SHOUT! Black Gospel Music Moments - "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." by Billy Ward and the Dominoes

Billy Ward and the Dominoes were one of the country’s top R&B groups in the early 1950s. Featuring lead singers like Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson – both of whom went on to stardom elsewhere – the Dominoes performed in the biggest venues the U.S., including The Ed Sullivan Show, singing hits like “Do Something for Me” and the naughty “Sixty-Minute Man.”

But when Ward’s longtime manager and music director Rose Marks died, Billy was devastated. In response, he recorded an album of spirituals and gospel songs for Liberty Records in 1957, titled Sea of Glass, featuring Ward’s arrangement of some of the best-loved spirituals of all time, including: “Were You There,” “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” “Deep River” and this big band swing arrangement of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

I’m Robert Darden … “Shout! Black Gospel Music Moments” is produced by KWBU and the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor University Libraries.

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