Rock and Rhythm Boogie

J.C. Arline

Rock and Rhythm Boogie

Friendly Records

1957

James C. Arline taught piano in Phoenix in the ’50s and ’60s, according to a listener who called in a couple of years ago to Bob Corritore’s weekly Sunday KJZZ radio show, “Those Lowdown Blues”.

All other releases on the Friendly label are gospel, mainly by The Gospel Light Singers, a group directed by Madam Sophie Reed, who had a previous release on Dootone Records of Los Angeles (1956).

Not related to the Elvitrue label, despite some sources says so.  Elvitrue Records was a vanity/custom recording operation,  odd somehow and not far from a scam in my opinion.  That was certainly not the case of Friendly Records.

 Curiously enough, the same Friendly logo design has been used by Ray Bell And The Dixie Rhythm Ramblers in 1960 on their Starday custom release out of Milan, Tennessee.  

The Valdosta Daily Times

VALDOSTA — Bishop Sophie Brinson Reed Davis departed this life on Monday, Oct. 31, 2011 at the residence of her sister, Ms. Dorothy Williams who had been her caregiver for the past year. Bishop Davis was born on Dec. 6, 1919 in Montgomery County, Georgia to the late Rev. Daniel J. Brinson and Mrs. Bessie Beamon Brinson.

She began her journey with God at an early age. Long before she became a minister, she traveled around the country with the group she organized: The Gospel Lights and sang on programs with many groups and singers that had become famous over the years in the music field.   She was trained and ordained in the CME Church in Moultrie.  In the 1960s, she was the Founder and Pastor of The Hope of Salvation Holiness Gospel Temple Church, Inc. of Moultrie.  The church was later moved to Douglas.  From the 1950s until the last year of her life, when her health began to fail, Bishop Davis had written the words and music for more than 2,000 songs. She wrote "I Need You Lord, Yes I Do," (copyrighted in 1950, published by Jerico Music Co.). Continued with "One More River to Cross" and "Some Christians Talk Too Much." She attended public schools in Coffee County, Ga. (Douglas), Colquitt County, Ga. (Moultrie) and Paine College in Augusta, Ga.