2006

SG History 101 - The Goss Brothers

In gospel music, as in the rest of life, there are leaders, and there are followers. There are those that start trends and fresh paths, and there are those who travel on comfortable, familiar ground.

In the early 1960s, three young men came from Cartersville, GA and took the world of gospel music by storm with their unique sound, their vocal and instrumental skill, and their ability to write, arrange, and produce music. Their impact reverberated through the gospel music industry then, and their work still does today. Here is the story of one of the most talented family aggregations in the history of gospel music…the Goss Brothers.

The Goss brothers story begins in their home town of Cartersville, GA in the 1940s. Benjamin and Anna Goss were God-fearing, church-loving Baptists that loved to sing in church, so when their children were born, it was only natural that they would follow in their parents’ footsteps.

James was the first of the boys to be born, on April 13, 1940. Roni followed two years later, on December 29, 1942…then Lari followed on February 19, 1945. The earliest memories the boys had were going to church with their parents and singing all the hymns and anthems of their Baptist church.

During the boys’ childhood, the all-night sing phenomenon was just getting underway in Georgia and the rest of the south, and the Gosses were frequent attendees of those singings. The boys took to the singings like moths to flames, and it probably seemed to Anna and Benjamin as though God was involved in leading their boys into a life of singing. Lari still remembers the days he stood on furniture and sang with his brothers, happily making music.

It was inevitable that the brothers would find other people to sing with and form groups. One prominent local group was led by a man named Truman Darnell, who sang with his family. Darnell brought the Goss boys into his group to sing, and the boys gained valuable experience as a result.

After a couple of years with Darnell, the boys ended up singing with a well-known local singer, James Padgett. It was with Padgett that the Goss brothers were first heard on record…they recorded some 78s for the Bibletone label. The boys stayed with Padgett until the end of the 1950s.

The Goss brothers’ reputation grew with Padgett. Lari was a noteworthy boy soprano, and James had learned how to play piano and was becoming an outstanding singer in his own right. James did so well as a pianist, in fact, that for a short time in 1960, he played for an up and coming professional quartet, Smitty Gatlin’s Oak Ridge Quartet.

Like all other youngsters from the south at that time, the Goss brothers loved the quartet singing. So when James stopped playing with the Oak Ridge Quartet, the boys decided to form a quartet of their own. They bought a used bus from the Prophets Quartet, got a couple of other singers, tenor Jerry Cantrell, an bass Sam Duncan, and the Goss Brothers Quartet was born.

Unfortunately, the quartet didn’t really catch on, and after Duncan and Cantrell left the group, it was just the three Goss Brothers. What would they do? Well, they loved music, and they loved to sing, and they had at least one man’s attention that might do them some good. Longtime gospel singer and promoter Wally Fowler took a liking to the boys, and gave them places to sing, and a job transporting Fowler to concert appearances.

By this time the boys were convinced that they were going to make it as a trio, and in the meantime they were all beginning to blossom as musicians, particularly Lari, who taught himself to play keyboards, and started to write songs. James, who already played piano, began to learn the guitar as well, and Roni learned how to play bass.

By this time the boys’ voices had changed, and Lari was no longer the boy soprano that he was even with the quartet. In fact, all the brothers had voices in the light baritone range, and didn’t feel they were able to sing the arrangements of the popular groups. So they improvised out of necessity, they began to arrange their music to fit their own unique voices, and since they had unique innate musicianship, coupled with a love and appreciation for the jazz-tinged harmonies of groups like the Hi-Los and the Four Freshmen, they began to incorporate those unusual harmonies into their singing, certainly a novel and innovative approach to gospel singing.

Certainly this approach was distinctive, and with Fowler championing them, the Goss brothers got the attention of a relatively new gospel music record label headquartered in the Atlanta area, Sing Records (owned by the famous LeFevre family). They then recorded the now classic and aptly-titled “New Concepts In Gospel Singing” LP, which combined a number of Lari Goss original songs along with a few other songs arranged by the boys in their distinctive style.

Audience reaction to the Goss Brothers was mixed, people agreed that they were very good, but their music didn’t exactly sound like a lot of the religious music they grew up with. The Goss Brothers pressed on with their unique approach to gospel music, undeterred, for they were living a dream, singing gospel music for a living, and enjoying what they did. A comfort to them was how they were accepted by their fellow singers, who respected immensely how the brothers made their music, and also admired their proficiency in arrangements and musicianship.

By 1963, Meurice LeFevre had opened up the brand new, state of the art recording studio in Atlanta, and gospel singers from far and wide came to Atlanta to make their records. By this time, the Goss Brothers had developed a reputation as superlative arrangers and singers with great instrumental proficiency. Meurice began to use the Goss Brothers more and more on records by other artists, and the results were classic recordings coming out of the fancy Atlanta studio.

Soon, much of the Goss Brothers’ time was taken working on sessions and records by other artists…and they only traveled occasionally to perform. This didn’t bother the boys that much, for they were making a lot more money staying home and working in the studio than getting on the bus and doing concerts. As they gained studio experience, the boys were entrusted more and more with doing the entire recording process themselves, and were becoming quite adept at producing and arranging music for other artists, even helping them with song material.

Still, though, the Goss Brothers were trendsetters. They appeared at the 1964 National Quartet Convention and sang two songs there with backing soundtracks, ”The Great Speckled Bird” and “It Is No Secret,” the first time anyone in the gospel music field had ever done such a thing. The boys didn’t have to do it that way, but they did because they wanted to, and other groups, such as The Couriers, took notice and began to explore the possibilities of using tracks as well in live performance, which they would begin doing a few years later. Now the practice of using tracks is widespread in the gospel industry, another example of how the Goss Brothers led the way by simply doing what came to them.

By the late 1960s, it was estimated that the Goss Brothers appeared in one form or another on 2/3 of all gospel recordings being made, such was the breadth of their talent, influence, and versatility.

Come the 1970s, the Goss Brothers were still a prime force in the industry with their style, their recordings, and their behind the scenes work. Another current practice that they pioneered was the use of vocal stacks.  By the late 1960s, their voices were augmented by the talented female voice of one Sharon Scott. But since there were still only four voices, to get a bigger, fuller vocal sound on their records, they started to stack vocal parts over each other to achieve the desired result. This practice spread slowly at first, but eventually other gospel artists began to incorporate stacking into their product. Today, it is used quite often, another innovation the Goss Brothers introduced to gospel music.

One might wonder, with all that talent, why didn’t the Goss Brothers make an attempt to enter the secular music field? Certainly groups of lesser skill had tried and succeeded to varying degrees…with the Goss Brothers, though, their Christian faith and upbringing kept them in the fold. One striking departure, though, came in 1969, when they did the instrumental and vocal backing on a pop hit, “Color Him Father”, by the Winstons, who were really the Goss Brothers in disguise.

By the late 1970s, the Goss Brothers had made appearances on almost all of the major Christian TV shows, and they appeared twice on the Mike Douglas Show besides. They were no newcomers to TV, having appeared many years earlier on shows like the Statesmen’s TV show, Bob Poole’s program in North Carolina, and both the Gospel Singing Jubilee and the Gospel Singing Caravan.

Alas, tragedy would befall the Goss Brothers in October 1980 when James, who had a pilot’s license, perished in a plane accident on a test flight. James was not only a competent singer, but a fine piano player and guitarist. Like his brothers, he was a fine arranger, and a capable songwriter as well. His best known songs were “I Won’t Have To Worry Anymore” and a song he had just been featured on with the group prior to his passing, “Anyone Can Move A Mountain.” He was only 40 years of age, but left behind a wife and four children.

Roni and Lari took James’ passing very hard. James, being the oldest, was always the leader and primary business mind for the group. Without James there, the remaining brothers went in somewhat different directions.

Roni headed to Los Angeles and started working with well-known singer/songwriter/evangelist Nancy Harmon, and later began working with Paul Crouch and his Trinity Broadcasting Network in suburban Orange County. He was still in demand as a backup musician, working with, among others, country recording star Tanya Tucker. And Roni too arranged and wrote songs, some of his best known songs include “After All”, “Soul’s Harbor”, and “I Want To Do Thy Will, O Lord”, all recorded by the Oak Ridge Boys, and “Jesus Found Me”, a song that the Goss Brothers did. Roni eventually made it back to Georgia, where he lives comfortably today with his wife.

Lari Goss is probably the best-known of all the Goss Brothers. An entirely self-taught musician, he has written many classic songs, including “Shout, Brother, Shout”, “How Green Is Your Valley”, “He’s So Good To Me”, “We’re Going Home”, and perhaps his signature song “Cornerstone”. After James’ death, he eventually settled down in Nashville, and began to produce and arrange recordings by the very top groups in the industry, such as the Cathedral Quartet, Gold City, the Rex Nelon Singers, the Hoppers, the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and even the Gaither Homecoming Projects. He is perhaps the most sought after producer/arranger in the gospel music industry, and seems to have limitless capabilities for setting just the right music to every project he undertakes. In addition, Lari is an ordained Baptist minister, and has been since the age of 14. It was not unusual in the early days of the Goss Brothers to hear Lari preach a sermon after he and his brothers would sing their hearts out for audiences. As this article is being written, Lari is in the midst of working on a project with the combined forces of the Gaither Vocal Band and Ernie Haase and Signature Sound.

Much more can be said about the Goss Brothers, but my hope is that this article will stimulate its readers into looking further into the tremendous careers of these talented, Godly men. Anyone involved in gospel music from the 1960s on has been impacted in some way, either directly or indirectly, by the work of the Goss Brothers.

Perhaps after all of the above, the most telling thing to say about the Goss Brothers is, that for all the innovation they did, and all of their uniqueness, at their heart, they are as traditional a gospel group as they come, for like all the other great groups in gospel music history, they sang because they loved to, and because they felt it was a gift of God that they were to give back to Him as best they could.

My heartfelt appreciation goes to Roni and Lari Goss for their help, time, and information that contributed to this article.

Read the author's personal reflections on this article on his blog.