The Chuck Wagon Gang: Recovery in the Park at Monument Park sponsored by Celebrate Recovery

Over eighty years of hope, harmony, faith and family. Over eighty years of what American roots music-titan Marty Stuart calls, “Unbreakable, steady, unmovable, truth.” Over eighty years that have brought accolades and honors for a group that began singing on local radio in 1935, and that went on to play Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Grand Ole Opry. More than eighty unparalleled years with the same patented, instantly identifiable sound for the Chuck Wagon Gang, and momentum continues to build. Some say that’s really no surprise. “This group was designed for the ages,” Stuart asserts. “For the eternal ages.” Stuart penned each song on the Chuck Wagon Gang’s album, Meeting in Heaven, and he is among the choir of celebrated figures who praise the history, legacy, and contemporary relevance of the Gang in America’s Gospel Singers, The Legacy Lives On, the documentary film that aired on PBS, beginning in the fall of 2015. The Chuck Wagon Gang perform on KWKH Live concert, 1958. Left to right: Howard Welborn, Anna Gordon, Rose Karnes, Ron Crittenden, Howard Gordon. When farmer D.P. ‘Dad” Carter formed the group in 1935, with son, Ernest, and daughters Lola and Effie, he could not have conceived of PBS documentaries, or of fan letters from presidents. Dad was simply looking for a way to spread the good word, and a way to buy medicine for Effie, who was sick with pneumonia. The group found work on a small, Lubbock, Texas radio station. Word soon spread about the group’s harmonies, well-spaced and emphatic, and on November 25 and 26th of 1936, the Chuck Wagon Gang was recording for the American Record Corporation, run by now-famed producers Don Law and Art Sathery. In short time, the Gang’s contract and master recordings were purchased by Columbia Records, a company with which they ultimately recorded 408 masters. The Chuck Wagon Gang Back row: Pat McKeehan, Howard Gordon, Roy Carter; Front row: Anna Gordon, Rose Karnes. Early 1960's On Columbia, th