Thank You for One More Day

The Dixie Hummingbirds

album cover

The Best from Enduring Soldiers in the Gospel Army

When his group the Dixie Hummingbirds celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2003, lead singer Ira Tucker Sr. was asked about the life of an African American singing group traveling the church and revival tent gospel circuit of the 1940s and '50s. "There was a time when we were happy to split four dollars between us," he recalled. "We were discriminated against, people called us names. We went through what we did because we loved to share our music. When you compare it to now, there's no way that a group would start out and suffer like we did." But he's not sure he'd trade any part of the experience: "When you start low, and you don't let it get you down, you bring those things with you when you come up."

That's not all the Dixie Hummingbirds brought. The group—with Tucker's emotional lead vocals supported by a traditional quartet backing—used a snappy, interactive style of singing to interpret spirituals and hymns. Its wide-wingspan harmonies and solo vocal declarations (which influenced secular stars like Jackie Wilson) attain the fulminating fervor of an epic sermon. Even in its lone "crossover" moment—the 'Birds sing with Paul Simon on his gospel shuffle "Loves Me like a Rock"—the group did its work without straying far from what a churchgoer might expect to hear on Sunday morning.

Formed originally in South Carolina and relocated to Philadelphia in the 1940s, the Dixie Hummingbirds toured with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, and others, and recorded for a variety of labels. This collection, released in conjunction with their seventieth anniversary in 1998, shows why the Hummingbirds were one of the most spirited groups ever to travel the gospel highway.

Genre: Gospel
Released: 1998, Peacock/MCA
Key Tracks: "Loves Me like a Rock," "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel," "Two Little Fishes and Five Loaves of Bread"
Catalog Choice: Gospel at Newport
Next Stop: The Blind Boys of Alabama: Atom Bomb
After That: Louis Armstrong: Louis Sings the Good Book
Book Pages: 226–227