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Weekly 150: H. Gordon Stoker

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When talking about Mike Snider and his music career, it is a must to bring up Gordon Stoker as both men hail from Gleason. I didn’t realize until the other day, it was Stoker who arranged for Snider to appear on the Opry.

As fate would have it, I was listening to a Podcast about the Nashville Sound and much to my surprise the host kept mentioning the Jordanaires. Now, I knew Stoker was part of the Jordanaires and they did a tremendous amount of backup vocals for Elvis Presley. Yet, I was floored to learn that they were the background vocal for countless other recording artists in the late 50s and 60s on into the more modern era of country music.

So it would be remiss if I didn’t include the story of Gordon Stoker, a Grammy winner and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, to the list of those included in the Weekly 150.

Hugh Gordon Stoker was born on August 3, 1924, to Ambus Hugh Stoker (1891–1963) and Willie Lee Bevill Stoker (1894–1984) in Gleason, Tennessee. Blessed with the gift of music, he began playing piano publicly at the age of eight for West Tennessee’s Tumbling Creek Baptist Church.

By age 12, going by the name Hugh Gordon, Stoker was well-known, playing in and around Weakley County and performing with the Clement Trio on WTJS in Jackson, Tennessee. He had caught the ear of John Daniel at McKenzie’s Snead Picnic; after graduating high school at 15 joined Nashville’s John Daniel Quartet. Performing with them on WSM’s Grand Ole Opry, he became one of the Opry’s youngest performers at age 15.

As World War II rolled around, Stoker’s music career took a brief interlude as he was drafted into the Air Force in 1943. He served as a teletype operator for three years. After his service concluded, he decided to move to Shawnee, Oklahoma to attend Oklahoma Baptist University. He studied psychology, music and voice, and sang in the Bison Glee Club.

Stoker missed the bright lights of Nashville; he enrolled at George Peabody College (now part of Vanderbilt University) in 1948. The move allowed him to rejoin the Daniel Quartet. A year later, he met and later married (1951) Jean Wilkerson of the local east Nashville family singing group, the Wilkerson Trio.

Meanwhile, in Springfield Missouri, a new quartet, The Jordanaires, was formed in 1948 by Bill and Monty Matthews along with bass singer Culley Holt and second tenor Bob Hubbard.

In 1950, he auditioned for and won the piano-playing job for the popular vocal quartet, the Jordanaires. He started singing first tenor with them in late 1951. Stoker assumed the additional roles of group leader/manager. The Jordanaires recorded for Capitol Records in the early 1950s and soon started providing background vocals on recordings for solo performers.

In 1955, The Jordanaires traveled to Memphis to sing with Eddie Arnold at Ellis Auditorium. When the show was over, a young musician, Elvis Presley, made his way backstage to meet the quartet. He explained that if he ever got a major recording contract he wanted them to sing with him.

Stoker recalled the only thing that made the young man memorable at the time was his long sideburns. He added, “Boys didn’t have long sideburns back then,” he explains, “But the main thing was that he had on a pink shirt. Boys just did not wear pink shirts in 1955.”

Elvis called the group in January 1956 after signing with RCA Records. This began a 15-year relationship and friendship. Stoker sang duets with Elvis on hit records like “All Shook Up”, “Good Luck Charm”, and “Easy Come Easy Go” while the full quartet sang back up on most of Elvis’ songs.

The Jordanaires’ background vocals were recorded on 28 of Elvis’s 30-plus number one songs. Their success was not limited to just Presley’s records, it’s estimated they can be heard on over eight billion records sold, including Grammy-winning recordings in six consecutive decades, starting in 1959 with Johnny Horton’s “Battle of New Orleans” to “Lost Highway” by Willie Nelson and Ray Price in 2007.

During the 1960s and beyond, the Jordanaires often worked as many as four sessions a day. Countless recordings they appeared on go down in the pages of country music history; Ferlin Husky’s “Gone”, Jim Reeves’ “Four Walls”, and Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”, Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me,” Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man,” Conway Twitty’s “Hello, Darlin’,” Kenny Rogers’s “Lucille,” and George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today”.

According to Stoker’s son, Alan, a curator at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, The Jordanaires helped with the origination and methodology of the “Nashville Number System” of musical notation, now standard in Music City recording studios. They were instrumental in establishing Nashville offices for performers’ unions.

The Jordanaires were not only backup singers but had an impressive discography reflecting continuous releases from 1950 to the 2000s. Their honors include:

1998: Gospel Music Hall of Fame; 1999: North America Country Music Associations International Hall of Fame; 2000: Rockabilly Hall of Fame; 2001: Country Music Hall of Fame; 2002: Golden Voice Awards Vocal Group of the Year; 2003: Grammy for Best Southern Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album.

For several years, Stoker and The Jordanaires toured with Elvis. When Elvis made the move to Las Vegas and performed two shows a night, the group parted ways.

“I always thought two shows a night is what took his life,” Gordon said sadly, “It’s just hard... They pushed him, he wasn’t well; he was taking uppers and downers all the time. He was never on hardcore drugs - he didn’t even smoke marijuana - but that eventually took his life.”

While the Stokers called Brentwood home for most of his recording career, he, like Mike Snider never forgot their roots in Gleason.

“He was so famous,” said Stoker’s niece, Jenna Wright. “But to me, he was just Uncle Gordon. He was an extremely unassuming person.”

Wright recalled how her uncle attended her graduations from Gleason and UT Martin. She added the family was extremely close. She even recalled how her father, Wayne Stoker (1915–2010), and Gordon were together at Thanksgiving when Mike Snider dropped by the house.

“When my dad got real sick a couple of years ago, Uncle Gordon would call him every day, no matter where he was,” Wright said of her late uncle.

On March 27, 2013, after a lengthy illness, Stoker died. His obituary stated of him, “He found much happiness working outside, digging and planting in his garden and taking care of his goldfish pond. His sense of humor, laugh, tenderheartedness and love of family will always be remembered.”

The Stokers have two sons, Alan and Brent, and a daughter, Venita, plus five grandchildren.
Gordon is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park and Mausoleum in Davidson County, Tennessee.