Love and Honor: The Life of Rev. Julius Cheeks at Told by His Daughter Judy
Judy Cheeks
BookBaby (October, 2013; 100 pages)
Available for Kindle on Amazon.com
By Bob Marovich for The Black Gospel Blog
Dance music aficionados may not know that disco chanteuse Judy Cheeks is the offspring of gospel quartet great Rev. Julius Cheeks.
As lead vocalist for the Sensational Nightingales, a short-time member of the Soul Stirrers and, later, as the leader of his own group, the Four Gospel Knights, June Cheeks was a hard-singing giant of the gospel highway. Many of his contemporaries cite him as one of the greatest gospel quartet singers of all time, and a tough act to follow in the 1950s and 1960s, when he was at his zenith.
Despite June’s many accolades, and significant mentions in prominent gospel histories, Love and Honor is the first book dedicated entirely to his story. It’s written by someone who knew him well: his daughter Judy.
Judy Cheeks has since transitioned from dance to inspirational music, but a more inclusive inspirational music, where unconditional love is the constant. In this transition, she felt a desire to chronicle her father’s story, since his influence was paramount on her own music career.
Love and Honor is a sympathetic, but not pie-eyed, biography, and as easy to read as a bedtime story.
Judy wrote the book from her own reminiscences and interviewed Barney Parks, Jo Jo Wallace, her mother, June’s other wives, and several other individuals who knew June on and off the gospel circuit.
Written in the storytelling style, it chronicles June Cheeks’ rural upbringing in a big family headed by an African American mother and Native American father. Both parents were powerful church singers whose communion with the spirit imbued in their children a comfort with spirituality.
June’s independent and quiet spirit was present from childhood. He preferred to explore the wonderment of the world around him instead of pulling his weight around the household and the farm.
Two-thirds of the book covers Cheeks’ birth and childhood through his discovery by Barney Parks, introduction to the Sensational Nightingales, and the group’s breakthrough 1952 recording session for Peacock Records. From there, Love and Honor follows the Nightingales’ ascendancy and the singers’ tutelage by Parks and his wife Edna Gallmon Cooke, for whom the Gales accompanied until Parks formed the Singing Sons.
Judy notes that the women in June Cheeks’ life had some level of influence on his career, whether for good or ill. For example, if Cooke was someone whom June sought wisdom and guidance, June’s first wife wanted him all to herself. His third wife, the erudite Marjorie Douglas, was Cooke’s accompanist. Marge is cited as the one who whispered to June that he ought to leave the Gales and form his own group. He subsequently formed the Four Gospel Knights. According to Judy, however, June later considered leaving the Nightingales a big mistake.
The book glosses over the Four Gospel Knights era, however, which offered timeless songs such as “Turn Your Radio On” and the quasi-autobiographical “Mother Sang These Songs.” Instead, it plunges into June’s later years, when he sang with members of his family, including Genobia Jeter-Jones, gospel artist who married Glenn Jones of the Modulations and whose niece is BET Sunday Bestchamp Y’Anna Crawley.
Love and Honor is the most comprehensive bio of Julius Cheeks’ life thus far. It is an easy read, inexpensive for the Kindle, and contains plenty of humorous as well as sobering anecdotes. While lovingly written, it does not avoid discussion of the less savory aspects of being a gospel singer in the Golden Age.
Three of Five Stars
Written by : Bob Marovich
Bob Marovich is a gospel music historian, author, and radio host. Founder of Journal of Gospel Music blog (formally The Black Gospel Blog) and producer of the Gospel Memories Radio Show.
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