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Alexander also changed the Travelers' performance style from the "flat-footed" style of early quartets to the church-wrecking style of other groups of their era. The singers would punctuate their singing by jumping off stage and running up the aisles in order, in Alexander's words, "to pull the sisters out of their seats". They cemented their popularity with a series of "mother songs", which replayed the same themes of gratitude and guilt for all that mother had done to steer them toward salvation, and with their "walking rhythm", in which they accompanied themselves with percussive effects made by their feet.

The Travelers gradually fell apart in the 1950s , however, as accidents and drink caused both Barber and Turner to leave the group. While the group continued to tour and record, adding Lou Rawls in 1950 , it lost its hitmaking power after leaving Specialty Records in 1956 . Rawls left the group in 1960 ; although he returned to record another album with the group after that, it soon faded from the scene.


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FURTHER READING

  • Boyer, Horace Clarence,''How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel'' Elliott and Clark, 1995, ISBN 0252068777.