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hawkers at public gatherings, or by
holiness evangelists. But it was com-
mercially introduced to the larger
American public in the 1920s through
the recordings and radio perform-
ances of such people as Smith's Sacred
Singers, Rev. Andrew 'Blind Andy'
Jenkins and his family, Rev. Alfred
Karnes, and the Phipps Holiness
Singers. Since that time the tradition
has been well represented in commer-
cial country music by such musicians
as the Blue Sky Boys, the Bailes Broth-
ers, the Louvin Brothers, Mac O'Dell,
Martha Carson, the Johnson Family
Singers, the Masters Family, and the
Lewis Family. While their approach
has differed in many particulars from
the groups just mentioned, the Chuck
Wagon Gang remains America's most
important representative of folk
gospel music, and a valuable link be-
tween the world of the formal quar-
tets and country music.
W
hen the Chuck Wagon Gang
launched its career in 1935,
the distance between the society of
which they sang and the one in
which they actually lived was not
yet an overwhelming one. Theirs
was a Texas that was still basically
rural, with an economy dominated
by cotton farm tenantry, and with
a population little more than one
generation removed from residence
in the older Southern states. The oil
boom presaged Texas's future; it
did not yet dominate its present.
Roman Catholicism was a powerful
presence in the southern part of
the state, particularly among Mexi-
can-Americans, but for the great
majority of other Texans, black and
white, church preference inclined
toward the evangelical and funda-
mentalist
groups:
Baptists,
Methodists, Campbellites, and Holi-
ness. For such people the brush
arbor revival and the singing con-
vention, with its dinner-on-the-
grounds — an all-day music convo-
cation held in a church or county
court house and marked by a sump-
tuous picnic to which all con-
tributed their special dishes — were
not quaint remnants of a frontier
society, but were instead vital and
cherished aspects of community
life.
The worst days of the Great Depres-
sion had subsided, but hard times still
prevailed. Many Texas families had
seen husbands, fathers, or sons (and
sometimes daughters) hitting the
road to find employment, and more
than a few had become part of that
large stream of California-bound
migrants, the Okies, who journeyed
west on Route 66. Nevertheless, most
people stayed at home, clinging more
tightly than ever to its familiar secu-
rity. Inexpensive entertainment such
as radio, therefore, experienced a
golden age, and Texans were second
to none in their reliance on the
medium. Devotees of homespun
music (black and white, secular and
gospel) could hear live entertainment
throughout the day, especially early
in the morning and at noon, on Satur-
day nights from the radio barn
dances, and late at night over the
Mexican border stations. Radio per-
formers hoped for wider exposure
and an opportunity to move beyond re-
gional identification. Some managed
(
BELOW
) An early photo of some of the Carter children
and other unknown people. This photo was likely taken
in the late 1920s. The other people probably worked in
cotton just as the Carters did at this time.