[1] Along with hits spanning many decades, The Statesmen Quartet had many notable successes including being the first Gospel group to receive endorsement deals.
The Statesmen Quartet was founded in 1948 in Atlanta, Georgia, by Hovie Lister, a Baptist minister and convention-style piano player.
Lister constructed the quartet as a hand-picked group of the best singing voices in order to secure a prime time-slot on the new WCON radio station.
As early as 1950, The Statesmen used the phrase "Rockin' and rollin'" in a song, and Hovie Lister's frantic boogie-woogie piano, piano bench acrobatics, and hair shaken down in his eyes would have great influence on early rock and roll artists, particularly on Jerry Lee Lewis, who was a fan of gospel music and the Statesmen.
The Statesmen exerted a powerful influence on young Elvis, who idolized and imitated Jake Hess' vocal styling and Wetherington's movements and gyrations on stage.
In an interview with songwriter Bill Gaither, Hess remembered seeing young Elvis coming to Statesmen shows in Tupelo when Presley was only nine or ten.
On the Gaither Homecoming video "Oh My Glory", Hess recalls Presley attending Statesmen concerts and being invited up onstage to sing lead in his place on a couple of handpicked numbers.
Phillip Goff, in The Blackwell Companion to Religion in America, provided a description of how The Statesmen began one live appearance.
"Greeted by thunderous applause, the announcer approaches the microphone: "You're listening to the original Wally Fowler All Night Singing, November the sixth, right here in Nashville, Tennessee, nineteen hundred fifty-nine.
Another setback occurred when Wetherington died suddenly of early heart disease on October 3, 1973, while attending the National Quartet Convention in Nashville.
Later incarnations of The Statesmen would include tenors Sherrill "Shaun" Nielson, Willie Wynn, and Johnny Cook; lead singers Roy McNeil and Jim Hill; baritones Chris Hess, Biney English and Rick Fair; and bass singers Ray Burdett, Tommy Thompson, Bob Caldwell and Doug Young.
Sumner at the 1977 National Quartet Convention in Nashville was the birth of the Masters V, which would include Rosie Rozell, Jake Hess, and Hovie Lister in its lineup.
Carl Perkins and Larry Gatlin also cited themselves as fans of the group, while Tammy Wynette said on numerous occasions that Tenor Denver Crumpler was her "favorite singer, ever."