BIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY

 

Gospel group that briefly dabbled in rock before its leader, J.C. Ginyard eventually formed another group that was rock through and through.

Ginyard had been in The Jubilaires, a popular jubilee styled gospel group of the 1940’s, but upon the addition of a new member tensions began to surface and Ginyard departed, forming The Dixieaires with members of other smaller gospel outfits.

Though all of their work retained some connection to spiritual themes, they were either enticed into recording secular material by labels seeking broader sales, or they legitimately saw little difference between the intent of a handful of songs they were offered.

One of these, “Go Long”, became a legitmate Race Chart hit, something that was quite rare for pure gospel which shows that a wider audience did indeed embrace the song which had a rock backing and more ambiguous lyrics.

They followed it up with a few others that skirted the boundaries as well and in the process helped to bring the emotional group vocal approach to rock in a small way, but soon they returned exclusively to cutting gospel songs where they remained quite popular for a number of years.

Ginyard however was convinced by this brief flirtation with the devil’s music that there was either money to be made there, or that the rock audience wasn’t headed to hell, or at least there’d be a long way to go before any of them got there, so in the early 1950’s he formed The Du-Droppers who performed strictly rock material and scored two Top Three hits in that realm.
 
 
THE DIXIEAIRES DISCOGRAPHY (Reviews To Date On Spontaneous Lunacy):
 
 
GO LONG
(Gotham 163; September, 1948)
Stuck thematically between gospel and rock, but soulfully sung by the group who get more animated as they progress, all while the band that’s backing them on the session leaves no doubt as to this being firmly in the rock fold. (7)

YOU CAN’T CURE THE BLUES
(Continental 6067; October, 1948)
Trying to bridge the gap between rock and pop, with some country blues flavor thrown on the dish like wilted parsley, the moonlighting gospel group doesn’t firmly land on the stylistic requirements for a successful record in any of those fields. (2)

THINGS GOT TOUGH AGAIN
(Gotham 167; November, 1948)
Unusual hybrid song done by gospel refugees and written and backed by a jazz guitarist turned rocker, the song’s lyrical content is two or three years out of date but it’s all carried off with class, just not anything cutting edge for rock in late ’48. (4)