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Thursday, December 5, 2024 - 04:51 PM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Booths-Brothers

This week’s article is about a group of young men from Brandon, Florida, called The Booth Brothers.

As I said these men are young but the story goes back a lot further than these young men do. It all started with their dad, Ron Booth, and he was a long way from Florida when he got his start in gospel music.

Ron was born in West Virginia and moved to Detroit when he was thirteen years old and this is where the singing began. Ron had a brother named Charles and they began singing together. Soon after these two began to sing three other brothers joined the group and this was the beginning of the Booth Brothers. All this happened along about 1957.

Two groups which influenced Ron where The Statesmen and The Blackwood Brothers. These two groups would sing at Ron’s church and J.D. Sumner, who was with The Blackwood Brothers at the time, became good friends with Ron and his brother. This started the desire for Ron to pursue a music career and at the age of eighteen he secured a job with The Toney Brothers. Ron was with The Toney Brothers for about four years and John Matthews with The Rebels Quartet contacted Ron to replace a member of the group who was retiring in 1967. Ron remained with The Rebels for ten years and retired from the full time music business in 1977.

In 1990 Ron’s sons, Ron II and Michael, approached their dad about the three of them beginning to sing as a group. Ron’s first reaction was, according to Ron II, “Boys you don’t know what you are about to get into,” but the sons convinced dad to at least sing in their own church and some other local churches, which they did.

In 1994 they went to The Rebels homecoming and were not scheduled to perform but were asked to sing a song, which they did. The song was one of Bill Gather’s entitled, “Something Good is About to Happen.” Charlie Waller was at this event and he invited The Booth Brothers to come to the Grand Ole Gospel Reunion. When they performed at this event Eddie Crook heard them and offered them a recording contract which they signed in 1995. Through these events many doors were opened and in 1996 The Booth Brothers became a full-time gospel group and have remained so since that time.

In 1998 dad once again decided to come off the road, and after a long search he was replaced by Joseph Smith. When Joseph left the group he was replaced by Jim Brady form Houston, Texas. Jim not only is a great singer but also a songwriter having penned over 100 songs of which some have been recorded by Ivan Parker, Gold City and many others.

The Booth Brothers although a somewhat new group has had their share of awards-among them are the 1999 SCMA Artist Of The Year. Another highlight for The Booth Brothers was to be a part of The Gaither video entitled “Freedom Band” along with some of their heroes, The Oak Ridge Boys.

Early in The Booth Brothers career they had the good fortune of meeting and becoming good friends with one of the best songwriters of our day, Mosie Lister. Over the years he has written songs for and advised The Booth Brothers. One of their songs is a Mosie Lister song entitled “I’m Still Feeling Fine” which is a new song from an old song entitled “I’m Feeling Fine.”

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I can be contacted at (864) 979-9626 or (864) 895- 1287.