The Texans "Heritage of the South" Album Presentation

The Gospel Singing Texans Quartet belonged to a musical world where songs traveled by church pew, local stage, radio signal, and family memory. Their story begins in the Longview and Kilgore area of East Texas, a region where gospel music was not merely performed but lived. The Texans brought together Jerry von Senden, tenor, Glenn “Big Daddy” Daniels, lead, B.F. Jones, baritone, and John Sallee, bass, in a classic Southern gospel quartet. 00:00 - Introduction 00:15 - Canaan's Land 02:12 - Wasted Years 4:38 - Feeling Fine 6:19 - The Old Country Church 8:52 - Gloryland 11:53 - My Greatest Moment 14:18 - The Other Side of Jordan 15:23 - I Trust in God 17:43 - Savior, Gently Take Me Home 20:22 - Thanks to Calvary 22:56 - Lead Me to That Rock The Texans legacy is the album The Gospel Singing Texans, recorded at the Kilgore College Auditorium and issued through Summit Pipe Organ Records and The Summit Sound Systems Co. The track list reads like a map of mid-century gospel devotion: “Canaan’s Land,” “Wasted Years,” “I’m Feeling Fine,” “The Old Country Church,” “Gloryland,” “Thanks to Calvary,” “Room at the Cross,” and “Lead Me to the Rock.” They were songs of testimony, memory, repentance, hope, and homecoming in classic Southern Gospel and even “barbershop” style. Von Senden’s tenor gave the quartet lift, the high voice that helped songs rise above the room. Daniels, singing lead, brought a voice and presence that would later carry into radio and television, where he became known as “Big Daddy” and later created “Sing Out America” and in 1983, created and founded CMT: Country Music Television. Jones supplied the baritone center, the warm middle voice that held the harmony together. Sallee’s bass completed the structure, giving the quartet the grounding that Southern gospel audiences expected and loved, especially on his beautiful lead on “Gloryland.” That is why The Gospel Singing Texans matter. Their fame was regional, their record rare, and their story preserved in fragments. Yet those fragments form a meaningful portrait of gospel music as it was often made by local singers, in local rooms, for people who carried the songs home. Their album is more than a collector’s item. It is a surviving witness to the sound of East Texas faith in harmony, restored with photos, lyrics and liner notes in a very special presentation created by Glenn Dean Daniels, Jr. in honor of his father and The Texans Quartet!