Harbor Lights Quartet--In the Upper Room (1963): Classic gospel from Lee Records

I have no memories of Lee Records, but I was only seven when this came out, so maybe I just have lousy recollection.  I'd have been one of the world's youngest record label owners, certainly.  I do remember Battle Creek, Michigan (from which all of these singers hail), but it's from all of those TV toy ads of the day--I don't recall ever living there.  Maybe I worked from my home in Toledo.  Anyway, the Harbor Lights Quartet is terrific, so I sure had good taste.  Well, that's assuming I was the A&R man, which I probably was, since it was Lee Records.  The quartet sounds a bit like the Statesmen, probably because it harbors (no pun intended) a similarly high high tenor.  Or, as it's known in close (Barbershop) harmony, the "tenor."  It doesn't pay to think too hard about these things.

As for "Why are there five guys if this was a quartet?"--the second man (or first in the top row) was the pianist, Phil Colsell.  He's very good, though I can't say I remember him.  My piano teacher was Elmer Gertz, so I know that Phil didn't function in that capacity, and--well, it's just all a blur.  If that.  I suppose it's possible I didn't own Lee Records, that some other Lee did.  Discogs isn't much help--of the label, it says, "Lansing, MI label."  No mention of me.  But omission doesn't equal transmission.  No, wait.  I mean, it doesn't equal... um... I forgot what that saying was.  If, in fact, there is a saying.  The mystery deepens by the second.

Anyway, I was going to make a joke about the cover art--as in, how did a low-budget outfit like Lee Records land the services of Leonardo da Vinci?  Ha, ha!  But, hey, there's "Lee" again--Leonardo.  Close enough.  The clues are adding up.

Three of these songs, I knew mainly by their titles, and they're good numbers--Peace Like a River, In the Upper Room, and J.D. Sumner's Old Country Church.  That last title is one I'm always mixing up with Herbert Buffum's Old-Fashioned Meeting (1922), because the themes are so close--though Buffum's hymn (which just took me about a half hour to find in my songbooks) doesn't include quotations from older hymns, as does Sumner's.  And there was another Old Country Church, by J.W. Vaughan, from 1930-something (can't read the print), and it's lyrically similar, so this just goes to show that popular gospel recycles its themes pretty regularly, like all other pop forms.  I suppose someone could reverse the tradition with a number called The Recent Songs I Haven't Learned Yet at the New-Fashioned Church.

When I Survey is done to a different tune than usual, for those expecting the standard Lowell Mason air (Hamburg, 1824).  "Hey, where's Hamburg?"  "In Germany, I think."

This Lee Records special was a thrift gift from Diane, and I thank Diane for today's gospel.  And that photo--doesn't the group look like it loves its job?  That's one thing I really dig about these made-to-sell-at-public-appearances sacred LPs--the way they show ordinary people of a given period posing and dressing like... ordinary people.  We're so used to fancy, carefully planned commercial LP jackets that normal can look amusing.  I remember, a few decades back, when a maker of genuinely funny commercials (back when ads involved a degree of creativity) was asked how he managed to find such unique looking individuals for his highly effective spots.  And his reply, of course, is that he simply used everyday-looking actors (many recruited to speak only one line)--folks who looked odd only in comparison to the exceptional specimens that populate TV programs.

Today's lesson from... Lee Records!

And I got the year from the RCA Custom matrix in the "dead wax," which starts with P--meaning 1963.  And, hey--I'm copyrighted (see label)!  I had no idea.  Funny--I don't feel any different.




DOWNLOAD: Harbor Lights Quartet--In the Upper Room (Lee Records H-101; 1963)

Lee, formerly of Lee Records