The Chuck Wagon Gang, a storied gospel quartet that has sold over 39 million records over the past 70 years, will play at the New Life in Christ Church in Foley this Friday beginning at 7 p.m.  

“I love gospel music, and I’ve recorded 11 albums myself,” said Pastor Paul Wilde in a phone interview.  “And music has also been a major part of our ministry.”

Every month for the past four years, the church has brought in a well-known act, Wilde said, and next month will feature country-singer Barbara Fairchild, who has topped the Country and Pop charts, and has recently turned to Gospel Music.  

“And I do all this free (the event), no charge for tickets,” Wilde said.  “The reason I don’t charge anything is that I want all families to come, families on welfare, families with four children (and) I would feel terrible that anyone wouldn’t be able to come.”

Last year, the Chuck Wagon Gang played at the church to a “packed out” audience with over 800 attending, he said.  

“I met them before while I was singing and playing in Branson, Missouri,” Wilde said, who plays saxophone and clarinet.  

The Chuck Wagon Gang was founded in 1936 by David Carter, a Kentucky-born railroad-worker, who needed a way to feed his penniless family of eight, and ended up persuading the management of a Texas radio station that his family could sing for a daily radio show.

The pitch worked and the Carter Quartet, as they were originally known, was paid $12.50 a week.  They soon gained in popularity, renamed themselves the Chuck Wagon Gang, and even attained a sponsorship from a flour company.  

They started out singing a variety of songs, including country, but gradually became a Gospel group.  

David Carter retired in 1955, and the following 50 or so years, saw family members and friends take up the reins of the group.  By 1975, the Gang recorded an astounding 408 songs for Columbia Records.

In 1984, David Carter was elected into the Deceased Category of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and from 1988 through 1993, the group was named “Gospel Artist or Group of the Year” by Music City News, according to the Chuck Wagon Gang’s biography.  

Today, a 3rd generation member of the family, Shaye Truax, the granddaughter of the Gang’s original alto, Anna Carter David, along with Dave Emery, a baritone bass singer, Julie Hudson, soprano, and Stan Hill, tenor, will play at the church which is located at the corner of Highway 59 and East Barry Ave in Foley.  

They will sing “country-southern gospel,” Wilde said, and the show will be preceded with a performance by the church’s choir group at 6 p.m.

For more information contact the church at 251-943-2225.