Musician Spotlight: Chuck Wagon Gang

The Chuck Wagon Gang are playing the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on Sunday, October 11, as part of the museum's Musician Spotlight series. It's a short set—45 minutes—running from 1:00 to 1:45 PM in the Ford Theater.

The group on stage will be alto Shaye Smith, soprano Melissa Kemper, tenor Josh Garner, and upright bassist Scotty Owenby, with guitarist Darrell Morris filling out the sound. They still perform with just one guitar, which is how they've always done it.

That sound goes back to 1935, when Texas farmer D.P. "Dad" Carter started the group with his son Ernest and daughters Lola and Effie. He did it to spread the gospel and to buy medicine for Effie, who was sick with pneumonia. They found work at a small Lubbock radio station and started recording for the American Record Corporation in November 1936. Columbia Records later bought their contract and cut 408 masters; between 1936 and 1975, the group sold more than forty million records. WSM's Eddie Stubbs called them "America's foremost country-gospel singers," and they've shared stages from the Grand Ole Opry to Carnegie Hall with Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Marty Stuart. Stuart described their sound as "unbreakable, steady, unmovable, truth," and the PBS documentary America's Gospel Singers: The Legacy Lives On followed them in 2015.

Shaye Smith, who leads the quartet now, is the granddaughter of original member Anna "Effie" Carter. The show is free for museum members and included with museum admission, though you'll need a program ticket. It runs from 1:00 to 1:45 PM in the Ford Theater at 222 Rep. John Lewis Way S.