Truth

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

Fifteen singers, several of whom had only recently left high school, joined Truth for its inaugural tour. During its first seasons on the road the group maintained a schedule of four hundred concerts a year and remained away from home fifty weeks annually. Once the ensemble gained wider recognition, the yearly calendar shifted to two hundred sixty live performances, with the remaining weeks devoted to studio recording.

Entering the new century, Truth numbered twenty-two members and had appeared in every American state as well as twenty-one foreign countries. Nearly sixty albums stood to its credit, and cumulative audiences surpassed ten million listeners across more than nine thousand engagements. The ensemble received induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2000. The following year, shortly after completing a farewell tour, it issued The Truth Legacy Collection.