The Pilgrim Jubilees

16. Blazing in the Blizzard

16. Blazing in the Blizzard C rying Won't Help was the last album the Pilgrim Jubilees made for Peacock. ABC-Dunhill wound the label down, and by 1976 it had ceased recording. Nashboro had shown interest in having the group back during the Don Robey years; now the Jubes were prepared to reciprocate the interest. Nashboro had changed extensively since they left it in 1959. Ernie Young, in his seventies, had sold the label to the Crescent Investment Company around 1966. The following year, a Crescent-owned theater in Nashville was converted into the Woodland Recording Studios, replacing Young's handkerchief-wrapped microphone with a multitrack recording facility. In charge was Shannon Williams, who joined the company as an eighteen-year-old in 1960. Although he was not a gospel music devotee when he joined Nashboro, exposure to the music—allied with his own white Holiness church background—converted him, and as well asrunning the company, he was its main gospel producer.1 Nashboro still had a number of its older artists, including the Swanee Quintet; it had also acquired a number of new artists, among them some well-established names from other labels. Its marketing had improved, and it was a much more significant gospel force than it had been in the 19505. Although Major recalls Shannon Williams approaching the groupduring 149 150 Blazing in tke Blizzard its Peacock drought, the Pilgrim Jubilees' return to Nashboro had its origins in discussions aimed at entering into a management contract with Alex Bradford's manager, Richard Becker. "We did a Broadway show in New York with Alex Bradford, and Richard Becker was there," says Clay. "So we started talking to him." Despite some misgivings, the Jubes decided that outside management might be good for them. Clay: "We went along with him—he and Major were arranging it. When they got everything hooked together, Major showed us the contract, and I said, 'Give it to me.' Because I had my lawyer then. Gene Shapiro. How that happened, I knew I wasn't brilliant enough to keep people off me with these contracts. And a lady called Irene Ware [radio D] and promoter Irene Johnson Ware] told me, 'Clay, why don't youtry Gene Shapiro in Chicago? He's a lawyer—he's got Albertina Walker and Mahalia Jackson.' " [Eugene Shapiro wasa young white lawyer in Chicago when Jackson abruptly shifted her business from a well-established black law firm to him;the world-famous client helped him establish himself as an entertainment lawyer.2 ] Shapiro advised against signing the contract—today Clay recalls that it contracted the groupfor twenty yearsand gave Becker half the group's earnings . The Jubes returned it unsigned and severed relations with Becker. But during their discussions, the manager had been in contact with Shannon Williams—Alex Bradford recorded extensively for Nashboro—about the possibility of the PilgrimJubileesjoining the label. So when the group then went ahead on its own and signed a contract with Nashboro, Becker responded with lawsuits—Clay recalls that he, Cleave, and Major were each sued for a million dollars; Major remembers the figure as one hundred thousand dollars and says every member of the group was sued. Clay went back to Eugene Shapiro. "He called his secretary in and said, 'Write [Becker] a letter, please.' And wehaven't heard from Richard Becker since. But wedid sign up with Nashboro for two years and a two-yearoption." Today, Major recalls Richard Becker with no more affection than does Clay—"He wound us up so tight in that contract till we would have been singing for him." One of the attractions for Major in signing with Nashboro was that he would retain publishing rights to his songs. While the Pilgrim Jubilees wererecording for Don Robey, these rights were assigned to his Lion Publishing, meaning that Robey, rather than Major or Clay, received this portion of the song's revenue. "He took it all," says Major. "We got noth- Blazing in tke Blizzard 151 ing." Appropriating the publishing rights—and sometimes even the song' writer credit—was once a common practice in sacred and secular recording; label owners considered it a levy artists should be willing to pay to be recorded.3 But when the Jubes started recording for ABC-Dunhill, Major and Clay set up their own publishing companies. Clay's company is Clay Graham Associates; Major has Chi-Town Music and...