Hear four songs by classic, forgotten Detroit gospel group Victory Five

Jan 29, 2015 at 8:45 am

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Today I spent a bit of time trying to track down information on the Detroit-based gospel group Victory Five, to no avail. I did enjoy listening to their invigorating golden age gospel quartet sounds from the 1950s and '60s, thanks to YouTube.

The only bit of substantial information hails from the group's appearance on a collection of material from the Cleveland-based Boddie label, but that material was released after they'd spent twenty years in Detroit, and moved to Cleveland in the early 1970s.

It looks like the lead singers in their Detroit period were Eddie Harris, Walter McKray, and I believe that says Sean Beasley on the label of the Fortune release? Please get in touch if you know anything about this group. There's so much amazing gospel music in Detroit's history, and with the exception of a very few scholar-fans such as Adam Stanfel and Michael Hurtt, these stories and the music itself, which is largely unreissued, just seem to be falling by the wayside.

While I don't myself own any of their records from their Detroit era (they recorded for Terp, Fortune, Knowles, Brandt and Night Owl labels), they look to mostly sell in the $30-something range. Well, maybe they're going up; though this could just have been a freak sale. I sure hope so.

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About The Author

Mike McGonigal

Metro Times music editor Mike McGonigal has written about music since 1984, when he started the fanzine Chemical Imbalance at age sixteen with money saved from mowing lawns in Florida. He's since written for Spin, Pitchfork, the Village VOICE and Artforum. He's been a museum guard, a financial reporter, a bicycle...