Primitive Quartet To Play At Carter Fold

Four men went on a fishing trip in 1973.
Two Riddle brothers and two Wilson brothers failed to catch many fish, but as they gathered around a campfire on North Carolina’s Fontana Lake they found something else.
They found they could sing gospel music.
So began the Primitive Quartet. The six-man, four-part harmonies group will travel from its base in Candler, N.C. on Nov. 16 to the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Va. to perform during the Janette Carter Tribute Concert.
“This is [the Fold’s] first endeavor like this,” said Reagan Riddle, co-founding member of the Primitive Quartet by phone from his home in Candler, N.C. “I really appreciate what [Rita Forrester] is doing for her mother.”
Family touches to the heart of Riddle. He said love of family has kept the Primitive Quartet from mounting marathon concert tours and traveling outlandish distances from home.
“We do 12 dates a month,” Riddle said. “Our farthest point is about 700 miles. It’s by choice.”
Gone are the days when their brand of Southern Appalachian gospel music played strictly to regional audiences. That they choose to perform within and near their homes does not mean the music is hamstrung.
“We went to the state of Washington one time,” Riddle said. “They offered to fly us out there, and so we went.”
The reception?
“They’re starved to death for it,” he said. “They absolutely loved it.”
“It” is a sound that hearkens to Southern gospel’s early 20th century era. Theirs is a sound built before them at the local level in little mountain churches and nationally by such groups as the Chuck Wagon Gang. 
“It’s the old Appalachian Mountains sound,” Riddle said. “Most everybody [who performs the style] sings the shape note style of singing, and we still do.”
Now, the Primitive Quartet have never and odds are will never sell millions of records. They’ll never fill a seat opposite late-night television talk show hosts David Letterman or Jay Leno.
They’ve never headlined a tour of America. They have never performed abroad. And yet the Primitive Quartet sure is known abroad.
“Sonya Isaacs [stellar lead singer of gospel group The Isaacs] told me one time that she got into a taxi cab in Norway, and the cabbie was playing a song by the Primitive Quartet,” Riddle said.
Norway, lots of water and a world away from the campfire around which the Primitive Quartet was formed 35 years ago.
“We didn’t start out to do this professionally,” Riddle said. “We just love singing. We sang for about five years just in churches. They’d take up offerings, and we gave it back.”
As crowds grew and their records caught on, the Primitive Quartet gradually made inroads in the world of Southern gospel music. Nowadays, they are widely considered one of the finest groups of their kind in the country.
“We still love it,” Riddle said. “You know, there’s a big difference in singing gospel music and secular music. Singing gospel music, when it’s real, God keeps it close in your heart.”

IF YOU GO
What: Special Gospel Show honoring the late Janette Carter featuring Paul Williams & the Victory Trio and the Primitive Quartet
When: Nov. 16, 2 p.m.
Where: Carter Family Fold, A.P. Carter Highway, Hiltons, Va.
Admission: $10 in advance at the Mountain Music Museum in the Bristol Mall; at the door: $15 for adults, $2 for children ages 6-11 and free admission to children under age 6
Info: (276) 386-6054 or (276) 645-0035
Web: http://www.carterfamilyfold.org
Also: http://www.primitivequartet.com

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .