The Johnson Family Singers

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The Johnson Family Singers were an American singing family in the 1940s.^[1]

The Johnson Family Singers were a musical group that consisted of a father Jesse ("Pa"), mother Lydia ("Ma"), and four children: Kenneth (Red), Betty, and twins Bob and Jim.^[2] The family lived in an apartment in Greensboro, North Carolina, and struggled to survive during the Great Depression. Jesse worked as a house painter and mill worker.

In the fall of 1937, Jesse returned from the Stamps-Baxter Music School in Dallas, Texas, where he was inspired by the emerging Gospel music of the day.^[3] He became a teacher of shape note music.^[3] His first students were his children, at the time 10, 9, and 7 years old respectively.^[2] They began to sing at family reunions and churches.^[4]

In 1940, the family attended a singing convention at the Armory Auditorium in Charlotte, NC.^[2] This led to 50,000-watt radio station WBT asking the family to sing on "Grady Cole's Sunday Morning Farm Club".^[2][4] The family's signature song on the program was "There’s a Little Pine Log Cabin".^[3] They would go on to sing on several CBS Radio Network programs.^[5]

In the late 1940s, the Johnson Family recorded 52 songs for Columbia Records, under the direction of Art Satherley.^[2] Later, a similar number of songs were recorded on the RCA-Victor label.^[2] Their contract with Quaker Oats^[4] ended their radio career in May 1951.^[1]

The family appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1958.^[2] Over the next 40 years, Betty Johnson had a solo career of her own.^[6]

• Johnson, Kenneth M. (1997). The Johnson Family Singers: We Sang for Our Supper. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 160. ISBN 1-57806-004-4.