Biography
The Vaughan Quartet sound belongs high on any roster of distinctive record-label aesthetics, right alongside the CTI sound, the Chess sound, and even the Dumpster Diver Cassette sound. James D. Vaughan’s publishing empire already wielded enormous sway before he began backing his own family-named ensembles, each a slight variation on the same title. Only one actual Vaughan, the proprietor’s son George Keiffer Vaughan, appeared on every release issued by any branch of the Vaughan Quartet enterprise. Decades earlier the very first Vaughan Quartet had indeed been entirely familial, consisting of the founder and three of his brothers; that configuration had dissolved long before the first discs were made. Releases sometimes appeared under the Vaughan Trio name and sometimes under the Vaughan Quartet name, yet a Vaughan Sextet was never attempted for fear that buyers of this rural-gospel variant might misread the word “sex.” Regardless of personnel count, the resulting style diverged sharply from both the rhythm-and-blues-inflected black Southern Baptist approach and the homespun old-time music associated with the Carter Family or the Phipps Family. What the Vaughan organization cultivated instead was a manner more closely modeled on European classical chamber music, albeit executed by figures of wax. Observers have characterized it as a highly stylized form of gospel whose development cannot be attributed solely to corporate orchestration. The same manner of singing already thrived independently in rural districts lacking radios or phonographs. Vaughan’s principal contribution lay in efficiently channeling an existing vogue through a constantly rotating roster of technically proficient singers who left little personal imprint—Vaughanity rather than vanity, as it were. That effort undeniably enlarged the commercial audience for rural gospel music and thereby became the source from which countless subsequent streams have flowed. Sessions begun in Nashville for Victor in 1928 featured Hillman Barnard, Otis McCoy, W.B. Walbert, A.M. Pace, Claude Sharpe, and Cully Wilson. Brothers L.E. and F.P. Heatwole joined the ensemble for Memphis dates the following year. The membership of the 1932 iteration remains undocumented. It is likewise impossible to know how many country artists who emerged during this era gained early experience inside one of the Vaughan groups. Country singer Eddie Dean’s biography, for instance, records that he “began performing in local theaters and soon after joined a western group called the Vaughan Quartet. Members of the group were paid about six dollars a day playing in schools and churches while selling songbooks on the side to make ends meet.” Typical instrumentation included banjo, fiddle, and guitar. Some participants maintained deeper ties to gospel traditions, among them John Murchison Pickering, who conducted shape-note singing schools throughout the South. A Vaughan Happy Two also operated in 1928, confirming that two could indeed be company. A 1929 Dallas session yielded Vaughans Texas Quartet, demonstrating that regional pride could outweigh corporate branding or at least compel a compromise. James D. Vaughan eventually launched his own imprint, simply called Vaughan, whose catalogue was devoted to the Quartet and the Happy Two. Certain critics have even traced the founder’s influence as far as bandleader Lawrence Welk’s signature count-off: “Vaughan, two, three, four.”
Singles
