outside and smoke a cigarette

while we were still on the floor singing. He wouldn’t stay long.

J: I remember when Mama started talking about putting the choir together. She wanted

a gospel group. She used to sing by herself, but when we grew older, she wanted to

put together a choir with her children. That’s the genesis of the group, The Eagles Nest

Spiritual Choir. Then we changed the name to the Wolfe Family Choir. It first started in

1962, playing regional churches.

S: Do you remember your first performance?

J: Probably at Eagles Nest Missionary Baptist Church. From there we went to Mount

Moriah, Hillshire, Mount Calvary, all those places.

G: We played churches in Moro, Marianna, Lexa, Helena, Hughes, Forrest City, Cotton

Plant, Wynn, Augusta, all over that area.

J: The first choir was Mama, me and Bill. Sis and Kay were there. And Bobby. They

were little children. And then Daddy came right in on it.

S: Do you know your mother’s birthday off hand?

J: February 12, 1930. Just celebrated a birthday on it.

S: So when you were born she was twenty years old, she was eighteen when Bill was

born. And she sang with her grandfather when she was eighteen?
J: Right, and prior to.

S: Then had a family, and started doing this in 1962, when you were twelve.

J: She used to sing in the cotton field all the time. She was always singing. Her thing

was to just sing praises to the Lord. Then she sang in church.

S: She never sang in bars?

J: No, never. She despised bars.

S: Yeah, I can see why. Then you and Bill left for school at the same time. Where did

Bill go?

J: Bill went to Arkansas. Arkansas AM and N (?).

G: Which is now called UAPB (?).

J: And I went to Lane. That was in ’68. One thing Mama always said. She had lost

her teeth. She said, “If I had teeth, and if I had decent looking hair, I could get me a job.

And I could do for myself, and fend for my family. Bill and I went to Detroit to work and

earn money in the summer. We came home and bought her a wig. We took her to the
dentist and put teeth in her mouth. Dentures. At first it was so long, she thought that

was so pretty. We made her go back. We said, “That’s not right.” Her teeth were just

hanging way out of her mouth.

S: That hurt her feelings when your dad said something to her, right?

J: No, Bill said it. He hurt her feelings. So she went back and got them cut down. And

I said, “These are still too long, Mama.” She said, “No, baby.” I said, “They’re too long.”

So she went back and cut them down a second time, and finally they were right. They

gave her a bum job the first time, but she was just so happy to have teeth. They were

hanging out of her mouth, looking bad.

S: That was in the late sixties?

J: Did you know about that, Gary? You didn’t know about that?

G: No.

J: That was in 1967.

S: And you were born in ’65, so you were real young then. How old were you when

you got into the gospel group?

G: I was about four years old.

J: When you were able to stand up, you got in the choir. You could be crawling, but

you better be trying to stand up.

G: I was lead singing at four years old. They used to stand me up on a bench behind

the offering table, and I would lead whatever I had to lead.

S: Had Sis and Bobby left at that point?

G: They were still there for a while.

S: Bobby’s two years younger than you (James), so that’s about the time he would

have gone off to college. Did he go to college directly after high school?

J: Yes. Everybody did. Didn’t waste any time. Bobby went to _________ in Austin,

Texas.

G: That was about ’69.

S: And ’69 was four for you, and a little time with your older sister, Sophie, and Bobby.

They probably dropped off soon after that, right.

G: I remember getting in trouble in kindergarten, day care, because I couldn’t stay

awake. Because we used to go on all those singing programs at night. Getting in at

twelve or one o’clock in the morning.

S: And that was doing three or four gigs a night too.

G: Yeah, and back then, they used to have a first half and a second half. With a break

where you do the offering. By the time the second half came around, me and my sister

would be so tired and sleepy, we’d get a spanking for falling asleep because we

wouldn’t finish the show. That was Monita. She’s a year younger than me, the

youngest of the family. We’d get a spanking right before the second half, then we’d

have to clear our faces and stop crying so we could sing during the second half of the

show.

S: How many songs were those shows?

J: About six, wasn’t it?

G: For each set. So about a dozen songs per program. Then we did three or four of

those programs.

J: Mama’s favorite song was, “I Will Trust in the Lord.” That was the theme that we had.
What she did, when we all left, was to form another group called the Dr. White (?)

Spiritual Singers. She always worked with old folks and young folks. Dr. White was the

old folks. And the young folks were the kids in the schools. She would help them

perfect their craft. People over there would say, “I can’t believe Mrs. Wolfe has those

white kids to sing those black hymns.” She indoctrinated them into black hymns as little

bitty children. That’s a comment that was made here recently.

S: I wonder if any of them are around who have a feeling for music more so than the

kids who just sang the straight hymns?

J: Gary would know that more than I would.

G: I don’t know any of their names. This was basically five or six years ago, not real far

off. They’re still basically kids.

J: The old folks are still there. They always try to get me to come back and MC on her

behalf. I’ve been back to Marianna a time or two to help.

G: There’s a lot of people…I’ve got a friend who’s pastor at Mount Calvary. He played

there about fifteen years and is now the pastor. There’s a lot of memories there. They

were crazy about her. He’s still around. Ronald Russard (?). In fact, I played for him a

while.
S: You’re still in touch with him? I wouldn’t mind contacting him and talking to him. It

could be just a phone call. And you said you have these tapes of your mom?

J: If you listen to them, you almost cry. Have you heard them, Gary. Her voice can

almost bring tears to your eyes.

TR2:

S: Did you record your mom the night she died on the stage?

J: The only time I did not record her was that night.

G: I was playing for her. Keyboards.

J: The only time I didn’t record her. And the news media was just there. Just there.

They had sent the cameras away but the girl was still there. Pamela Marshall. She was

showing about the Mississippi Mass Choir here. She recorded there, but missed the

passing of my mother on stage by a matter of minutes.

S: So that just stopped everything. The show just stopped at that point?

J: It stopped for ninety minutes.

S: When did the family choir disband? What was the last lineup?
G: That would be me, Monita, Fay and Kay. That was probably ’77, ’78. After that, she

played churches and I played with her whenever she did solo appearances.

S: You were still at home? Was everyone else out of the house at that point?

G: Right. So whenever she wanted to do a solo or make an appearance, I would play

for her. And, by that time, I had started organizing a band. My own.

S: Was it a gospel group?

G: Actually, I had a band called Exotic Love, R&B, in ninth grade. I was bass player

then.

S: Did you play bass with the family group?

G: I never did. The family group had disbanded by the time I had learned to play

keyboards and guitar. I didn’t play enough to go out with the family. James had bought

me my first bass around ’75. Playing bass on the porch. I could have maybe played for

the family then, but I think Mama thought that it was a little too much noise. She didn’t

want to cross over from the tradition. But after I learned how to play, she wanted me to.
S: Was it popular back then to have the full combos in church, with bass, drums, guitar,

all of that?

G: The full combos got popular around ’77 and ’78. I think the Mighty Clouds of Joy

had a combo back in the sixties, but very few churches had a full band. I had my R&B

group for five years, from ninth grade to twelfth grade, playing all the high school

functions. We did all the Temptations stuff. “Every Ready Love,” a lot of the P-Funk

All-Stars stuff. Chic-y days. Then after that I got off playing churches. That’s when I

really got deep off into the gospel thing. That was late seventies. I was playing in

church in the ninth and tenth grade. I was thirteen or fourteen. I was playing in church

for $30 a Sunday.

J: Mama told him, “Use your hands to play, and you will never go hungry.”

G: That’s exactly what she told me. And from that day forward. She wanted to teach

me how to play, but I thought the style she wanted to teach me was ugly, because it

was the older style. New sounds had come out by then, and I wanted to play the new

sounds. She kept asking me to learn how to play the piano, and I said, “No, I don’t want

to play.” I would wait until they would go to bed, and then I would practice. In one

month’s time, I was playing for a church that could not sing, and I couldn’t play that well.

So I learned how to play on this church that couldn’t sing. When I got a little better than

they did, I moved on to the next church, and moved on up.

She told me that, and from that day forward, they never had to buy me any more school

clothes. I bought my own school clothes from that point on, because I played every

Sunday.

TR2: FAMILY GOSPEL CHOIR:

We went everywhere in Arkansas to every church to sing. I bought buses for the group

in after the family members grew up and moved on. You could call them buses, but

they were the short kind. We always came back the same night. The only time Mama

stayed over was doing engagements for me in Jackson.

Mother was always a singer. We sang a cappella at Mother’s insistence. We started as

little children. We grew in and grew out. There was always more singers moving in.

Mother worked with children and senior citizens. She worked with the school system in

the music department. She made singers out of a lot of people. She even had white

kids singing traditional African American gospel songs after the schools were integrated.

She brought some black culture to these children.

I sang from 1975 until 1995. Mother was 65 when she died.

I have some tapes in a sealed package that were sent to me after Mother passed, for

me to consider doing something with.

Daddy was the president of the singing group.

MOTHER was born in Haynes, Arkansas, (between Memphis and Marianna) a very

small town that hasn’t changed much. The family choir sang there often. She never

ventured far from home to live.