J.D. Sumner

J.D. Sumner once claimed a Guinness world record for singing the lowest bass note ever documented, and as a trailblazing figure in gospel music he anchored the Stamps Quartet, a group that later gained mainstream visibility through its extended role as Elvis Presley’s backing vocalists. Born on November 19, 1924, he joined the Blackwood Brothers as their bass singer in 1954 and stayed with them for twelve years. Prompted by his idea, the Blackwoods became the first touring ensemble, in 1955, to use a custom-built bus for travel between engagements, a model soon adopted by nearly all performing artists. During that period Sumner formed a friendship with a teenage Presley, who regularly attended the Blackwood Brothers’ Saturday-night shows in the Memphis area while still in high school.

In 1962 Sumner and fellow member James Blackwood acquired a music-publishing firm based in Dallas that controlled the trademark for the Stamps Quartet, an ensemble originally established in 1924. Two years later Sumner departed the Blackwoods to lead the Stamps, a position he held for more than thirty years. Beginning in 1970 the quartet provided regular vocal support for Presley both on stage and in the studio, contributing to tracks such as the hit single “Burning Love,” and continued in that capacity until Presley’s death in 1977. Following that loss the Stamps participated annually in Graceland’s Elvis memorial events while sustaining an active schedule of their own recordings and concerts. On November 16, 1998, three days before his seventy-fourth birthday, Sumner passed away in his sleep at a hotel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, during one of the group’s tour stops.