THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN aka THE ESCORTS

First, apologies for the quality of the photos these are taken from old newspapers.

This group began its musical career in Paducah, Kentucky in 1952 as a gospel group and they called themselves The Melody Masters and The Jubilaires.The group was made up of Jerry Crutchfield (Lead), Gerald Nelson (Tenor), Jan Crutchfield (Baritone) and Olin Bryant (Bass) although many other local singers were also part of this group.

In 1955 Jerry, Gerald and Olin along with Jimmy Cooper called themselves The Four Winds, they worked for WCBL radio and won the gospel quartets championship.

In 1956 Jerry Crutchfield arranged an audition of the group for RCA Victor in this one, they sang in a pop style, this record label promised that it would sign them if they changed their style to the most current Rock & Roll sound, the group changed their musical style and finally

They were hired.

In 1956 RCA recorded two singles under the name, The Country Gentlemen ...

-A Rose And A Baby Ruth / Why Did You Go.

-My Heart's Desire / Right Around The Corner.

LISTEN...

The A side of their first single had already been released by the label with the group as vocal support to Geoge Hamilton V on Colonial records. These two recordings of the group obtained little acceptance since its name gave to confusion since many DJs believed that it was a group of Country or Hillbilly music, without any benefit RCA forgot the group.

In 1957 the group won the Arthur Godfrey "Talent Scouts' a televison program on channel 11 for pop artists, this fact made the group sign for OJ records (Old Judge Music Publishing) in Memphis TN. Where the group would record in 1957 under the name of The Escorts "Misty Eyes / Arrow Two Heart" and they would give vocal support to Bobby Chandler in his 1958 songs "Winter Time / Junior Prom"(see in this blog).

LISTEN...

Without any success as the group still could not find the harmonic Rock & Roll sound so popular already in those days, they left OJ records until they reappeared in Scarlett records in 1960 with the songs "I Will Be Home Again / Leaky Heart And His Red Go-Kart" and in 1961 in De'Voice records with "Snow Dreams / Misty Eyes" Without any repercussions with these songs the group fell into oblivion.

Gerald Nelson co-wrote with Fred Burch a song "Tragedy" that the group used as a demo, this song finally fell into the hands of Thomas Wayne who recorded it at the end of 1958 on the Ferwood records label and reached number # 5 on the national charts, Gerald and Fred continued to write songs for Elvis, Dorsey Burnette or Ral Dooner of the other members of the group nothing is known except of Jerry who apart from recording some songs under his name was a producer of country and pop music as well a songwriter.