Jefferson County is the heartland of black American a cappella gospel quartet singing. For more than [a century] black quartets have thrived in Birmingham and Bessemer, and they have provided immeasurable spiritual uplift and musical enjoyment to a large portion of the local population. The tenacious survival of black quartet traditions in Birmingham and Bessemer preserves a cultural and historical continuity that informs and enriches many lives. The older singers share a sense of brotherhood, a common identification with four-part harmony heritage and lore. For many singers, a powerful desire to perpetuate these traditions is coupled with a belief that singing is their allotted personal service to God. These are reasons why there are so many septuagenarians and octogenarians in the field; they're striving to earn the epitaph, "He sang until he died."
"The Sterling Jubilee Singers were founded in 1929 during a vibrant period when large numbers of African-American men who worked in Jefferson County's steel mills and ore mines were forming gospel quartets. African-American a cappella quartet traditions were already generations old in the South when the movement became popular in Birmingham during the 1920s. These traditions have deep roots in nineteenth-century American folk and popular culture. The local quartet activity had its incubation in the mining camps, company quarters, and other segregated black industrial settlements, and was in part a product of the rich fellowship that survived and was enjoyed in those oppressive environs. The original Sterling Jubilees were trained by singing master Charles Bridges, who was a strong force in shaping the Jefferson County a cappella quartet style. The founding members and most of those joining later were union men who worked for U.S. Pipe and other steel-related companies. During the 1940s and '50s they performed at union functions and on local radio programs as the CIO Singers and under that name recorded "The Spirit of Phil Murray," an original song commemorating the death of the first president of the steelworkers union... In the late 1950s gospel music began to feel the influence of instrumentally-based rock and roll and soul music, but the Sterling Jubilees persevered as an a cappella quartet". - Doug Seroff, On The Battlefield: Gospel Quartets in Jefferson County, Alabama, 1997.
At the heart of the Sterling Jubilee's success and longevity is their weekly highly-structured rehearsal. Following an agenda formed early in the group's history, they open with a reverential song such as "Did You Stop to Pray This Morning?" or "One Morning Soon," recite the Lord's Prayer in unison, then individually quote Bible verses. A second song precedes a business meeting, which is conducted in the formal language of parliamentary procedure. Rehearsals are often intense. John Alexander says, "You have to get into it like you are going to eat it. When you get ready to go out, it ain't hard to do right. If you did it right before you leave rehearsal, you've got it." Before leaving, the Sterling Jubilees hold hands in a circle and sing the group's traditional benediction, with both reverence and humor, invariably closing the meeting with laughter.
This recording, originally produced by the Alabama Folklife Association, documents the Sterling's rehearsal at Straight Place in Bessemer on Wednesday, April 20, 1994. It includes all the elements of a traditional Sterling Jubilee rehearsal - even the sound of trains passing by the hall intermittently - and differs from an actual meeting only in the omission of the business meeting and in the nature of the opening song. Wanting their first number to have impact, they selected "Atom Bomb" rather than one of the more worshipful numbers with which they normally begin.
