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SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - Pilgrim Jubilee Singers

The Pilgrim Jubilee Singers have been thrilling Chicago’s gospel audiences for half a century.
 
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2143_pilgrim_jubilee_singers_-_stop_by_here.mp3
Pilgrim Jubilee Singers - Stop By Here

Welcome to Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments.  I’m Robert Darden. 
 
 
Chicago has had few more enduring groups than the Pilgrim Jubilee Singers, who had been singing since the 1940s, led by various members of the Graham family. In that time, they’re recorded more than two dozen LPs with every major gospel label: Savoy, Malaco, Nashboro and Peacock.
 
I had the great fortune to interview Cleve and Clay Graham in late 2009 about their work in the civil rights movement in Chicago – and the brothers even then had been making plans to take their smooth and stylish gospel sound around the world.
The Jubes – as their many fans call them – have also had a host of gospel hits through the decades: “Don’t Let Him Down,” “Three Trees,” “We Need Prayer,” “Step Out,” and my personal favorite, the silky, soulful Chicago groove of this song, “Stop by Here.”
 
MUSIC: “Stop by Here,” Pilgrim Jubilee Singers, from Pilgrim Jubilee Singers Greatest Hits, Side, 2, Track 1
 
I’m Robert Darden … “Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” is produced by KWBU, the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project at Baylor University Libraries and is funded by generous support from the Prichard Foundation. 
 

 

Robert F. Darden is the author of two dozen books, most recently: Nothing But Love in God’s Water, Volume II: Black Sacred Music from Sit-In to Resurrection City (Penn State University Press, 2016); Nothing But Love in God’s Water, Volume I: Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement(Penn State University Press, 2014); Jesus Laughed: The Redemptive Power of Humor(Abingdon Press, 2008), Reluctant Prophets and Clueless Disciples: Understanding the Bible by Telling Its Stories(Abingdon Press, 2006); and People Get Ready! A New History of Black Gospel Music(Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2004).