Thurman Ruth (promoter)

Infobox Musical artist
Name = Thurman Ruth

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Born = birth date|1914|03|06
Newberry County, South Carolina
United States
Died = Death date and age|2002|09|13|1914|03|06
Origin = Brooklyn, New York
United States
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Genre = Christian
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Associated_acts = Ralph Bass
Selah Jubilee Singers,
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Thurman Ruth (also Therman Ruth, Thermon Ruth and T. Ruth) (March 6, 1914–September 13, 2002), who got his start in vaudeville in 1927, was a gospel singer, deejay and concert promoter, and a forefather of such rhythm and blues (R&B) producers as Ralph Bass. Ruth had organized the Selah Jubilee Singers, a gospel group drawn from the membership of a church choir, leaving it in 1949 to pursue more secular interests in music.

Ruth was a deejay on WOV, a radio station in New York, at a time in the late 1940s when gospel groups such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Pilgrim Travelers and the Five Blind Boys were touring the country playing in shabby settings with few amenities for the performers. Meanwhile, rhythm and blues groups were becoming so popular that theaters such as the Apollo Theater began featuring highly successful R&B revues. Gospel groups were popular on radio stations but their performances made no money.cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=uqT-CJYcqskC&pg=PT353&lpg=PT353&dq=ruth+gospel&source=web&ots=jiqQ_LKJK1&sig=DH0RpBOX3WANEptlUS1uQE8V0aA&hl=en|title=Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music|publisher=books.google.com|accessdate=2008-03-04|last=McNeil|first= W. K. McNeil]

No one had yet conceived of combining the power of gospel with the highly-charged, money-making revue format of the successful R&B acts that appealed to urban audiences. In 1955, Ruth succeeded in signing a gospel group to play in a commercial theater for the first time in the history of American entertainment. Subsequently Ruth continued to feature gospel groups as a prominent and influential deejay and promoter.

Early life and career

Thermon Ruth was born in Newberry County, South Carolina, and moved as a child with his family to Brooklyn, New York in 1922. cite web|url=http://www.ugha.users5.50megs.com/UGHA/ughahof93.htm|title=United in Group Harmony Association|accessdate=2008-03-08] By about 1927, he had founded The Selah Jubilee Singers, while working as deejay at WOR in Brooklyn. The group later based in Raleigh, North Carolina, where they had a daily program of music on radio station WPTF. In 1949, Ruth formed a secular vocal group, which became The Larks, based in New York. However, they split up in 1952.

Professionalizing gospel

By 1950, Ruth was very aware that gospel groups had become popular acts although they usually appeared in dusty store fronts, not in thriving, jiving black theaters. [cite web|url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0090-7790(1990)18:1/2%3C101:BGINYC%3E2.0.CO;2-W
title=JSTOR: The Black Perspective in Music: Vol. 18, No. 1/2 (1990), pp. 101-115|publisher=links.jstor.org|accessdate=2008-03-02
last=Allgood|first=B. Dexter] The lifestyle of the gospel singers prevented them from appearing in such venues as the Apollo Theater, while the secular R&B groups were appearing there and in other urban rhythm and blues theaters, performing pulsating hit gospel songs. Ruth had the idea of convincing Frank Schiffman, then owner of the Apollo (who was dubious that a gospel act would succeed in his theater) of giving the Selah Jubilee Singers a trial performance on the Apollo stage.cite book |last= Fox |first= Ted |title= Showtime at the Apollo |publisher= Da Capo |year= 1983 |isbn= 0-647-01612-2 |pages = pp 227–231]

A more difficult task for Ruth was to convince the Selah Jubilee Singers that playing at the Apollo was not sinful. At that time, gospel music was considered sacred music and not to be performed as secular entertainment. Ruth convinced the group by arguing that, since the Apollo was a sinful den of iniquity, that was exactly where a gospel group should sing. There they could bring the sacred message to the sinners, and that the building itself should not matter if their performance of gospel was to worship God . Further, not only would they have a real stage with professional stage lighting and great musical acoustics, for the first time they would be guaranteed to be paid a remuneration whether the show was a success nor not.

On December 15, 1955, the Selah Jubilee Singers debuted at the Apollo, the first gospel group to play there or at any commercial theater. Thurman ensured that a variety of gospel was featured in order to broaden the appeal: gospel, jubilee, and spirituals but with an emphasis on rhythm as well as the emotional components of gospel. The shows were stimulating, exciting and a great success with the Apollo regulars. Dionne Warwick remembers that the audience became overwhelmed with emotion. "We were entertainers," remembers Ruth. Gospels acts became commercial hits. The Selah Jubilee Singers became a professional R&B group, the Larks, in the 1950s.cite book|first=Alan|last=Young|year= 1997|title= Woke Me Up This Morning: Black Gospel Singers and The Gospel Life|edition=|publisher= University of Mississippi Press| location=Jackson|pages= pp 65, 145|id=ISBN 0-87805-944-x]

Ruth also taught the gospel groups to abide by theatrical rules, such as keeping firm to time limits on stage, as they were used to singing as long as the spirit hit them in the storefronts. Having to pay stage hands overtime was a major motivation in convincing the gospel groups to confine their performances to the time allotted to them. They also learned to keep theatrical schedules, performing their act whether the spirit hit them or not.

Popular gospel

Ruth organized the first of many Gospel Caravans, a professional package tour of gospel acts modeled after the popular R&B revues that traveled the country's entertainment circuit. This was the beginning of the popularity of the touring gospel groups have become part of the American music scene.cite web|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ibrrPmSpLTAC&pg=RA1-PA196&lpg=RA1-PA196&dq=thurman+ruth&source=web&ots=8fPf_NDRDT&sig=6SpSylzzu8qgeGbPgCxJaHnsUes&hl=en|title=Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consiousness and Race|publisher=books.google.com|accessdate=2008-03-02|last=Ward|first=Brian]

Thurman Ruth was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. [cite web|url=http://www.blackhistorymonthjazzheritage.com/artists/bishop_townsley.html|title=Bishop Nathaniel Townsley Jr. and The Gospel Jubilee - performing artist at Black History Month Jazz Africa Heritage Festival, South Africa|publisher=www.blackhistorymonthjazzheritage.com|accessdate=2008-03-02|last=|first=]

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.blackhistorymonthjazzheritage.com/artists/bishop_townsley.html Bishop Nathaniel Townsley Jr & the Gospel Jubilee]
* [http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/2002/09/29/2002-09-29_the_gospel_truth_the_story_o.html The Gospel Truth: The story of a man who lived for music and faith]
* [http://home.att.net/~marvy42/Larks/larks.html Marv Goldberg's R&B Notebooks - The Larks]