Carol Album Discography
This
particular Carol Records (there were other labels with this name) was located in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
It was run by J.T. Adams, a wonderful tenor who had long recorded as J.T. Adams and the Men of
Texas.
J.T. Adams (He was actually named J.T.; the initials did not stand for anything) was born on July 17, 1926 and grew up in Sulphur Springs, Texas. He served in the Navy Air Corps in World War II, then returned to Texas for college. He earned a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Texas Christian University, then a Master of Music Education from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University-Commerce, near Sulphur Springs). After graduation from East Texas State, he joined their faculty.
J.T. Adams and his group the Men of Texas (a glee club made up from men drawn from all over the
state) burst on the scene in 1952 with the song "My God Is Real," which was recorded for Republic, a
country label based in Nashville. Although Adams' output for the label was overtly Christian, songs like
"My God Is Real" found their way onto the secular country music airwaves. He spent about four years
(1952-1955) recording for Republic while he was also teaching at East Texas State.
By 1956, he had moved to the Word label in Waco, Texas, where he and his Men of Texas put out may albums over the next two decades. In the mid-1960s, he started Carol Records and Carol Press Publishing Co. His first wife, Virginia, was a high school teacher in Sulphur Springs, and it is for their daughter, Virginia Carol Adams (known as Carol), that the label was named. During this time, he was also Director of Music and Youth at the First Baptist Church of Sulphur Springs, and it is through this connection that many of the artists on the Carol label were found.
By the early 1960s, Adams was writing cantatas and getting into stage productions as well as recorded
music. In the early 1970s, he was leading the singing at Beverly Hills Baptist Church in Dallas, although
still commuting from Sulphur Springs. Sometime in the mid-1970s, Adams moved to the Fort Worth
area. He and Virginia divorced in 1976. He remarried, on Valentine's Day, 1977, to Judy Gaye Partridge,
who had recorded a solo album for Adams' Carol Records as well as being the soprano soloist in his
Christmas Cantata, The Prince of Peace. By the early 1980s, J.T. and Judy were living in the
Greensboro, NC area, where he continued to write and direct stage productions. His credits include
Worthy Is the Lamb, Something Extra-Special, Time Out, Prince of Peace, and
Gethsemane. From August, 1990, until his death in September, 1993, he was Director of Music
and Drama at the Cathedral of His Glory in Greensboro. His wife, Judy, continued as Executive Director
of the Productions Staff of Worthy Is the Lamb after his death. The production also included
involvement by two of J.T and Judy's children, sons Joel and John. They also have a daughter, Holly.
The Carol albums were undoubtedly pressed and manufactured by Word, and show definite Word label influence in their graphics. For example, they use the same stereo banner, have word-for-word the same warnings about defective needles on the back, and use a slogan ("Sacred Music at it's Best," which was later corrected to "Sacred Music at its Best"; compare Word's slogan "The Finest Name in Sacred Music") under the label name. If Carol albums were distributed outside Texas, it was probably by Word. I found several of them in a Goodwill store in McKinney, Texas, about 50 miles from Sulphur Springs; that may be all the farther they traveled.
The recording artists also appear to be local. Ricky Loy was a high school student at Sunset High at the
time his album was recorded. Adams wrote some of the songs on the albums. The Kittermans (Gene
and his wife, Kris), unlike Ricky Loy, had some previous "fame," albeit fairly local. Gene sang bass with
a Dallas youth group called "Four Hits and a Miss" in his earlier days, and later ran the Paris Chapel
Choir as Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church in Paris, Texas, not far from Sulphur Springs.
Adams apparently sold enough copies of the Gene and Kris Kitterman album to have issued it twice.
Both Gene and Kris were part of a larger group (The J.T. Adams Chorale) that provided backing vocals
on many of the records. Other Chorale members were Linda and Judy Partridge, Harold Slack, Jack
Thompson, Judy Owens, Hazel Pogue, Ann Williamson, and John Sharber, with Paula Easton as the
accompanist. The Chorale was of course directed by J.T. Adams.
Republic 7005 - J.T. Adams & Men of Texas - My God Is Real/Dear Lord, Remember Me
[1952]
