![]() Regina McCrary also pursued a career in music and performed with Bob Dylan in the late 1970s and early '80s when he recorded three gospel albums: "Slow Train Coming," "Saved" and "Shot of Love." (The troubadour, she says, appreciated her "butt-naked honesty.")Īlfreda McCrary, the baby of the group, mainly focused on the music ministry she did with her husband, but soon began singing with Regina and Ann. Over the years, the McCrarys have sung in every studio and style that Nashville has to offer.Īt 3 years old, Ann McCrary, the oldest daughter, began traveling with the Fairfield Four she hasn't stopped singing since. You give something that's hard to let go of, or it's not giving.' That was a lesson, and now that's how we live and how we treat each other." "So I brought some things down and said, 'Daddy, you can have these because I don't like them no more.' He looked at me and said, 'When you give, you give from the heart. "My dad asked us to bring him some clothes to donate to children in need," Regina McCrary says. The education they received from the Rev. During the evening, they'd listen to the Fairfield Four practice in the living room of the family's Acklen Avenue home and emulate the harmonies they heard. All eight McCrary children sang in the church on Sunday mornings. "As kids, we thought everybody had the ability to sing," remembers Ann McCrary because everybody they knew did sing. That's a sentiment familiar to the McCrary Sisters - Ann, Regina, Deborah and Alfreda - who have followed their father's path since childhood. ![]() "I think it's our obligation to carry it on." "Our style is rare and we refuse to let it die away," Allison says. They released a new album, "Still Rockin' My Soul," that pays homage to the group's strong roots (and their Nashville ties, as country singer Lee Ann Womack accompanies them on the soulful "Children Go Where I Send Thee"). Though the group's founding members have all passed away, the current lineup - Thompson, Levert Allison, Bobbye Sherrell and Larrice Byrd - is determined to keep the Fairfield Four tradition alive. In the years since, they have been named National Heritage Fellows, appeared in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and sung with Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, John Fogerty and more. When a cappella gospel music declined in popularity and McCrary was called to the ministry, the Fairfield Four went on hiatus for about 20 years before reuniting in the '80s. Those records would go on to influence doo-wop acts of the 1950s such as The Clovers. His cousin Rufus Carrethers was one of the Four's original members when the group was founded during the early 1920s at Fairfield Baptist Church.Ī 22-year-old McCrary joined the a cappella group in 1935, and, during the post-World War II years, assumed leadership of the Fairfield Four as they recorded dozens of sides for Dot Records, Bullet, Nashboro and other labels. "Sam was the anchor of the Fairfield Four," says Joe Thompson, the group's current leader and bass singer. The Fairfield Four and his four daughters, The McCrary Sisters, continue to carry on his musical influence. ![]() As an integral member of local a cappella gospel institution The Fairfield Four, his tenor touched countless listeners. Mark Baptist Church in Germantown, he ministered to hundreds of Nashvillians over the years. Samuel McCrary's legacy still looms large in Music City.Īs the pastor of St. Twenty-four years after his death, the Rev. Fairfield Four, McCrary Sisters Uphold Gospel Tradition
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