Henry Simmons, Jr.
“Singing was his thing.”

Henry Simmons Jr. c.1977, photographer unknown

When reviewing the privately-recorded live tapes that Rev. Charlie Jackson created & collected, a recording surfaced of a seemingly spontaneous collaboration from 1974 with a singer who was identified as Bro. Henry Simmons (1932-1981). With Rev. Jackson on guitar, they stretched out three songs over 20+ minutes & hit some glorious peaks.

Their outstanding performance provided inspiration to try to learn more about this new-to-me singer. When introducing Simmons, the MC noted that some in the congregation may be familiar with Simmons' recording, Two Wings, with the (something unclear-to-me) Clouds of Joy. During his performance, Simmons further stated that he was the president of the Greater St. Stephens Baptist Church choir, so I had some starting points.

I soon learned that Rev. Paul Morton of the Greater St. Stephens Church of New Orleans put out a number of albums on Booker Records, a New Orleans label that also released a few 45s by Rev. Jackson. I spoke with someone at the church & was then referred to an elder who was active in their community in the '70s, but no one remembered Simmons.

Subsequent searches revealed another Greater St. Stephen church in Franklin, Louisiana, approximately 100 miles west of New Orleans, in the Bayou Teche, as well as the Consoling Clouds of Joy's Fly Away to Glory 45 on La Louisianne, where Simmons sings of the "two wings" noted by the MC at that 1974 service with Rev. Jackson. Over time I learned that the Consoling Clouds of Joy released several records & that Simmons made further recordings with the Gospel Entertainers (sometimes the Mighty Gospel Entertainers). The search for a connection to Simmons' family also led me to some very helpful & enjoyable conversations with Mr. George Parker & Ms. Juanita Mitchell; big thanks to both of them for giving their assistance so freely. I recall what Parker said after I thanked him: ~"Well, I figure there are a lot of other things you could be doing up there in New York, but if this is what you want to do, I am glad to help you if I can."

I usually don't mention these sort of backstory details, but I share them here just to give some indication of how much this performance of Simmons & Rev. Jackson resonated with me. Simmons' studio recordings are quite fine, but this live recording from 1974 shows how much he gave of himself when he sang for a responsive congregation, with Simmons savoring and embellishing the songs more than he usually did on commercial recordings. Perhaps being a featured soloist, rather than a member of a larger group, allowed for greater freedom? Regardless, it sounds straight from the heart.

After this performance, Rev. Jackson sounded quite pleased by their collaboration and expressed a strong desire to bring him to Amite and Baton Rouge (more his territory), but it is unknown if this occurred.

The plan is to release these songs (& some version of these notes/interviews) as part of the long-envisioned third volume in the Rev. Jackson retrospective. For now, I am glad to share these illuminating interviews with Pastor Ricky Simmons, one of Simmons' sons, and Berwick Moore, who was also a member of the Gospel Entertainers. -Adam Lore [page updated December 8, 2024]

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Pastor Ricky Simmons
“He would make them shout.”

The Consoling Clouds of Joy, photographer & date unknown
from Since I Met the Lord, La Louisianne Records LL-123
back row: Edward Lewis, Geraldine Green, Larry Bruce
front row: Edward Jordan, Rufus Navy, Henry Simmons, Jr.

Singing was his thing. We grew up on a sugarcane plantation [Oxford Plantation]. I hear the stories about him singing while he's on his tractor. People said they could hear him from way away, singing while he was driving down the road. But he had a bad heart and everything, so that kind of stopped him from working a little bit, but it didn't stop him from singing.

I tell you what, if I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me, can I sing like my father, I'd be rich, man! (laughs) He really was a great singer in this area. Everybody knew him. Whenever I go anywhere, even if they see me in the streets, [they ask] can I sing like my father? I just didn't get it. … They try to get me to sing. I tell them, "I don't sing, I'm a preacher." (laughs) The singing jumped over me, but I do a little preaching.

You know, I remember asking him to teach me to sing like that and his words were, "You're gonna sing the wrong songs!" (laughs) And at the time he probably was right! (laughs) So ... he didn't teach me!

Do you know if he always sang gospel, or...?

As long as I know, he always sang gospel. That was it. I never heard him sing any other songs besides gospel.

He and his group, they used to actually rehearse in our home and everything. So they had their instruments there and they were all there doing it, and we just wasn't interested, you know? We didn't realize what they were doing. We didn't understand the significance of it.

How old were you then?

I guess I had to be about...between 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, something like that. He had a brother [Rufus Navy] that sang with him as well. They were always together. ... They were really awesome singers, man.

Which group was rehearsing at the house?

The Consoling Clouds of Joy. … That's the one that I knew very well. Mr. [Edward] Jordan, he was like the leader of the group. My father was more the lead singer, but Mr. Jordan was more the manager of the group.

Do you know if that group came before or after the Gospel Entertainers?

The Consoling Clouds of Joy was first. [According to the liner notes of their Since I Met the Lord LP on La Louisianne, the Consoling Clouds of Joy formed in 1964. -ed] The Entertainers came afterwards. … Like I said, they was at the house all the time, and I think about the opportunities I missed to learn how to play the instruments and everything, you know? (laughs) Just didn't do it. But I guess at that age, 9 and 10 years old...

It's just normal. Whatever your home life is, that's what you think is everywhere.

Right, yeah. I thought it was normal. I didn't realize how special it was. But they were really well known in this area. I know you heard of the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. They used to come here. I hear stories about how these guys were really famous but my father wasn't, and when they would sing, they didn't want to sing behind him! (laughs)

Pastor Ricky Simmons

Do you recall when he passed away?

He passed away in 1981. I was in the military at the time. ... He passed away from a bad heart.

In that recording with Rev. Jackson he talks about having had a stroke?

Yeah. He had several heart attacks and I think that's how he passed away, too.

When you listen to him sing, you would never guess any ill health.

Exactly.

I guess sometimes he would sing without a group, as he did with Rev. Jackson? My impression is it was a spontaneous thing they did together at that service?

I'm thinking that, too, because from what I understand, the way I remember, he was always together with the group. That's why it surprised me when you sent me that one recording.

The people really loved his singing, man, I'm telling you. Everybody knew him. I hear the stories, they say when he was singing, the church was packed. They just loved to hear him sing. ... Back in those days, I've been to some services where they were shouting and everything. (laughs) He would make them shout. People would just fall out all over the church, man, when he would sing.

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Berwick Moore
“They came up on that muddy water gospel."

The Gospel Entertainers of Franklin, LA, c.1977, photographer unknown
from God Specialized by Arthur Davis and the Gospel Entertainers, Champ Records CHAMP-1769
back row: John L. Jackson, Arthur Davis, Rufus Navy, Henry Simmons, Jr., Isaiah Gash, Berwick Moore
front row: Arnold Ray Joseph, Wilford Colbert

Berwick Moore was the drummer for the Gospel Entertainers from the mid-1970s until approximately 1980. Mr. Moore graciously spoke with me about Henry Simmons (who he often refers to as "Junior" or "Junius") & his own experiences with the group at his home in New Iberia, Louisiana, on August 20, 2019.

So, could just start with the basics, such as when and where you were born, stuff like that...?

I was born in Jeanerette [Louisiana, in 1952], which is about 12 miles away from here. I went to Grambling State University, I went to the Navy ... and went into a profession of welding, because that's the industry here. If you weld, you live good, you eat good. (laughs) During that time when I was doing that, I ran into Junior, to Henry [Simmons], and we kind of bonded. ... His brother, Rufus Navy, was married to a relative of mine, a lady named Josie Navy, so I guess it was through talking with Rufus. I think what happened was, I was the only person [the Gospel Entertainers] could find with their own set of drums. (laughs) ... I had my own set and I was invited to sit in with them on a practice. I did and I was recruited. I was invited to play if I wanted to.

Do you know when the group would have started?

I don't know exactly when it started because they were together before I got there. My date was probably around '74 or '75.

We met a lot of the guys: the Williams Brothers, the Five Blind Boys ... Junior, I don't know his history before I met him, but I know that he knew them, because they all knew him. ... We traveled all over the land, all over the southern part.

Were there any groups that were particularly inspiring to you?

Franklin [Louisiana] made the Entertainers their world. That was them. You could come and visit, but you can't stay. We have a group; we've got the Entertainers. So they kind of put the Entertainers on a pedestal. ... It kind of made you feel like you were the celebrity...I can listen to you but you can't touch me, because I got my own world, you know what I'm saying? Not to say that we were better than other groups, it's just that we had our own world goin' on. Back in those days, with those guys...I was [in my 20s]. It was like winning the Super Bowl! (laughs) You didn't know any better because you hadn't gone anywhere. I guess I could tell you about it, but you won't ever feel the way we felt at that time. We just lived in the moment.

That was my first group that I had ever been exposed to, other than playing in the garage and playing at the churches and stuff like that. This was the first thing that I ever dealt with that I considered to be something big, bigger than what I thought it was going to be. It was different for me. Those other guys...they came up on that muddy water gospel. I didn't. I was recruited. So that would have been my beginning right there, where they had already had the experience. I was just blessed enough to fall in with them and they accepted me.

We did a lot of extravaganzas, especially at the recreation center in Franklin. We did a lot of shows: Clarence Fountain, like I said, the Blind Boys, the Williams Brothers, all the groups would come by. Arthur ["Bay Boy" Davis] was the promoter, so he got all the groups together, and we played. There wasn't no dressing rooms. Ain't nobody had a dressing room. When you came off the van or whatever your means of transportation, whatever you got on, you got out dressed.

If the mic didn't work, you just sang anyway; you walked down the aisle. One thing I remember about Junior, about Simmons, is that at the end of every show, Amazing Grace was his song. Wherever we were, he would walk down the stage, mingle with the people in the audience, and sing. And he had a beautiful voice. I never heard the voices in heaven, but that's the kind of voice he had. And he would cry. He would walk and cry. And when he'd get to where he was going, outside the property, exit the building, there really wasn't a dry eye in the building. ... You can feel whatever it is that he was going through, especially when he sang about his mom. Yeah, you could feel that part.

God's Amazing Grace by Henry Simmons Jr. in the studio with the Gospel Entertainers & live with Rev. Charlie Jackson:

On the live recording with Rev. Jackson, Simmons really stretches out the songs. Was there a difference between recording in the studio, versus the way you would perform it at a service? The way you describe Amazing Grace...

There was a certain message in the song that we knew that he wanted to get over to the people and whether he wanted to continue, he would always say at the end of a song...now, this is at church, he would always say, "You hear what I say, church?" When he'd say that, then [we] knew that he wanted to prolong the song ... So we knew that after he did what he had to do, when he'd give that cue, we just took it to a couple more minutes and then he'd prolong the song. But when we got into the studio, we only had a certain amount of time. Get in and get out.

The album on Champ, God Specialized, you probably went to Tennessee to record that?

Nashville.

What was that experience like?

It was OK. We had a big sendoff out of Franklin. The ministers, a lot of important people, big name people, they came to see us off. They had a little deal for us and we left that morning. We were gone for about two days or so.

"We rolled in a van that you probably had to hold together with duct tape." -Berwick Moore
clipping from the St. Mary and Franklin Banner Tribune, July 8, 1977
(still hoping to find a clearer version of this photo, but can't resist sharing this)

Had you recorded before?

No, never. Never even thought about it. Never thought I was good enough to record.

On this record, on the label it was the Arthur Davis and the Mighty Gospel Entertainers and on the cover it was just the Gospel Entertainers...

Sometimes it was the Gospel Entertainers, the Mighty Gospel Entertainers, Junior Simmons and the Gospel Entertainers...Depending on the areas where we were, whatever drew the people, that's the way they did it. And you can thank Bay Boy [Arthur Davis] for that. He was the promoter so he did all of that stuff.

When you say you traveled extensively with the group, can you give me a little more sense of that?

We had gone as far west as Houston [and] Beaumont, [Texas]. A little place they call Plazar, Louisiana, they had one church and one cow, but they used to rock. (laughs) When you'd walk on the floor of the church, the floor would rock. We played and we ate good cookin'. I asked my brother, I said, I can't remember where Plazar is. He said, "I've never even heard of it." But there is a place they call Plazar, Louisiana; I just don't remember where it's at.

We went to a lot of places and didn't receive any compensation. We just didn't. But everybody was working, too, so it didn't really matter. It was just good to get out sometimes. The reward was when we would open the church doors at the end of a show and some people came up and gave their life to the Lord. I think that was the reward we were all trying to get to, trying to accomplish, just get somebody to know who God was, because some people don't know. And that's what we did. Sometimes we got $5 or $10, sometimes we didn't. Most times, we didn't. But we showed up for practice, we practiced, and we went on shows. Every weekend we had somewhere to go.

When I spoke to Henry Simmons' son, Ricky, he was surprised that this recording with Rev. Jackson existed, because he didn't know him to ever sing outside of a group, to do what seems like a spontaneous performance with somebody he might not have sung with before. Did you ever see him doing something like that?

Henry Simmons was always the lead singer, no doubt about that. ... I've seen him do solos, but I've never seen him without us with him. One time we used to call it Junior Simmons and the Gospel Entertainers. So the people had already singled him out because he was that kind of person, he was that kind of artist. ... It was Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, you know what I'm saying? So it was like that, and he deserved it. He was that kind of singer. He was good.

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It Will Be So Wonderful, by Rev. Mabel Rathbun:

For his collaboration with Rev. Jackson, Simmons chose to sing God's Amazing Grace (see/hear above), the enduring standard Move on Up a Little Higher, and It Will Be So Wonderful, a song written by Rev. Mabel Rathbun (c.1904-1965).

Rev. Mabel Rathbun, c.1949

Rev. Rathbun was based in Oakdale, Louisiana, a small city northwest of where both Rev. Jackson & Simmons lived. When she was in her mid-50s, Rev. Rathbun became blind. According to a 1963 article in the Alexandria Town Talk, she then began to write and publish hymns: "I would just sit at the piano and the words begin forming in my mind ... then the music seems to flow from my fingers."

Somehow, at least a couple of her compositions made their way to the black gospel community further south. It Will Be So Wonderful seems to have been the most popular. The conduit was almost certainly Rev. Robert Booker, a New Orleans based recording engineer, producer, bandleader, and owner/operator of several record labels. His most prominent & long-running concern was Booker Records, whose first releases were R&B artists but soon transitioned to gospel, a prolific label that released well over 100 45s & LPs during its run, mostly of singers, groups, and preachers from in and around New Orleans.

As is often the case, Lynn Abbott's pioneering research into the New Orleans gospel community provides us with crucial details. In a 1983 interview with Abbott, Rev. Booker recalled, "We went up to Oakdale. There was an old white lady, which was a spiritual woman, and the Lord had blessed her to write songs. There was some white fellow out of Baton Rouge who wanted to take her songbook and make records on them, you know? She told him that the Lord had led her to me and give me the book. (laughs) She turned the book over to me. So with John Lee [(c.1926-2014), a prominent gospel singer in New Orleans for over 50 years, sometimes billed as "The Little Man with the Big Voice"], and Professor Hogan [probably organ] and Professor Beal [probably piano], we put out Harvest Time and It Will Be So Wonderful [both compositions by Rev. Rathbun], and it split the city. And a few years after that, she died. She was blind but she could write! She could write her music."

Booker issued at least 3 pressings of this John Lee 45, suggesting that it was quite popular within the primarily local scale of Rev. Booker's operations. Perhaps another measure of its influence is that versions of It Will Be So Wonderful were also recorded by the New Orleans QC's, the Gospel Seals, Rev. Solomon Blade, and the Dixie Hummingbirds (c.1993 or so; "author unknown" on the sleeve).

The Gospel Seals' version is especially curious in relation to this live recording with Simmons & Rev. Jackson. Released as a single by the Donward's Recording Co. out of Jeanerette, Louisiana, the credits on the label list many of the same personnel as in the Consoling Clouds of Joy, minus Simmons. The matrix numbers (LH-12774 & LH-12777 for the Gospel Seals and LH-12775 and LH-12776 for the Consoling Clouds, more info in the Simmons discography below) indicate that both groups had 45s pressed at Houston Records at the same time, and come from around the same period as this live performance.

Recorded versions of this song tend to be stately, but in this live context, perhaps inspired by an enthusiastically responsive congregation, Rev. Jackson's guitar, the moment, the song's resonance with his own struggles, the momentum they build over the course of their collaboration, feeling freer as the sole vocalist, Simmons transforms the song & transports the listener.

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Known discography of Henry Simmons, Jr.:

The Consoling Clouds of Joy:

* Merry Christmas Mother / Jesus, Not a Cruel Judge; Booker Records 614, LH-9545/6

* Fly Away to Glory / We Got to Cross the River of Joy; La Louisianne LL-8084-A/B

* That’s What’s the Matter with the Church Today / Since I Met the Lord; La Louisianne LL-8089-A/B

* God’s Amazing Grace (Parts 1 & 2); La Louisianne LL-8102-A/B

* That’s What’s Wrong with the Church Today / This Little Light of Mine; La Louisianne LL-8106-A/B

* Six Months to Mind My Business / How Great Thy Art; Donwards Recording Co. 101, LH-10115/6

* Nobody Knows the Trouble I See / Traveling Life’s Highway; Donward’s Recording Co. 105-1/2, LH-12775/6

* Since I Met the Lord LP; La Louisianne LL-123

The Gospel Entertainers / Mighty Gospel Entertainers / Arthur Davis & The Mighty Gospel Entertainers...:

* God Specialized LP; Champ-1769 (front cover is “The Gospel Entertainers,” back cover & labels are “Arthur Davis and the Mighty Gospel Entertainers”; note also, the Gospel Entertainers with the "He's Blessing Me" LP on Champ is a different group)

* Somebody’s Calling My Name / He Touched Me; Champ 861

* God’s Children Travelling Hand in Hand LP; Su-Ann SA 1779; split LP with The Inspired Gospel Singers of Baton Rouge (on label: George Dunbar & The Inspired Gospel Singers of Baton Rouge, LA; on back cover: Gerald Dunbar & …)

Rayne Acadian Tribune, June 23, 1977

Morgan City Daily Review, May 15, 1975

Rayne Acadian Tribune, June 17, 1977

Opelousas Daily World, April 20, 1969, with the Consoling Clouds of Joy as part of this two-day anniversary program. Note the appearances of Bro. Isaac Haney & Premium Fortenberry, both of whom recorded for Booker Records, as did Rev. Charlie Jackson. I am guessing the Jackson Family of New Orleans probably didn't include Rev. Charlie Jackson, who would have been noted among the artists from Baton Rouge.

The Consoling Clouds of Joy in the St. Mary and Franklin Banner-Tribune, May 14, 1968. Another instance where I hope a better quality version will surface in time.