Gospel Quartet Radio Performances

Reual Omer Thomas was an important figure in the formative years of John Lair’s Renfro Valley, particularly after the operation moved to Kentucky in 1939. A native of Clinton County, Kentucky, Thomas was an accomplished quartet singer as well as active rural singing school teacher. His expertise in these areas profoundly shaped many aspects of the sacred music programming and events sponsored by Renfro Valley for over fifteen years during the organization’s most successful period. Not only did he lead various quartets that performed on many of Renfro Valley’s network radio programs, but he also organized many gospel music events (monthly singings, singing schools, quartet contests, an annual all-night and all-day sing) on the grounds of Renfro Valley that served the surrounding local and regional communities of Kentucky.

The Crusaders were organized in the late 1930s by Clinton County singing school teacher, Reual Thomas (lead) along with wife, Flossie (alto), and neighbors, Marvin York (bass) and Leslie Andrews (baritone and guitar accompaniment). They sang regularly on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, and John Lair's more subdued, scripted radio programs such as Monday Night in Renfro Valley and the Renfro Valley Gatherin' until disbanding in 1944.

They were generally typical of southern gospel quartets of the time. However with both male and female members, their sound was more mild and rounded than all-male groups, then the majority in Kentucky's gospel quartet scene. Their repertoire included a heavy dose of Albert E. Brumley material and leaned toward newer, more recently composed songs that could place them apart from other groups.

Reual Thomas organized the Four Tones in mid to late 1944 as a replacement for the Crusaders. While on Renfro Valley business in the south, he recruited Georgians, Carroll "Shorty" Bradford (tenor) and Paul "Curley" Kinsey (bass). Combined with Howard Steele from Corbin, Kentucky (baritone & guitar), the new group took their name from a no longer existing one that had included Bradford, Kinsey, and future gospel star, Lee Roy Abernathy. No group recordings have survived, however Renfro Valley radio scripts strongly suggest that the Four Tones maintained much of the same repertoire that the Crusaders had performed. The original configuration held only briefly over the period during 1944-1945 that the group was in action. Replacements moving in and out at various times included Herschel Collins, Glenn Pennington, and Flossie Thomas.

In February 1947, Reual Thomas reformed the Crusaders under a new name, the Seventy Six Quartet, probably to distinguish themselves from two other south-central Kentucky gospel groups then going by the name "Crusaders." Personnel, in addition to Thomas, included wife, Flossie (alto) and cousins, Clay and Jeff Colson. With Flossie and the Colsons being later replaced at various times by Edward Snell, Leslie Andrews, and Morris Gaskin, the quartet was a Renfro Valley radio fixture until about 1951.

Broadcast recordings reveal different guitar work than on any of the other Thomas quartet recordings. There are turnarounds between verses and at times a second guitar. Their long repertoire list reveals Thomas's preference for current singing convention favorites mixed in with some newer compositions. Over one-fifth of the songs are by composer Albert E. Brumley, along with strong showings by such others as Luther Presley, J.B. Coats, and Vep Ellis.