Southern Quartet - Hey! hey! and hee! hee! (I'm Charleston crazy)

Columbia master 81975-5, rec. New York, 11 October 1924.
Sherman Kelly (tenor), Johnny Johnson (lead), Albert Johnson (baritone), and Beecher Davis (bass).
Johnny Johnson's "Southern Quartet" first recorded for Columbia in 1921 (originally featuring George Kelly, Arthur Banks and Lemuel Jones), so they deserve a place of honour between a few other pioneering black secular groups recording before electrical recording was introduced. Because they were obviously influenced by the Norfolk Quartet it has been suggested that this group is also from Virginia, but as far as I know there are no hard facts to verify this (plausible) assumption. After a promising start there must have been some tensions inside the group, because no further record were made for three years. In 1924 a second version of the group recorded twelve more titles for Columbia, now also including some gospel sides and the one you are listening to. Then, again, nothing more for almost three years before two titles were published on "Black Patti" - does your pulse quicken as much as mine? Anyway, I doubt that I'll ever get the chance to hear those sides, if only to verify that this is indeed a Johnson group. If there is any information what became of them, I'd love to hear from you.

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Music

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• close
• harmony
• vocal
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• American
• Southern
• Negro
• Quartet
• Quartette
• black
• colored
• charleston
• jazz
• blues
• Columbia

[NAYDH]

great as always ! 5 more here

[edmundusrex]

Great music.

Thanks