The Fairfield Four is a gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 group

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 that has existed for over 80 years. They started as a trio in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

's Fairfield Baptist Church in 1921. They were designated as National Heritage Fellows in 1989 by the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

. The group won the 1998 Grammy

Grammy Awards of 1998

The 40th Grammy Awards were held on February 25, 1998. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. Rock icon Bob Dylan, Alison Krauss, and R...

 for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album. As a quintet, they featured briefly in the motion picture

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 comedy film directed by Joel and Ethan Coen and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning. Set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression, the film's story is a modern satire loosely...

.

The group gained more popular recognition after appearing on John Fogerty

John Fogerty

John Cameron Fogerty is an American rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his time with the swamp rock/roots rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival and as a #1 solo recording artist. Fogerty has a rare distinction of being named on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 Greatest...

's 1997 album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

 Blue Moon Swamp

Blue Moon Swamp

Blue Moon Swamp is a 1997 album by American singer/songwriter John Fogerty featuring his newly written and published Southern rock/swamp rock music. Guest musicians for vocal backing, the Lonesome River Band, were invited to join in on "Southern Streamline" and "Rambunctious Boy"...

, singing on the track "A Hundred and Ten in the Shade". They also undertook live appearances with Fogerty.

Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
  , National Heritage Award, 1989
• Tennessee Lifetime Achievement Award, 1994
• Nashville Music Award Lifetime Achievement Award, 1995
• James Cleveland Stellar Award, 1996
• Grammy Award
  Grammy Award
  A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
  
  , Best Traditional Gospel Recording, for I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray, 1997
• Gospel Music Hall of Fame
  Gospel Music Hall of Fame
  The Gospel Music Hall of Fame, created in 1971 by the Gospel Music Association, is a Hall of Fame dedicated exclusively to recognizing meaningful contributions by individuals and groups in all forms of gospel music.-Inductees:...
  
  , inducted in 1999

Singles

• "Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around/Standing in The Safety Zone", Dot, 1947
• "When I Get up in Heaven/Amazing Grace", Dot, 1947
• "Tree of Level/Jesus Met the Woman at the Well", Dot, 1949
• "Dear Lord, Look Down Upon Me/Savior Don't Pass Me By", Dot, 1949
• "In The Wilderness/Let Me Tell You About Jesus", Dot, 1949
• "In The Upper Room/I'll Tell The World", Dot, 1950
• "I Don't Know Why I Have to Cry/When I Move in the Room", Dot, 1950
• "Don't Drive Your Children Away/Does Jesus Care", Dot, 1950
• "Nobody To Depend On/Old Time Religion", Dot, 1950
• "No Room at the Inn/Talking About Jesus", Dot, 1950
• "I Love The Name Jesus/Leave Them There", Dot, 1950
• "On My Journey Now/Love Like a River", Dot, 1950
• "Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow/Don't Drive Her Away", Dot, 1950
• "Packing Every Burden/Don't Leave Me", Dot, 1951]
• "My Prayer/Come on to This Altar", Dot, 1951
• "Waiting for Me/Angels Watching", Dot, 1951
• "I'm in Your Care/I Can Tell You the Time", Dot, 1951
• "When We Bow/Let's Go", Dot, 1951
• "Hope To Shout in Glory/All the Way", Dot, 1951
• "I'll Be Satisfied/I've Got Good Religion", Dot, 1951
• "Come Over Here/Who Is That Knocking", Dot, 1953
• "His Eye Is on the Sparrow/Every Day", Dot, 1953
• "How I Got Over/This Evening Our Father", Dot, 1953
• "Stand by Me/Hear Me When I Pray", Dot, 1953
• "When The Battle Is Over/Standing on the Rock", Dot, 1953
• "Somebody Touched Me/Mother Don't Worry", Dot, 1953
• "We Never Grow Old/Jesus in Heaven", Dot, 1954
• "God Knows I'm a Pilgrim/Heaven in My View", Dot, 1954

Albums

• Standing in the Safety Zone, Warner Bros. Records
  Warner Bros. Records
  Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
  
  , 1992
• I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray, Warner Bros. Records, 1997
• Wreckin' the House, Dead Reckoning
  Dead reckoning
  In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, and course...
  
  , 1998
• Fairfield Four and Friends Live from Mountain Stage, Blue Plate, 2000
• The Bells Are Tolling, Ace, 2001
• Road to Glory, Fuel, 2001
• Beautiful Stars, Isaac Freeman and the Bluebloods, Lost Highway
  Lost Highway
  Lost Highway is a 1997 American psychological thriller film with elements of neo-noir. Written and directed by David Lynch, the film stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty and Robert Loggia. Lynch co-wrote the screenplay with Barry Gifford, who also wrote the novel that served as...
  
  , 2002

Other contributions

• "Lonesome Valley
  The Reverend Mr. Black
  "The Reverend Mr. Black" is a 1963 song by Billy Edd Wheeler, Mike Stoller, and Jerry Leiber. The chorus came from the 1931 folk song, "The Lonesome Valley," a version of which appears in the 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. "The Reverend Mr. Black" was recorded by The Kingston Trio in 1963...
  
  ", on O Brother, Where Art Thou? (soundtrack)
  O Brother, Where Art Thou? (soundtrack)
  O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the soundtrack of music from the 2000 American film of the same name, written, directed and produced by the Coen Brothers and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Goodman....
  
  , 2000
• Lifted: Songs of the Spirit (2002, Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
  /Hear Music
  Hear Music
  Hear Music, also known as StarCon is the brand name of Starbucks' retail music concept and record label. Hear Music began as a catalog company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1990 before being purchased by Starbucks in 1999.-Concept:...
  
  ) - "Roll Jordan Roll"

External links

• Performances on the Prairie Home Companion
• Zolten, Jerry
  Jerry Zolten
  Jerry Zolten is an American writer and advocate of roots music. He is known as the author of a book tracing the 30-plus year career of the African-American Dixie Hummingbirds gospel group and their influence on both sacred and secular music. Zolten is also known for numerous articles and CD liner...
  
  , Great God A' Mighty!:The Dixie Hummingbirds - Celebrating The Rise Of Soul Gospel Music, Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-19-515272-7.

Further reading

• "Fairfield Four" Contemporary Musicians. Ed. Angela M. Pilchak. Vol. 49. Thomson Gale, 2005. March 27, 2007
• Billboard, July 22, 2000, p. 6.
• Capital Times (Madison, WI), June 4, 2001, p. 3A.
• Denver Post, July 31, 1998, p. E7.
• Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), July 14, 2000, p. 96.
• Independent (London, England), July 12, 2000, p. 6.
• Nashville Scene, February 26, 1998.
• Sarasota Herald Tribune, April 15, 1999, p. 5E.
• Seattle Times, July 8, 2000, p. A4
• Alabama Hall of Fame, (March 19, 2004).
• Bill Friskics-Warren Adding Notes to a Folklorist’s Tunes New York Times December 2, 2007