THE SWAN SILVERTONES
The Swan Silvertones are an American gospel music group that first achieved popularity in the 1940s and 1950s under the leadership of Claude Jeter. Their wide exposure through radio brought them a contract with King Records. The group recorded for Specialty Records from 1951 to 1955, when it switched to Vee-Jay Records. They recorded one album with Hob Records after Vee-Jay shut down in 1965, at which point Jeter left the group for the ministry. When interviewed by Dick Cavett in April 1970, Paul Simon credited the group with inspiring him to write the song “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. The Swan Silvertones were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2002. (More from Wikipedia)
An incredible album that I picked up several years ago, This is How it All Began – on Specialty Records – is not the typical compilation album, but a carefully selected series of songs that looked (and sounded) like they might have come from someone’s doctoral dissertation on the origins of rock music. I only have the disk now naturally, but I remember that it was divided into four sections, with “Gospel” being the first. The four songs that start the album are these: “It’s Getting Late in the Evening” by Chosen Gospel Singers; “By and By” by the Soul Stirrers; “Somebody Touched Me” by Prof. Alex Bradford; and “Trouble in My Way” by the Swan Silvertones.
(July 2014)
