The Highway Q.C.’s

Not merely among the very best gospel sets of the postwar period, the Highway Q.C.’s had been also the starting pad for such main secular pop superstars as Lou Rawls, Johnnie Taylor, as well as the immortal Sam Cooke. The group was shaped in 1945 at Chicago’s Highway Baptist Cathedral by a amount of teens that included Cooke, Creadell Copeland, and two pairs of brothers, Marvin & Charles Jones and Curtis & Lee Richardson. Cooke exited in 1951 to become listed on the rates of hometown heroes the Spirit Stirrers; his substitute was Rawls, himself an alumnus of another youthful Windy Town group, the Holy Amazing things. In time, every one of the Miracles’ other people — Spencer Taylor, Adam Walker, and Chris Bouquets included in this — would sign up for the Highway Q.C.’s aswell. Rawls remained for two years, departing in those days to become listed on the Los Angeles-based Particular Gospel Performers; his replace was Johnnie Taylor, previously from the Kansas Town group the Melody Kings. The group produced their debut for the Vee-Jay label in 1955; in 1956, Spencer Taylor became a member of, and a season afterwards Johnnie Taylor (no relationship) quit to become listed on the Spirit Stirrers, ironically more than enough filling the distance developed by the leave of Sam Cooke. Spencer Taylor continued to be the Highway Q.C.’s head throughout the years which followed, carrying on to helm the group in to the ’90s.