The Pilgrim Travelers

about

The Pilgrim Travelers were a gospel group popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Formed in the early 1930s in Houston, Texas, they were strongly influenced by another Texas-based quartet, the Soul Stirrers. They achieved popularity after moving to Los Angeles in 1942, where their new manager, J W Alexander, helped fashion a new style that went beyond imitating the Soul Stirrers and the Golden Gate Quartet, the other reigning quartet of the era. Like the Soul Stirrers, the Travelers traded the lead between their two best singers, Kylo Turner, a baritone with the same facility as a note-bending falsetto as R.H. Harris of the Soul Stirrers, and Keith Barber, also nicknamed "Doc" or "Crip", who changed from being a sweet-voiced tenor to a hard gospel shouter under Alexander's direction. They added Jesse Whitaker — whom Ray Charles credited as one of his models when he adapted hard gospel style to secular themes to create soul music in the 1950s — as a baritone in 1947. Alexander also changed the Travelers' performance style from the "flat-footed" style of early quartets to the church-wrecking style of other groups of their era. The singers would punctuate their singing by jumping off stage and running up the aisles in order, in Alexander's words, "to pull the sisters out of their seats". They cemented their popularity with a series of "mother songs", which replayed the same themes of gratitude and guilt for all that mother had done to steer them toward salvation. After a ha

top songs

albums

Best Of The Pilgrim Travelers

The Pilgrim Travellers Volume 2

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Blue Christmas, Vol. 1

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Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour: The Best Of The Third Series

The Pilgrim Travellers Volume 1

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50s Rock N' Roll & Rockabilly Christmas

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Blue Yule: Christmas Blues And R&B Classics

Better Than That

The Pilgrim Travelers' Mother Bowed

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Greatest Gospel Hits

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Doo Wop Christmas

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TTRH Season 3 - 08 - Street Map

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