The first million-selling gospel single?

What was the first million-selling gospel single? The answer is not straightforward.

Many sources say that it was "Sorry I Never Knew You" by the Sego Brothers and Naomi, which reached #50 on the Billboard country chart in 1964. 

Billboard, August 4, 1979

That is a remarkably low chart peak for a record that supposedly sold a million copies, but its weak chart performance doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that it was a big seller. Some bestselling records didn't chart at all or were under-ranked on the charts, such as albums that were sold through nontraditional channels (like television commercials) and albums that sold steadily over a long period of time without having the kind of sales spurt that would put them on a bestsellers chart (like Jim Nabors' albums).

In the clipping pictured above, Billboard itself repeated the claim that "Sorry I Never Knew You" was "the first million-selling gospel disk" but softened the claim by adding that it "is said to be the first."

Billboard might equivocate in this matter, but many books don't—some say straight-up that the Sego Brothers and Naomi's record is the first gospel million seller. One example is the 1979 Gospel Music Encyclopedia by Anderson and North.

I became suspicious of this claim after mentioning it to Bill Buster, who has operated both American Record Sales, Inc., and Eric Records since the 1960s and knows a lot about hit singles. He said that he has never sold a single copy of "Sorry I Never Knew You." That seemed odd.

After looking into it more, it turns out that Billboard and I were right to doubt this bit of gospel music trivia. The first gospel single to reportedly sell a million copies was released more than a half century earlier. It was the Fisk Jubilee Singers' "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in 1909, according to Bil Carpenter's 2005 book Uncloudy Days: The Gospel Music Encyclopedia.

If you insist that we consider only certified million sellers, then "Sorry I Never Knew You" is still not the first gospel record on the list. The first certified million seller is the Carter Family's "Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye)," originally released in 1935. 

The Carter Family

It's worth mentioning here that many million-selling records were never officially certified as million sellers by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), either because the records were released by independent labels that didn't (or couldn't) keep track of their sales, or because the records' peak sales occurred before the RIAA existed. Nevertheless, many records' status as million sellers is widely accepted despite the lack of certification.

Here is a chronological list, up to 1965, of the earliest million-selling gospel singles, which I extracted from Carpenter's book. The ones that are followed by an asterisk are not certified by the RIAA.

You'll notice that the Sego Brothers and Naomi are not on the list at all. What's up with that?

Million-selling gospel singles through 1965

1909 – Fisk University Jubilee Quartet, AKA Fisk Jubilee Singers – "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"*

1935 – The Carter Family – "Can the Circle Be Unbroken (Bye and Bye)"

1937 – Marian Anderson – "Ave Maria"*

1938 – Louis Armstrong – "When the Saints Go Marching In"

1945 – Sister Rosetta Tharpe – "Strange Things Happening Every Day"

1947 – Fairfield Four – "Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around"*

1948 – The Chuckwagon Gang – "I'll Fly Away"

1948 – Mahalia Jackson – "Move on Up a Little Higher"*

1955 – Clara Ward Singers – "Surely, God Is Able"*

1957 – Clara Ward Singers – "Packing Up"*

1957 – Staple Singers – "Uncloudy Day"

1965 – The Impressions – "People Get Ready"

*Not certified by the RIAA.

Jerry Springer sings: "Save the Terminal" (1973)

In 1973, long before he became a schlocky television talk-show host and shortly before he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, Jerry Springer recorded a charming little protest record called "Save the Terminal." (The title is often mistakenly listed as "Save the Union Terminal.") 

The song was written and recorded as part of an effort to raise money to save the Cincinnati Union Terminal, an Art Deco railroad terminal that opened in 1933 and was the model for the great hall of the Justice League in the animated series Super Friends. (The effort to save the terminal continues to this day.)

Train service at the terminal ended in 1973, and the train concourse was demolished in 1974, but the fundraising efforts enabled most of the artistic mosaic panels from the structure to be moved to various locations around Cincinnati.

This single wasn't the end of Springer's recording career. In 1995 he recorded an album, Dr. Talk, which contains his renditions of country, pop, and folk songs in addition to the title track, a Springer original.

Here's "Save the Terminal" and its flip side, "Faded Photos Just Won't Do":

101 Strings CDs on Alshire: variations in early pressings

Same disc, different cover

I previously posted a discography of 101 Strings CDs on Alshire Records, but that discography doesn't tell the whole story. The earliest 101 Strings CDs were pressed and repressed over the years with different covers and other variations. If you collect these CDs, here are some things to look out for:

Made in Japan/Made in USA

Alshire's early 101 Strings CDs were manufactured in Japan. Later, Alshire started manufacturing all of its CDs in the United States, so when these early titles were repressed, the discs said "Made in U.S.A." instead of "Made in Japan." I haven't figured out yet when Alshire stopped manufacturing in Japan. 

Sometimes the discs were identical except for the "Made in Japan" or "Made in U.S.A." statements: 

ALCD 19 with "Made in U.S.A."

ALCD 19 with "Made in Japan"

Other times, although the discs were otherwise identical, the compact disc logo changed with the "Made in Wherever" statement:

ALCD 3 with different compact disc logos

Note: Discrepancies sometimes occurred between the discs and packaging. These discrepancies weren't variations from pressing to pressing—they were mistakes. For example, the ALCD 3 disc, pictured above, gives the title as Best of the '101 Strings', but the covers and tray cards for both pressings say The Best of the Best of 101 Strings. Also, the covers and tray cards for both pressings give the catalog number as ALCD 3, but the discs for both pressings say ALSCD-3. Alshire had trouble maintaining consistency with its catalog numbers. The catalog number that is printed on many of the Alshire discs includes a hyphen, even though the covers and tray cards do not include the hyphen. The Alshire catalog didn't include hyphens in the catalog numbers, so I omitted the hyphens when I wrote the discography.

With barcode/without barcode

Many of the early 101 Strings CDs were issued without barcodes on the tray card. When these titles were repressed, barcodes were added.

Sometimes the tray cards were identical except for the absence or presence of the barcode. In these cases, the front cover remained the same: 

ALCD 23 with and without barcode; both versions had "Made in U.S.A." discs

Other times the design changed when the barcode was added. In these cases, the cover art also changed. 

ALCD 3 with first- and second-edition tray cards

ALCD 10 with first- and second-edition tray cards

Cover changes

Alshire sometimes changed the covers of the 101 Strings CDs. Later pressings might have a completely different cover from the early pressings, even though the disc and tray card remain mostly the same. 
 

ALCD 3 with first- and second-edition covers

ALCD 10 with first- and second-edition covers

Eventually, I'll update the discography to show the variations that occurred within each catalog number. It's possible that examples exist in which three or more variations occurred for a single catalog number. For example, there could be a version that was made in Japan, an identical version that was made in the US, and then an updated made-in-the-US version that had different cover art, but I haven't found anything like that yet. So far, two variations per title appears to be the maximum.

Why didn't Van Johnson serve in World War II?

Van Johnson in Battleground (MGM, 1949)

A reader recently asked me why Van Johnson didn't serve in World War II, presumably because I previously wrote about Roy Rogers' and John Wayne's military service (or lack thereof). Van Johnson was mainly an actor but sang and danced in some musicals, most notably Brigadoon (1954) and The Music Man (the 1961 London cast—not the 1957 Broadway cast or the 1962 film). Johnson's studio, MGM, never attempted to turn him into a recording star, so he appeared on a few soundtrack albums and compilations of show tunes but no singles.

One of the reasons that Johnson didn't serve in World War II was that he was in a serious car accident in 1943 during the production of the film A Guy Named Joe. In the crash, Johnson was ejected from the car and thrown head first into a curb, receiving such severe injuries that he had to have a metal plate put in his head.

Afterward, he suffered from severe headaches, had to do exercises to strengthen his right arm, and wore heavy makeup to hide the scars on his face. 

As a result of the accident, Johnson was classified 4-F, which was a classification that usually was given for physical disorders like muscular and bone malformations and hearing problems. (Other actors who were classified 4-F for various physical conditions were Marlon Brando, Errol Flynn, Jackie Gleason, and Gary Cooper.)

It pained Johnson that he wasn't able to serve. In the book Van Johnson: MGM's Golden Boy, author Ronald L. Davis writes: 

Even though he was legitimately disqualified from the draft after his automobile accident, Van was sensitive about not serving in the armed forces, particularly since Jimmy Stewart, Tyrone Power, Gene Autry, Robert Taylor, and so many others were in uniform. Johnson tried to stay out of nightclubs, feeling that the guys overseas would resent his having fun while they were fighting and facing death in far off war zones. He also kept away from the Hollywood Canteen, sensing that servicemen there would not understand a big fellow like him not being in some branch of the military. To compensate, Van made frequent visits to military hospitals but invariably came away from them shaken. Seeing the injured boys there "makes you feel so helpless," he told friends.

Johnson's accident exempted him from service after 1943 but not from 1940-1943, during which many other stars began their service. Jimmy Stewart enlisted in 1941 (after trying to get in for a year but being turned away for not meeting the weight requirement), and Tyrone Power, Clark Gable, and Gene Autry enlisted in 1942. Why didn't Johnson enlist before his accident? 

I can only speculate. A possible reason is that his film career was just starting to take off in the early 1940s and he didn't want to jeopardize it. Johnson made his film debut in 1940; between his debut and A Guy Named Joe in 1943, when he suffered the injuries that kept him out of the war, he made about a dozen films and signed with MGM, making the leap from unnamed extra to an actor with prominent billing (although not yet star billing) and a contract with a major studio. By the time he was reasonably established in Hollywood and might have felt that he could step away from it and have something to return to, he was debilitated by the car crash.

In 1949 Johnson finally served in World War II—virtually speaking— when he appeared in the film Battleground, the first major World War II film to be made after the end of the war. 

Van Johnson as the Minstrel in Batman

Songs about S&H Green Stamps

A number of songs about green stamps were released around the same time in the late 1950s to mid 1960s for some reason, even though the S&H Green Stamps rewards program ran from the 1930s-1980s in the US. 

Customers collected green stamps at department stores, supermarkets, and gas stations and then redeemed them for items in the Sperry & Hutchinson catalog. A number of competing stamp programs existed from other companies, some of which had their own signature colors, such as Blue Chip Stamps and Gold Bond Stamps.

Here are a number of songs about—or songs that mention—green stamps, mostly from the early 1960s. The Wikipedia article on S&H Green Stamps has a section on green stamps in music, but it lists only the Allan Sherman and Pat Boone songs as examples. 


Allan Sherman – "Green Stamps" (Warner Bros. 1964)

Included on the album Allan in Wonderland.

The Goldcoast Singers – "Green Stamps" (World Pacific 1962)

Included on the album Here They Are!

Ben White & the Darchees – "Nation Wide Stamps" (Algon 1246, 1962)

This is the song that inspired this blog post. I heard it on the 1996 compilation CD Brooklyn's Doo-Wop Sound (Dee Jay Jamboree Records).

Freddie Flynn & The Flashes – "Green Stamps" (Lyric 107, 1959)

Jimmy Norman – "Green Stamps" (Josan 711, 1959)

This record was picked up by Dot Records and released nationally as Dot 16016.

T-Birds – "Green Stamps" (Chess U-10567, 1961)

Pat Boone – "Speedy Gonzales" (Dot 45-16368, 1962)

Mel Blanc, the voice of Speedy, mentions green stamps at the end.

Kingston Trio – "Them Poems" (Capitol 1964)

From the album Back in Town. The middle song in the medley, "Stamp Lickers," is about "lickin' them green stamps."

Archie Campbell – "Green Stamps" (Starday 1962)

This song is included in the 1962 album Make Friends with Archie Campbell and the 1966 various-artists album Stars of the Grand Ole Opry. The song begins at 18:00 in this video. 

Magnetic Fields – "The Desperate Things You Made Me Do" (Merge 1995)

From the album Get Lost, this song includes a line about "pilfered love and green stamps."

Unknown Artist – "S & H Green Stamps"

A radio ad for Sperry Huthison's S&H Green Stamps that was cut for WPTR in Albany New York. 

Green Shield Stamps were a thing in the UK, and a number of UK artists performed songs about them.

Robots of vaudeville: the "automatic" and mechanical minstrels of the 1900s

A Variety ad for Byron Monzello's Mechanical Minstrels

Vaudeville's so-called "automatic" or "mechanical" minstrels were dummy acts. The minstrel part of the dummies' act—the singing and joke telling—was provided by phonograph recordings. These automatic or mechanical minstrels, which appeared in vaudeville in the 1900s and possibly even earlier, were kind of like a low-tech precursor to the animatronic characters that later featured in places like Chuck E. Cheese, Showbiz Pizza, and Disneyland.

I first read about the automatic minstrels in the books of Joe Laurie Jr., a former vaudevillian who wrote or cowrote two histories of vaudeville in the mid-20th century: Show Biz: From Vaude to Video (1951) and Vaudeville: From the Honky-Tonks to the Palace (1953).

Gane's Manhattan Theatre

In these books, Laurie mentions a couple of automatic minstrel acts. In Show Biz: From Vaude to Video, he says that "William Gane introduced the first (and last) All-Automatic Minstrels at the Manhattan Theatre in 1908." Laurie describes the act thusly: "Outside of one live interlocutor, all the minstrels were dummies with gramophones concealed inside, telling jokes and singing songs upon cue."

In Vaudeville: From the Honky-Tonks to the Palace, Laurie elaborates a bit further on Gane's act: 

"The Automatic Minstrels ... played at Gane's Manhattan Theatre (where Macy's is now). This one had a live interlocutor; the rest were dummies, whose jokes and songs were done via phonographs. Didn't do so good."

In the same book, Laurie describes an additional automatic minstrel act, despite his previous book's claim that Gane's minstrels were the only one of their kind. This other act is identified as Monzello, "a minstrel show with dummies on the stage and the gags done via phonograph." Laurie added, "Kinda crude but a novelty."

Monzello was actually Byron Monzello. The 1908 ad for Monzello's Mechanichal [sic] Minstrels at the top of this page describes the act as "ten life size mechanical figures; three live principals and two assistants." The ad also describes the dummies: "They have false teeth, false hair, the mouth opens, and closes, they get up, sit down, bow, the heads turn, shake hands, make gestures." The ad claims that the dummies "talk any language." A photo of the minstrels is included, but it's too dark to reveal many details.

Also in 1908, Variety printed a letter from Byron (misspelled as "Bryon"), who wrote in reply to a review of Gane's act that Variety had published in a previous issue. Monzello's letter read:

I see in Variety (August 22) under "New Acts" a review on "William Gane's Automatic Minstrels'" at the Manhattan Theatre, New York. This is a direct steal of my act. I will furnish affidavits I originated "The Mechanical Minstrels" in September, 1904, at Indianapolis. Not then satisfied with results, I continued experimenting until September, 1906, when my act was completed, but other business matters prevented me placing it in vaudeville. 

Enclosed you will find correspondence from prominent managers showing the act has been played at Riverview Park, and in existence over one year.

Despite Monzello's claim of being the first to create a mechanical minstrel act, earlier mentions of similar acts can be found in late-19th century newspapers. The phonograph was invented in 1877, so it's possible that these early mechanical minstrel acts incorporated phonograph recordings too.

Even if it's true that Gane stole Monzello's act, vaudevillians stole each others acts, jokes, catchphrases, skits, and gimmicks constantly. In those days, a performer could steal another performer's act wholesale and take it to another part of the country without anyone easily finding out. In Vaudeville: From the Honky-Tonks to the Palace, Laurie gives a number of examples of well-know television and movie personalities of the post-vaudeville era who "borrowed" from earlier vaudeville performers. 

When was Victor Young born?

Victor Young with niece Bobbie Hill Fromberg

Wikipedia and many other sources report that Victor Young was born in 1900, and it appears that no amount of evidence to the contrary will change it. I've tried to correct the date on Wikipedia, but it always reverts to 1900.

Further adding to the misinformation is Young's grave marker, which shows his birth year as 1901.

Young was a composer, conductor, arranger, and violinist who won an Oscar in 1956 for his score of Around the World in 80 Days. Some of his well-known compositions include "When I Fall in Love," "Love Letters," "Stella By Starlight," "My Foolish Heart," "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You," "Street of Dreams," "Sweet Sue, Just You," and "Johnny Guitar." In all instances, Young composed the music and various lyricists wrote the words. He received 22 Academy Award nominations in his lifetime and even charted several pop hits, the biggest of which was his Top 10 rendition of "The High and the Mighty" in 1954.

When I worked on the 2006 Victor Young CD Cinema Rhapsodies: The Musical Genius of Victor Young, I had the opportunity to talk to Young's niece, Bobbie Hill Fromberg. Young never had children of his own, so he and Bobbie were close.

Fromberg told me that she had researched her family's history and discovered from US Census records that Young falsified his birthdate in the early days of his career. He was born August 8, 1899, but gave his birth year as 1900, presumably to avoid the perception that he had been born in an earlier century. The liner notes of Cinema Rhapsodies set the record straight: "Albert Victor Young was born to a Polish family in a tenement district of Chicago on August 8, 1899, not 1900 as widely reported."

Six years later, in 2012, Albert Haim of the Bix Beiderbecke discussion forum Bixography, posted a message about Young's birth year, which continued to be a topic of speculation. Haim referenced the US Census data as well as Young's birth certificate: 

Birth Certificate - Cook County IL. Name: Victor Young; birth date Aug 8, 1899; birth place Chicago, Cook, IL

Fromberg herself weighed in on the topic on the Bixography forum and explained the incorrect date on Young's grave marker: 

I come from a family that never told the truth about their birth years. Victor was born on August 8, 1899 (I discovered from the 1900 Chicago census) 

My Mom made herself 6 years younger than she really was and both of their plaques [her mother's and Victor's] at Hollywood Forever Cemetery where they are buried facing each other in a mausoleum have incorrect years on them. 

So there you have it.