Southernaires Quartet

Biography

Southernaires Quartet was a male quartet founded in 1929, and active in New York area for more than a decade. They had their own radio show (NBC) and throughout the 1930s and '40s performed for many fund-raising concerts with Black celebrities including Eva Taylor, W.C. Handy, Jules Bledsoe, Anne Brown and Walter White, founder of the N.A.A.C.P. In addition to their hundreds of radio appearances, the group appeared in concert and at many churches. Their programs featured dramatic readings, spirituals, old ballads, slave chants and recreations of Negro sermons of the old South. Their concerts included bits of religious philosophy and American patriotism. It was reported that their repertoire numbered over 2,000 tunes. Many of their programs benefited the Omega Psi Fraternity and National Negro Achievement Week (founded 1926). They were considered pioneers in the preservation of African-American songs, some of which they collected from former slaves, and wrote down for the first time. Their concerts would include songs such as "The Spirit Flower," "Over The Hills," "African Romance,", "Lift Thine Eyes," Brahms' "Lullaby," "Oh, Redeemed," "Minor Mode" African chant, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand," and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." In 1939 the Southernaires participated in a concert at Carnegie Hall devoted to African-American songs. On the same program were James Weldon Johnson, J. Rosamond Johnson, Juanita Hall, William Grant Still and W.C. Handy. The personnel consisted of Homer Smith (a nephew of W.C, Handy) and Lowell Peters (tenors), Jay Toney (baritone) and William Edmonson (bass). They were accompanied on piano by Spencer Odom and Clarence Jones. Homer Smith (tenor) was a nephew of W.C. Handy from Florence, Alabama. He studied voice culture at Wilberforce University and was first heard professionally in 1927 with the Eva Jessye Choir at New York's Capitol Theatre. His hobby was researching Negro history and literature. Lowell Peters, (second tenor) was born in Cleveland, Tennessee. One of 11 children, Peters was a law graduate of Knoxville (Tennessee) College, and made his professional debut with the Hall Johnson Choir in New York in 1929. Jay Toney (baritone) was a high school amateur who worked as a window decorator before joining the quartet in 1929. Toney was responsible for answering the thousands of fan letters sent to the quartet by listeners to their frequent radio broadcasts. William Edmonson began as a boy soprano in the choir of the All Saints Cathedral in Spokane, took vocal training at Chicago Musical College, and had a long professional career as a singer and actor. His adult career began with the Garner Concert Company and the Lafayette Players, a dramatic stock company. He also appeared on the Chautauqua and Lyceum vaudeville circuits. Before founding the Southernaires, Edmonson acted in a few films for the Dunbar Film Corporation. He returned to acting in the late 1950s and appeared in movies and television. When they appeared in southern cities, audiences were still segregated. As late as 1941 the quartet was refused lodging in three different Hanover, PA hotels during an engagement in that city. At the end of their concert they issued a plea to the audience, and were taken to a private home for the night. The quartet was often treated as special guests of the Society for The Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA), founded in 1938.