Oct. 13, 1973: Another glimpse of The Keystones

 

Before October 1973 was over, Joe Bonsall had made the jump from The Keystones to The Oak Ridge Boys. The rest is gospel and country music history. 

Oct. 13, 1973

Keystones, Gospel Singers, Modern as Nashville 

JOE BONSALL, singer, student of karate and gregarious business manager of The Keystones, sits in his tennis clothes in the gospel group’s tiny Kenmore office in what used to be someone’s house on upper Elmwood Avenue. He reflects on being a prophet unrecognized in his home town.

          “We feel sometimes very foreign living up here because people on the Niagara Frontier, they don’t seem to know what gospel is,” he says.

          “If we give a concert at Kleinhans, it’s like pullin’ teeth to get people out. There’s Christian people that support it, but the word ‘gospel’ alone scares the secular people away.

          “And people up here don’t understand the business. You go to a bank for a loan and tell them you’re a professional gospel singer and they say: ‘A what?’”

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THE GOSPEL MUSIC that The Keystones and several dozen similar groups perform has the same relation to country music that black gospel has to soul music. Nashville, of course, is the center for it.

          Many country singers like Connie Smith and Charlie Pride dip into the idiom to do gospel albums. Elvis Presley tapped one of the foremost gospel groups – J. D. Sumner & The Stamps – to tour with him. And The Keystones have even appeared on Grand Ole Opry.

          “In the music business,” Joe observes, “gospel’s on the bottom of the scale. We have to rely a lot on record sales at concerts to make a living. Inflation hits us hard. Most of the guys have families, children and children on the way.

          “I’ve got a sister who sings in night clubs and she makes a good living at it. If it was only money that was involved, we’d do that too. But because of our convictions, this is what we want to do.”

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SO MOST of the time The Keystones are on the road, singing about Jesus and salvation for up to 300 one-nighters annually in school auditoriums, concert halls and churches from New England to Georgia to beyond the Mississippi River.

          They log 150,000 miles a year on the bus they’ve converted into rolling living quarters with bunk beds in the back, a lounge up near the driver, a tape player and a portable TV.

          “Traveling would be rough if we didn’t have that bus,” Joe says. “It’s smooth at 70, 80 mph. I can sleep in it just like a baby.”

          When they finish a show, The Keystones immediately drive off through the night to their next date, checking into a motel for the day when they get there.

          They play tennis, relax or tend to business until 5 p.m. Then they go to the hall, set up their sound and stock their record sales booth with their 14 albums.

          Only once – last July – did their bus travels meet with disaster.

          “We were right outside Beloit, Ill.,” Joe says, “on our way from Eau Clair, Wis., to Pennsylvania, when the bus hit a parked truck and tore away half of the front end. We were all asleep in the back.

* * *

“THE ONLY INJURY was our steel player jammed his leg. We missed that Pennsylvania show, but we were on stage the next afternoon at the Allegany County Fair in Angelica. Our bus is supposed to be fixed by Christmas. Right now we’re using a rented one.”

          Since they moved from southeastern Pennsylvania to the Buffalo area five years ago, The Keystones have been in the forefront of gospel’s turnabout from an old-style vocal emphasis to something close to middle-of-the-road pop music.

          “We have a heavy band sound,” Joe says, “and on nine out of 10 songs on our new album, ‘The Way We Feel,’ we’re using brass.

* * *

“THE OTHER singers, David Holcroft and David Will, play trumpet and trombone, and on about three songs a night we’ll come off with a Blood, Sweat & Tears sound.”

          The band, with veteran members Garland Craft on piano and Tom Wagner playing bass guitar, has been bolstered during the past two years by the addition of a drummer, Mike Kinard, a former rock player from St. Paul, Minn., and experienced steel guitarist Jimmy McDonald from Greenburg, Pa.

          “The majority of the crowds at all the big sings,” Joe says, “like the one we did in Waycross, Ga., this summer, are in the 20 to 30 age bracket and that’s what appeals to them. But we still do the standard down-home gospel sound for those who like it.

          “Few gospel groups have the entertainment aspect that we do. We can entertain and we can preach.

* * *

THE KEYSTONES’ revisionism doesn’t always win the approval of the gospel music hierarchy, however.

          At the Gospel Music Association convention last week in Nashville, it didn’t get them into the finals for gospel’s Grammys – the Dove Awards – although they were nominated in three categories.

          But the convention did provide them with a performance showcase on four different nights and boosted their drive to get on the national county fair circuit through a new booking agency. Joe estimates the group will play 100 fairs next year and there’s talk of a TV special with Roy Rogers.

* * *

MEANWHILE, The Keystones have started on a Midwestern swing with concert hall dates this weekend in Cincinnati and Flint, Mich. The rest of October will find them busing as far west as Nebraska.

          They’re also hosting a tour to the Holy Land and Greece in January, booking the remaining seats through their Kenmore office and an agency in Minnesota, and Joe’s considering how a massive gospel show might go over next summer in the Niagara Falls Convention Center.

          As for the Buffalo area, they won’t be open for a date here until well into the new year. “We might try to get a concert here in February,” Joe says, “after my baby is born.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Front row, singers David Will and Joe Bonsall, and bass guitarist Tom Wagner. Back row, steel guitarist Jimmy McDonald, pianist Garland Craft, drummer Mike Kinard and singer David Holcroft.

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FOOTNOTE: When the Keystones played Oswayo Valley High School in Shinglehouse, Pa., on April 17, 1974, Joe Bonsall’s place had been taken by Ed Finnie of Warren, Pa. Ed was a groomsman for keyboardist Garland Craft when Garland got married in November 1973. Garland, as we noted when we first wrote about the Keystones in October 1971, went on to join the Oak Ridge Boys in 1975.

         The Keystones otherwise were pretty stable. Only the steel guitarist and drummer had changed since late 1971. They kept rolling through 1974, when they released another album.

That’s when baritone David Will left to join a higher-profile gospel group, the Statesmen. He went on to sing lead with the Imperials, who won four Grammys and 17 Dove Awards. He is a founding member and lead singer for their successors, the Classic Imperials, who are still performing.