Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Phillippian Mystery

mid-week gospel

The Phillippian Gospel Singers, from the cover of their Jewel LP # 0042 God Counted The Cost (which is the only photo of them known to me):
Five persons here. However, the indications on the back cover of the Jewel LP give the names of two male singers, Henry Lee Brown and Melvin Wilder, and of four female singers: Eddie Mae Jackson, Patricia Davis, Betty Neely and LaVerne Morris. So this makes six persons, one more than seen in the photo, and all of whom you can hear in at least one track of the album. However, I have no idea who the persons are on the photo above, but of course it's a fair guess that the two men standing are H.L. Brown and M. Wilder. Seven songs on the LP are credited to H.L. Brown, another two to M. Wilder (see the track list below).
According to the notes on the back cover, Melvin Wilder organized the group, »some eight years ago«. As the Jewel LP was released in late 1970 or early 1971, this points to 1962. This also matches the fact that in 1962 they recorded a 45 for Nashboro (# 749). Apart from this, I do not know anything about this group; nor could I identify any of its members. Help needed!
In order to facilitate further research I repro- duced in the following the track list plus info from the back cover of the Jewel LP:
A1  »The Christian Army« (H.L. Brown), feat. Eddie Mae Jackson
A2  »God Counted The Cost« (H.L. Brown), feat. Henry Lee Brown
A3  »It's Time To Live Holy«  (H.L. Brown), feat. Patricia Davis
A4  »The Solid Rock«  (H.L. Brown), feat. Betty Neely
A5  »No Condemnation«  (H.L. Brown), feat. LaVerne Morris
B1  »What Would You Give«  (H.L. Brown)
B2  »I Want To Live So« (M. Wilder), feat. Melvin Wilder & Betty Neely
B3  »I Believe That He Will«  (H.L. Brown), feat. Henry Lee Brown
B4  »I've Had My Share« (E. Jackson), prob. feat. Eddie Mae Jackson
B5  »Meeting Tonight« (M. Wilder), feat. Melvin Wilder
You can hear two songs from this album below. The first song, »The Solid Rock«, takes the lyrics from the known Baptist hymn »My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less (Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness)«, written by Edward Mote (1797-1874). However, the melody deviates from the known hymn, and the song is credited to H.L. Brown. Lead voice is by Betty Neely.
The second song, »I've Had My Share«, is credited to »E. Jackson« what certainly stands for Eddie Mae Jackson. And the lead vocals must be hers as well (though not stated) as becomes clear from a comparison with her performance of the first song on the A side. This song seems to be an original on this album; I couldn't track the lyrics anywhere else.

»The Solid Rock« (lead vc. Betty Neely) / »I've Had My Share« (lead vc. E.M. Jackson) from the Jewel LP # 0042 (1971):

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Note:
The indication »© 1965« below »Jewel Records« refers to the year when the Jewel logo was copyrighted; it doesn't indicate the date of release. Somewhat strange and most probably a mistake is the indication »A Division of Jewel Records« which was normally used on the Paula label, since Jewel was of course no division of itself!

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