The Truth

In the closing years of the 1960s John Roger Breland envisioned assembling a Christian ensemble whose music would convey the Gospel message. That vision took tangible form in June 1971 when he established the ensemble Truth, whose name served as an acronym for “Trust, Receive, Unchangeable, True Happiness” in Jesus.

Truth launched its inaugural tour with a roster of fifteen performers, several of whom had only recently completed high school. During its first seasons the ensemble maintained a schedule of four hundred concerts per year while remaining on the road fifty weeks annually. Once the group secured a firmer footing, the yearly concert count settled at two hundred sixty, with remaining months devoted to studio work.

Entering the twenty-first century, Truth’s membership stood at twenty-two and the collective had appeared in every American state plus twenty-one foreign nations. Nearly sixty albums stood to its credit, and cumulative live audiences exceeded ten million across more than nine thousand performances. In 2000 the ensemble received induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Shortly after completing a farewell tour, the Truth Legacy Collection appeared in 2001.