RIP: Jo Jo Wallace, Guitarist, Singer with the Sensational Nightingales; also wrote “The Twist”

By Robert M. Marovich

Darrell Luster, executive director of the gospel division for Malaco Music Group, informed JGM that the famed guitarist and quartet singer Jo Jo Wallace passed from earthly labor to heavenly reward on May 7, 2025, at age 98.

Joseph “Jo Jo” Henry Wallace was born on October 4, 1926, to John and Annie Belle Brown Wallace in Williamston, North Carolina. He moved to Philadelphia at around age eight or nine and, later, joined the Heavenly Gospel Singers (not the Bob Beatty troupe), where he sharpened his guitar skills. Next he teamed up with the Silveraires quartet, with whom he made his first recordings. Along with the Angelic Gospel Singers, the Silveraires were one of the first gospel groups to sign with Gotham Records, and they recorded a total of seven discs for the label, including the popular “Near the Cross,” between 1949 and 1950.

Around 1952, Barney Parks, a former member of the Dixie Hummingbirds who became the manager of the Sensational Nightingales, hired Jo Jo to replace Howard Carroll on guitar and to sing with the quartet. Jo Jo did just that for the remainder of his career, becoming the longest-running member of the group. Besides Jo Jo, the Gales in the early 1950s included June Cheeks, Ernest James, Bill Woodruff, and John Jefferson. The quartet became national gospel stars during the 1950s on the power of their appearances and recordings for Peacock Records, which included “Burying Ground,” “Will He Welcome Me There,” “Morning Train,” and “Somewhere to Lay My Head.”

The story goes that around 1957, Jo Jo wrote a song called “The Twist,” but being unwilling, as a gospel singer, to perform a secular dance number, gave it to Little Joe Cook, a former quartet singer who had gone pop as Little Joe and the Thrillers. Hank Ballard recorded the song for King in 1958, with modest chart success. “The Twist” became a smash hit when Chubby Checker recorded it two years later for Cameo-Parkway. Checker’s “The Twist” became one of the biggest singles of the 1960s, spawned an enormously popular dance craze, and a pile of “twist” songs followed by numerous artists, including 1961’s “Peppermint Twist” by Joey Dee and the Starlighters.

After a long run with Peacock and ABC-Peacock, the Nightingales signed with Malaco Music Group in 1980. During this time, the group counted Jo Jo, Charles Johnson, Horace Thompson, and Darrell and Ricky Luster among its members. During a nearly twenty-album run with Malaco, the ‘Gales toured the world, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Soul Gospel Album, made their first television appearance, and were inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame and the American Gospel Quartet Convention Hall of Fame.

Jo Jo married Inez Evelyn Jones in the mid-1960s; she preceded him in death.

Celebration of Life details are as follows:

Wednesday, May 14:
Viewing: 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon
Service: 12:00 noon
Union Baptist Church
904 N. Roxboro Street
Durham, NC 27701

Rev. Prince Raney Rivers, Pastor
Service entrusted to Holloway Funeral Home, Durham, NC