The Delta Rhythm Boys
Formed in 1934 by students at Langston University in Oklahoma — Carl Jones, Traverse Crawford, Otha 'Lee' Gaines, and Kelsey Pharr — the Delta Rhythm Boys relocated to Dillard University in New Orleans before turning fully professional, touring the era's radio programs, Broadway ('Hot Mikado'), and more than a dozen films through the 1940s. Their sound braided jazz, gospel, and barbershop-style close harmony into recordings like the spiritual 'Dry Bones,' built around Gaines's deep, rolling bass lines — a sound the next generation of R&B bass singers, Jimmy Ricks of the Ravens chief among them, absorbed directly off the record and jukebox. The group relocated to Europe in 1956, touring internationally with Gaines the sole constant across more than five decades.
we haven’t charted The Delta Rhythm Boys yet
this stretch of the river isn’t mapped. we trace the watershed one artist at a time — and we’re always heading further upstream.