Still Pilgrims, We Five

A century ago this year, the fledgling record industry’s first supergroup walked into a New York studio and waxed one of its greatest hit.

The first time much of the world ever heard a rocking spiritual called “I’m a Pilgrim,” it was on the Oct. 4, 1924, Paramount Record release by the jazzy Norfolk Jubilee Quartet.

Starting with its birth in 1919, the Norfolk Quartet offered a unique sound, characterized by a scat-like rhythmic pattern performed by founder Len Williams, the bass singer, while the rest of the group sang the melodies.

In 20 years ending in 1940, the quartet recorded nearly 150 sides for Paramount, Okeh and Decca. A third of those songs were secular, for which the group tweaked its name to become the Norfolk Jazz Quartet.

And the group was welcomed in that burgeoning jazz community. Soon after their first record in 1921, for instance, the guys were invited to appear with blues singer Mamie Smith in Baltimore and then to do a summer stint on stage in “The Flat Below,” a three-part play by vaudeville’s Flournoy Eakin Miller and Aubrey Lyles.

The Norfolk group continued to be an immense success in shows across the country, laying the foundation for all the jubilee quartets that followed them.

Of course, the song “I Am a Pilgrim” is even more famous than the first group to record it. To today’s listeners, in fact, the song is more likely associated with famous performances by the fabulous Kentuckian Merle Travis in the 1940s and beyond. That story is covered in an earlier Flood Watch article. Click here for that deeper dive into the tune’s history.

Our Take on the Tune

This great old song is often performed with mellow reverence by country and folk artists as well as by many gospel groups.

However, The Flood guys, ever since they started doing the tune a couple of years ago, have taken their cue to the song’s original recording a hundred years ago. Like the Norfolk Jubilee Quartet, The Flood likes to put a little cut its strut and a glide in its stride. Here’s a track from last week’s rehearsal.