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The Blackwood Brothers are an American southern gospel quartet. Pioneers of the Christian music industry, they are 8-time Grammy Award winners in addition to winning 7 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards. They are also members of the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame. Group beginnings The Blackwood Brothers Quartet were formed in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression, when preacher Roy Blackwood (1900–1971) moved his family back home to Choctaw County, Mississippi. His brothers, Doyle Blackwood (1911–1974) and 15-year-old James Blackwood (1919–2002), already had some experience singing with Vardaman Ray and Gene Catledge. After adding Roy's 13-year-old son, R.W. Blackwood (1921–1954), to sing baritone, the brothers began to travel and sing locally. By 1938, a fifth group member playing the piano was included in the lineup, though the name of the group was not adjusted as the group still sang as a quartet. By 1940, they were affiliated with the Stamps-Baxter Music Company to sell songbooks and were appearing on 50,000-watt radio station KMA (AM) in Shenandoah, Iowa. Doyle left in 1942 and was replaced by Don Smith. After Doyle left, The Quartet relocated to Memphis, Tennessee in 1950. The move proved to be successful for the group as they began to appear on television station WMCT in coming years. In 1952 they signed a major recording contract with RCA Victor. After the move to Memphis, Roy left and was replaced with Calvin Newton, who was replaced with Cat Freeman, and after Freeman left, Alden Toney was hired to sing tenor. In 1951, Alden Toney and Don Smith left and were replaced with Dan Huskey and Bill Lyles. In 1952, Dan Huskey left and was replaced by Bill Shaw. On June 14, 1954, the Blackwood Brothers lineup of Bill Shaw (tenor), James Blackwood (lead), R.W. Blackwood (baritone), Bill Lyles (bass), and Jackie Marshall (piano), won the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts competition on national television with their rendition of "Have You Talked To The Man Upstairs?" The win propelled them into the national spotlight and beyond just the Southern United States. Clanton, Alabama plane crash After winning on Talent Scouts, the group began flying to shows with their own private plane due to the demand of their performances. However, on June 30, 1954, the group was scheduled to perform with The Statesmen Quartet in Clanton, Alabama, during a town festival. Prior to the start of their show, members R.W. Blackwood and Bill Lyles, along with friend Johnny Ogburn, decided to take a quick ride on the plane around dusk. Tenor singer Bill Shaw recalled the event saying: "the plane went out its usual way, but then seemed like it got caught in the upward position and could not pull out, and then just fell to the ground and killed everyone on board." Members of The Statesmen Quartet also witnessed it and provided aid to the survivors, taking them back to Memphis that night. The funeral was attended by thousands in Memphis, including a young Elvis Presley. Members James Blackwood, Bill Shaw, and Jackie Marshall decided to press on, with R.W.'s younger brother, Cecil Blackwood (1934–2000), taking over as baritone and former Sunshine Boys Quartet member J. D. Sumner replacing Lyles as bass. Ken Berryhill, their producer, would later say that it was at about this point in their career that the group first crossed paths with the young Elvis Presley, with whom they became friends. In the following years, the group was the first to customize a bus to make travel spacious and comfortable for entertainers, thereby inventing the customized "Tour Bus". Presley saw the bus and had one made for himself. Group pinnacle After the crash, the group went to work forming the Gospel Music Association and also was partially responsible for the creation of the National Quartet Convention. Sumner also contributed to the group as a songwriter, sometimes writing all the songs for a music album. The Blackwood Brothers were also setting new standards in the studio. Their RCA Victor recordings from this time period are now considered prized collectors' items. The lineup with Bill Shaw, James, Cecil, and J.D. Sumner (who for many years was unchallenged as the Guinness World Record holder for having the lowest human voice on record, and was only superseded after Guinness started accepting vocal fry as part of the vocal range) is considered the classic version of the Blackwood Brothers Quartet, with Jackie Marshall or Wally Varner on piano. A replica of the bus can be seen at the Southern Gospel Museum and Hall of Fame at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee Business ventures The Blackwood Brothers formed a partnership with the Statesmen Quartet (informally known as the "Stateswood" team) to tour as a team in the 1950s, and they were the dominant act on the southern gospel circuit during this time. This dominance lasted for about a decade until the rise of gospel television shows in the late 1960s began to give competing groups wider exposure. The Stateswood team also started the independent record label Skylite Records. At one time, the Skyline roster included The Blackwood Brothers, J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet, Jake Hess and the Imperials, the Speer Family, the Florida Boys, the Couriers Quartet, The Kingsmen Quartet, the Calvarymen Quartet, the Calvary Quartet, the Kingdom Heirs Quartet, the Statesmen Quartet, the Prophets Quartet, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Jordanaires, the Southerners Quartet, and the Rebels Quartet. Mainstream success In 1966, the Blackwoods teamed up with Porter Wagoner to record a country influenced gospel album called Grand Old Gospel. It won a Grammy Award for Best Sacred Performance (Musical) and was the first of three albums the Blackwoods recorded with Wagoner. 1967's More Grand Old Gospel won a Grammy for Best Gospel Performance, with the collaboration winning in the same category for 1969's In Gospel Country. The Blackwoods performed with Wagoner for years and were frequent guests in his performances at the Ryman Auditorium. In 1969, James Blackwood's oldest son, James "Jimmy" Blackwood, Jr., took over as the main lead singer for the group. Jimmy had been a member of the Junior Blackwood Brothers and the Stamps Quartet. They won another Grammy in 1973 for their project L-O-V-E on the RCA Camden label and then again in 1974 for Release Me From My Sin. The group had 5-7 members at any given time with James Sr. and James Jr. sharing the lead, Bill Shaw and Cecil Blackwood on tenor and baritone, respectively, and John Hall and Conley "London" Parris taking over bass. The 1970s and 1980s lineup with Pat Hoffmaster, Jimmy Blackwood, Cecil Blackwood, Ken Turner and Tommy Fairchild had the Blackwood Brothers' biggest hit with "Learning To Lean". At the 22nd Annual Grammy Awards in 1980 they won another Grammy for Lift Up the Name of Jesus in the Grammy Award for Best Gospel Performance, Traditional category..... Discover the Lisa Blackwood popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Lisa Blackwood books.