Sam Gary Sings — On the life of Samuel Gary (1917–1986)
Samuel “Sam” Gary was born 19 February 1917. He often appeared on stage and in recordings with his friend and collaborator Josh White where his deep bass singing voice made him a perfect accompaniment. Sam Gary released one album on the short-lived jazz label Transition in 1956 and it became his only solo album when he died in 1986.
Born in Bainbridge, Georgia, Sam Gary and his family grew up singing together at home and in their church choir. It was a large family, with Gary, his parents, and his four brothers and five sisters. During the 1920s they moved to Orlando, Florida and continued singing in their new church choir, and at high school Gary formed his own quartet.
The quartet were all members of the football team, and would fit their singing dates around their sport schedule. Gary’s talent as a singer sent him to Florida Normal College on a voice scholarship, and most of his quartet went with him. They toured around the country in support of the college, before Gary moved to New York in 1936 where he studied under composer and choral director Etienne De Paur. He also trained as a chef and worked for a time as a singing waiter in Saranac Lake, New York.
In 1938 he took the role of Sam in the Broadway production The Story of John Henry. A singer named Josh White was also in the cast, and they soon formed a quartet with White’s brother Bill, and Bayard Rustin, called The Carolinians.
The group recorded an album Chain Gang on 4 June 1940 in New York City. Released by Columbia, it featured artwork by the label’s art director Alex Steinweiss who helped push Columbia to include artwork with their releases, moving away from the tradition of releasing records in plain sleeves. Further recordings were made in August that year, but left unreleased for several years.
In 1941, Peter Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell were recording with their group The Almanac Singers. They’ve been described as “probably the most important band on the American Folk scene” in the 1940s, and their work inspired later singers like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
For their first recordings together in Spring 1941, Seeger invited Josh White and Sam Gary to participate and add a fuller sound to the sessions which became Songs For John Doe. None of the performers were credited on the sleeve as the label feared some controversy with the albums anti-war messages that could be seen as communist.
A second album Talking Union was then recorded, and again included White and Gary, alongside Josh’s wife Carol White. It was released in June 1941 and was even more successful than the first, remaining in print until the label Keynote was taken over in 1948.
Woody Guthrie joined the group for their next session, though White and Gary seem to have moved on by this point. The group recorded two more albums in July 1941 but their politics no longer gelled with America at war, and The Almanac Singers broke up.
In 1942 The Carolinians also disbanded, reportedly when the other band members found out White was playing solo shows behind their backs. But Sam Gary and Josh White continued performing together, and often lent their services to benefit shows and political causes, such as an Anti-Fascist night in 1942. The pair had also joined the Communist Party, though Gary later explained this decision was less to do with politics, and more how the party treated them equally in society. He also said their events had free liquor which helped too.
In 1942, Josh White and Sam Gary appeared in a show staged by composer Earl Robinson alongside Leadbelly, and others, performing folk songs. The show It’s All Yours was intended to supply America with “spirited war music” and ran four days in Brooklyn’s Academy of Music.
Near the end of the decade in 1949, the further recordings from Josh White’s 1940 Carolinians sessions saw release, and White and Gary continued to tour together through the 1950s.
In 1952, Both White and Gary spent time at poet Langston Hughes’ house with Margaret Bonds, rehearsing a performance of Hughes’ Ballad of Harry Moore for an upcoming NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) show in New York. They would perform the ballad on March 6, 1952 as the shows conclusion, which was attended by 15,000 people. Hughe’s ballad had been set to music by Sammy Heyward, and written especially for the day about an unsolved murder of NAACP organiser Harry Moore and his wife in Florida the previous Christmas.
Gary was considered a protege of White, and although they often appeared together, Gary made solo performances too, like sharing the stage with John Carradine and Johnny Windhurst’s Dixieland band at a jazz club which Down Beat described as “the most unusual triple billing” which “astonished patrons for 10 days”, and in 1953 an appearance on FM radio program Folksongs and Footnotes for an episode dedicated to bass folk singers.
In 1955 White recorded his solo album Josh At Midnight. Released the following year, the album featured songs written by White and Gary in the previous decade like Timber (Jerry The Mule), and was followed by another White album Josh White Comes A-Visitin’ recorded in 1956.
In 1956, Josh White toured England and performed for the BBC with Sam Gary and White’s daughter Beverley. They even took part in short radio plays, before flying to France in December where they were disappointed to find little work available to them. Gary left, but White stayed on in Paris on the little money he had as he waited for an Italian tour to start.
On 12 December 1955 Sam Gary recorded his solo debut album in Boston, Massachusetts. Sam Gary Sings was released in 1956 on Transition Records, a label set up in 1955 by Tom Wilson. The album was given the catalogue number TRLP-F-1 and included a booklet explaining it was the first of six releases in a new Folk series planned by Transition. The third release was intended to be another album titled Sam Gary Sings The Gospel. This, along with any other album in the Folk series never came out and it wasn’t the only time Transition announced albums that then never appeared, as detailed in our Transition Discography.
Confusingly, the album features Josh White who should have been in France or Italy at the time it was recorded, so it’s not clear when the album was actually recorded.
In November 1956, Transition had announced they’d made deals with other labels around the world to have their albums issued overseas. Their deal with Esquire in the UK meant Sam Gary’s album was released in England with a new cover in 1957, along with some other albums from Transition. Unfortunately, Transition closed in 1957, and their masters were then sold to other labels.
Alongside their pressing of Sam Gary Sings, Esquire also released three 7" EPs featuring songs from the album. These remain the only solo releases from Sam Gary.
During October 1957, Josh White and Sam Gary performed in Boston for the Folklore Society, with Gary described as a “forceful bass-baritone” contrasting “White’s intimate style”. At a later show that month, White was joined by his daughter Beverley who sang, before Sam Gary performed solo and then with Josh White, and finally all three singers closed the evening with a performance together.
Sam Gary became a highlight of White’s shows, and during a performance at Harvard University, Gary was said to have almost stolen the show from White. Later in November, White and Gary performed at Princeton, with Gary’s solo performances of Joshua and Go Down, Moses considered “outstanding”, as was his duet with White for Saints Go Marching In. The show featured over 30 songs and lasted until 2am the next morning, with a second show that evening.
As folk music and protest songs became popular during the 1960s, Sam Gary’s name doesn’t appear in the newspapers like it did through the 1950s. In fact, he stepped away and moved to Aiken, South Carolina to be with family.
While he and his wife Suzanne were living in New York City, her mother was unwell so she took leave from her job in 1966 to nurse her mother in Aiken. In New York City, Sam Gary was enjoying a successful career at the time as Suzanne would later explain:
“He wanted to stay in New York because it was such a melting pot. The week I came South, he was supposed to make a movie soundtrack. He told me ‘I can’t go, they’re making this movie in Central Park,’ mentioning Frank Sinatra. I said ‘Sam, I can’t wait.’”
They both moved to Aiken and Suzanne would go onto teach at several schools in the area while Sam Gary continued to sing, joining several church choirs around town as a guest, and as soloist with the senior choir at Thankful Grove Missionary Baptist Church.
He also found work as a farmer and in other local industries, and became known for his love of children and animals. When Suzanne Gary began an annual food basket project to provide food to those in need, Sam Gary would spend his weekend helping pack and deliver them.
On Sunday July 20, 1986, Samuel Gary died aged 68, in a fire which destroyed the family home.
Following his death, Sam Gary’s album has remained out of print. White’s Josh At Midnight which features Gary was reissued in stereo in 1971 and more recently in 2016 as newly remastered in mono by Ramseur Records. When Josh White had died in 1969 it prompted Elektra to release a double best of compilation album featuring songs from across White’s career including those featuring Sam Gary. Of the 21 songs, seven include Gary and reviews were thankful they were being repackaged and heard again.
Suzanne Gary told the Aiken Standard in 1987, all of Sam Gary’s tapes, records, and photos were destroyed in the fire the killed her husband. She had spent the summer following his death writing to people all over the US asking for tapes, and received three, she said. “I’ve played one so often I snapped it…He had a voice like you wouldn’t believe.”
While recounting his career, she thought Sam Gary could have been more famous but that he was happy where he was, she said.
“I wanted his name up in lights, a big house and a fur coat. But I couldn’t make him do what he didn’t want to. He was satisfied. He was happy in the country leaving the hectic life in New York. He got great joy in singing in surrounding churches. He had a lot of chances to be greater than he was, but he didn’t want to. When he didn’t want to do something, you could move Rock of Gibraltar but not Sam Gary!”
Further reading
Josh White : society blues by Elijah Wald — This biography details the career of Josh White and includes mention of Sam Gary and some photos.
An illustrated Sam Gary discography — For a full discography dedicated to Sam Gary.
Sam Gary’s obituary — Aiken Standard, 25 July 1986
Interview with Suzanne Gary Part 1 and Part 2 — Aiken Standard, 18 January 1987
