Joseph ‘Jo Jo’ Henry Wallace, 1925-2025: ‘I was Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Jo Jo rolled up in one’
But did he write ‘The Twist’?
By David McGee
Jo Jo Wallace, a gospel legend as the long-time guitarist-vocalist for the Sensational Nightingales gospel quartet, crossed over on May 7, 2025, at age 98. The last surviving Nightingales member from the golden era, Wallace is credited with helping shape the modern gospel sound both as a smooth tenor vocalist and with his expressive guitar support. He also laid claim to having written “The Twist,” which was first recorded in 1958 by Hank Ballard and The Midnighters and two years later ignited an international dance craze in Chubby Checker’s chart topping 1960 version for Philadelphia’s Cameo-Parkway label. Wallace’s passing was reported by Darrell Luster, executive director of the gospel division for Malaco Music Group,
‘Somewhere to Lay My Head,’ a gospel standard written by Julius Cheeks, who joined the Nightingales as lead singer in 1946, the same year Jo Jo Wallace joined as guitarist. This is the original recording on Paramount with Cheeks singing lead. The legendary house wrecker Cheeks leads us to James Brown, to Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, to the Jive Five’s Eugene Pitt, to the Four Tops’ Levi Stubbs, to the Temptations’ David Ruffin, to “Wicked” Wilson Pickett, to Otis Redding, to the Persuaions’ Jerry Lawson…
‘Somewhere to Lay My Head,’ Sensational Nightingales with JoJo Wallace on lead guitar and tenor vocal, with Charles Johnson succeeding Julius Cheeks as lead singer.
Most of what is known about Wallace and the Nightingales emanates from two sources: the great gospel historian Tony Heilbut’s ne plus ultra work of gospel scholarship, The Gospel Sound; and British-born gospel historian-producer-radio host Opal Louis Nations’ group biography, Sensational Nightingales: The Story of “Jo Jo” Wallace and the Early Days of the Sensational Nightingales, published by Black Scat Books in 2014. Nations conducted extensive interviews with Wallace and with Wallace family members; he was also granted access to the invaluable archives of two gospel historian friends in documenting the origins of gospel’s golden era as it was shaped by one of the genre’s most important groups, and the role one of the Nightingales’ key members played in shaping the quintet’s distinctive sound and style.
‘To the End,’ Sensational Nightingales, with Julius Cheeks on lead vocal. Notice the vocal inflections—especially the chuckling and exclamations—that became a fixture of Otis Redding’s style.
Quite properly, Heilbut dives deep into the Nightingales history (“a gifted group”) during the years the quintet was led by one of the most influential male gospel vocalists in history: Julius “June” Cheeks, the epitome, Heilbut says, “of the hard gospel shouter, a gorgeous baritone splintered into hoarseness.” In late 1950 Cheeks joined what had been the Nightingales Quartet (signed to the Newark, NJ-based Coleman label and managed by Dixie Hummingbirds founding member Barney L. Parks, who decided to move to the business side of gospel after returning from military service in 1945) and immediately injected high voltage into the group’s musical ministry. Two years later, in 1952, personnel changes born of friction between the high-strung Cheeks and original members Paul Owens and Harold Carroll found the latter pair taking their talents to the Dixie Hummingbirds; in turn the Hummingbirds’ fiery hard-tenor lead singer Ernest James moved to the Nightingales lineup and Jo Jo Wallace was hired as guitarist and high tenor lead, in moves that would dramatically alter the quintet’s trajectory. Ernest James, Nations notes, “was quite a match for Cheeks, who found himself competing against a powerful sparring partner.” With this injection of fresh energy, “everything clicked” for the group, Heilbut notes, with the immediate result being “eight hit records in a row, all on Don Robey’s Peacock label. Their guitarist, Jo Jo Wallace, affected a sky-high pompadour and a hop-skip-jump choreography.” Reflecting on his persona within the group, Jo Jo proclaimed “I was Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Jo Jo rolled up in one.” Of the group’s sound, Heilbut asserts “their harmonies were unique. Jo Jo’s high, skinny tenor, all slurs and off-notes, combined sinuously with Carl Coates’s soft, rolling bass ‘boom-de-de-booms.’ The group could holler but their sound was basically clean and introspective, in pleasing contrast to Cheeks’s relentlessly hard lead.”
‘Burying Ground,’ The Sensational Nightingales, with Julius Cheeks on lead vocal. ‘…Chilling and satisfying and almost consoling.’
Heilbut cites a number of Nightingales recordings as transcendent performances, but really zeroes in on “Burying Ground,” in which “Cheeks’s baritone is resonant and exceptionally beautiful. The Gales sing high and loud, rising to a piercing plateau of ‘way over yonders’ while Cheeks enumerates al those gone: ‘I’ve got a mother, I’ve got a father.’ Midway through the list, Jo Jo changes the key on ‘yonder,’ and the shrill background becomes deeply moving. To some the climax is a lot of yelling, but as Cheeks gracefully drops from a screamed ‘way over yonder’ to a husky final ‘in the new burying ground,’ he’s summoned up any poor Southerner’s last trip. It’s chilling and satisfying and almost consoling.” Cheeks, Heilbut adds later, “was a superb musician in the recording studio.”
‘A Sinner’s Plea,’ The Sensational Nightingales, lead vocal by Ernest Johnson, bass vocal by John Jefferson, with Jo Jo Wallace soaring on high tenor vocal and lead guitar, in an arrangement reflecting the influence of group harmony giants The Ravens with bass vocalist Jimmy Ricks prominent in the arrangement.
Born October 4, 1926 to John Wallace Sr. and Annie Bell Brown Wallace, farmers both in the bare-grass settlement of Williamston, Martin County, North-East in North Carolina, Joseph “Jo Jo” Henry Wallace was the youngest of seven children. When Jo Jo was six, his father was found dead in a sand-hole alongside two other men, none of the bodies bearing any sign of violence or trauma. The local paper reported the deaths as “unfortunate accidents,” which may in fact have been accurate. John Sr. and two of his friends ran their own trucking company, each with his own truck. Driving as a convoy, the trio would go from Williamston North to sandpits near Windsor, load up with sand and return to Williamston. The work was treacherous and sometimes deadly: in foul weather sand-holes would collapse and take loaders down to their deaths. With the family patriarch gone, Jo Jo and his older siblings (save for his oldest brother, Buck, whom Jo Jo knew only by name and references to his existence) worked in cotton fields, while his mother brought in four dollars a bundle for cleaning, pressing and doing laundry for white families in the area.
‘Who Is That,’ Sensational Nightingales (1960), written by lead vocalist Julius Cheeks
Jo Jo’s path into music came by way of church hymns and the pump organ. His mother would take the kids to church on Sundays, and as Jo Jo sat on her knee “I’d listen to the congregation sing those beautiful old hymns that I grew to like so much,” he told Nations. “Mama prayed for the welfare of the family. Believe it or not, young as I was, I can recall mama and daddy had an old pump organ given to us by a white family. It had side flaps you could open with your knees. The side flaps enabled an increase in volume when pumping the foot paddle, Mama would sit and play those beautiful old hymns and the words and music would really touch my heart. Those beautiful memories have stayed with me all my life.
“During mama’s playing my older brother Gus would pick up the bass vocal part from the bass key while my oldest brother, Johnny (John Junior), would catch the appropriate notes given out by the baritone key. At the same time, almost by instinct, I was soon able to pick out the tenor. We rehearsed these parts until we were able to sing those beautiful hymns in perfect harmony. I have been asked many times the question where did you learn to sing tenor and I tell them I learned by picking up the scales of mama’s organ by ear.”
‘See How They Done My Lord,” The Sensational Nightingales
How Jo Jo came to embrace the guitar is a whole other story in which, once again, a pump organ figures prominently. To Nations he recalled his older sister Minnie dating a young man known as Lightnin’, who worked at a downtown printing shop. Lightnin’ and Jo Jo’s brother Johnny became friends through work connections (Johnny did deliveries for Western Union), and after-hours Johnny would borrow Lightnin’’s guitar and teach himself chords. “This was a huge hollow-body model which he’d ride home with,” Jo Jo recalled. “Johnny tried his best to make the chords he had heard mama play on the pump organ. After a struggle he came to a point where he could make just three chords. I’d sit between his legs on the floor looking at his left hand trying to figure out his moves. He would make the same chords every sitting. When it came time for him to go to work he placed the instrument in the corner of the house. He would shout, ‘You better not mess with that guitar!’
“I was scared but when he left the house and rode out of sight I’d run and pick up the guitar which was almost as large as I was. I tried to pick out the chords he had made as best I remembered them. Problem was I could hardly reach my arms around the instrument to hold it but I was determined Somehow I managed to remember all I had learned listening to mama play the old hymns and could transcribe the chords to the guitar. Mama heard me play and was taken by surprise. She had my brother John Junior sit and listen. I knew that if the order came from her, I wouldn’t be punished for using the instrument. Johnny was at first surprised and then jealous of my skill. He never borrowed Lightnin’’s guitar after that.
“So when Minnie went out on a date, she asked to borrow Lightnin’’s guitar on my behalf. I practiced whenever I could after that; I even took it to bed with me.”
‘Morning Train,’ The Sensational Nightingales, with Julius Cheeks, songwriter and lead vocalist
In 1934 Jo Jo’s mother hopped a bus to Philadelphia to visit her aunt there; during her stay she met and fell in love with a Mr. Burns and decided to take up residence permanently in the City of Brotherly Love, where the couple later married. Jo Jo and John Junior stayed behind in North Carolina to finish high school and joined their mother a year later. Let loose in the big city, JoJo, by his own admission, ran wild, telling Nations, “I got myself into a lot of trouble. I made many bad mistakes.” When his mother “got riled up to the point where she got real tough with me,” Jo Jo realized the pain he was causing the family and took a nine-to-five job hand spraying finish on strip lights for the Gill Fixture Company, bringing home much-needed financial support for the family. According to Jo Jo’s niece, Annie Gilbert, it was the only nine-to-give job Jo Jo ever held.
‘The Lord Will Make a Way,’ The Sensational Nightingales, with Julius Cheeks on lead vocal and John Jefferson, bass (1957)
Philadelphia was a hotbed of gospel music during those years, especially when it came to female quartets—the Davis Sisters, the Angelic Gospel Singers, and the Clara and Gertrude Ward Singers, foremost among them—and to male giants such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, whose legendary lead singer Ira Tucker also taught gospel vocal lessons to the locals. Pioneering gospel composer Charles Albert Tindley (his song “I’ll Overcome Someday” was the basis for the Civil Rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome”) not only penned standards of the genre but opened his Tindley Temple to performances by local amateur and professional gospel performers. The city was home to two important early gospel labels, Grand and Gotham, although the former was not much focused on recording gospel. In the late ‘30s Jo Jo and John Junior (the latter freshly out of the military), inspired by the Golden Gate Quartet’s radio broadcasts, landed positions in a local church group, the Heavenly Gospel Singers. It was a tenure short-lived, as the brothers soon bolted to the Silveraires quartet out of Wilmington, NC. The Wallace brothers both sang tenor, and Jo Jo, now an experienced instrumentalist, doubled on guitar. In January 1949 Gotham signed the Silveraires and six months later made a major move in signing the Dixie Hummingbirds. Between January 1949 and October 1950 the Silveraires recorded seven singles for Gotham. Nations appraises the group’s output thusly: “The most impressive includes the beautifully balanced harmonies of W.B. Stevens’ ‘Farther Along’ done in the jubilee style, Edna Gallmon Cooke’s soulful ‘In My Heavenly Home,’ and the Golden Gates-like flavoring of ‘End of My Journey.’ The group’s touching hymn-powered reading of “Shine On Me’ is equally well perfected as any version I have ever heard.”
‘Farther Along,’ The Silveraires, featuring lead singer Haizo Miles, tenors Jo Jo and John Wallace Jr., released by Philadelphia’s Gotham Records (1949)
‘So High,’ The Silveraires, featuring lead singer Haiti Miles, bass singer John McLaurin, tenors Jo Joann John Wallace r., released by Philadelphia’s Gotham Records
As musical trends changed in post-War America, gospel transitioned from the Silveraires’ jubilee style to a harder, more driving “saved-and-sanctified” sound advanced by dynamic lead singers such as Julius Cheeks, for one, and the Blind Boys of Mississippi’s Archie Brownlee. The group disbanded in 1950,
‘Standing at the Judgment,’ written by Julius Cheeks, lead singer, with the Sensational Nightingales, JoJo Wallace on guitar
After joining the Nightingales in 1952, Jo Jo settled in for the remainder of his career, becoming the group’s longest-tenured member at his retirement in 2021 at age 94. Besides Jo Jo, the classic lineup in gospel’s golden era in the early to mid-‘50s, recording for Decca and Peacock, included Cheeks (the musical descendants of Cheeks’s muscular, incendiary vocal style include Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ray Charles, the Jive Five’s Eugene Pitt, the Temptations’ David Ruffin, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, and the Persuasions’ Jerry Lawson—A Hall of Fame lineup of R&B and soul titans), Ernest James, Bill Woodruff, and bass vocalist John Jefferson. This lineup’s increasing popularity inspired manager Parks to upgrade the collective identity to Sensational Nightingales the year Jo Jo joined, based on the intense audience reaction to their live shows and their potent Peacock recordings (and progressive—Cheeks advocated for expanding the arrangements to include other instruments, such as pianos, and more complex vocal arrangements reflecting the influence of group harmony giants on the order of the Mills Brothers and the Ravens). Cheeks, who had left and rejoined the Sensational Nightingales several times during its heyday (even joining the Soul Stirrers briefly, where he claimed he counseled Sam Cooke to adopt a harder, more emotional approach to his vocals, leading to Sam becoming gospels first matinee idol before going secular and signing with RCA), moved on for good in 1960, leading several experienced gospel frontmen to audition as the new Nightingales lead vocalist before Cheeks’s choice, Charles Johnson, became the chosen one. Johnson was with the group until 1984, when he was replaced by Calvert McNair.
‘View That Holy City,’ The Sensational Nightingales (1957)
During the Nightingales’ prime, Jo Jo told Nations he and Cheeks developed great camaraderie and communication that paid off in live performances. “As time went by, June Cheeks and I became pretty close,” Jo Jo told Nations. “We were a great team. I don’t know how I came to get one but I managed to pick up a fifty foot extension cord to run from my guitar to the amp. Our mike setup was such that three singers stood around a mike at center stage while June and I stood off to the left and right sides. During our act, as the trio kept tight harmony. June Cheeks would creep down the left aisle screaming and preaching and carrying on while I danced (I had all Chuck Berry’s moves down before he ever used them) down the right aisle playing my guitar. Church folk called me ‘The Gospel Chuck Berry’ and as chance would have it, I even looked a lot like him, especially when I had my hair teased up in anpompadour. We created a lot of excitement with this act.”
‘Morning Train,’ The Sensational Nightingales, with Julius Cheeks, songwriter and lead vocalist
As for “The Twist,” Wallace said he was inspired by seeing his sister “Minnie” Margaret doing some unusual dance moves while singing the Trixie Smith tune “Messin’ Around,” released on Paramount in 1926. “I used to go to the door, and my sister be out there just twisting her tail,” Wallace said. “I said, ‘Momma, look at sis up there doing the twist,’ and that’s where it comes from.” It was in 1957 when Jo Jo began fooling around on guitar with a melody and an opening lyric he had written—“C’mon baby, let’s do the twist.” Fellow Nightingale Bill Woodruff added some new lyrics, and a casual get-together produced a finished song. Knowing “The Twist” was not appropriate for the Nightingales, Jo Jo offered the song to Little Joe Cook of Philadelphia’s Little Joe Cook & The Thrillers but Cook passed on it. At that point, a new Nightingale, David Eddington, took the song to King Records’ founder Syd Nathan, who in turn brought it to Hank Ballard’s attention. Ballard and his guitarist/arranger Cal Green retained Jo Jo’s opening lyric and then crafted their own arrangement, which Ballard recorded with the Midnighters in 1958, then re-recorded it in January 1959 as the B side of the group harmony ballad, “Teardrops on Your Letter.” The single became Ballard’s fourth million seller), but Jo Jo admitted he never signed a songwriting agreement with King and beyond that had no desire to claim the song since gospel music, not R&B, was his life.
‘In My Mind,’ The Sensational Nightingales, with Julius Cheeks (Lead vocal), John Jefferson (bass) and Jo Jo Wallace (high tenor) (1956)
Still another twist on “The Twist” came from Midnighters member Lawson Smith, who claimed Nathaniel Bills, of The Gospel Consolaters, wrote the song. He said Bills asked The Spaniels to record it, but then Ballard “stole” the song, falsely claiming authorship. No evidence has ever surfaced to confirm Bills’s claim.
After a long run with Peacock and ABC-Peacock, the Sensational Nightingales signed with Malaco Music Group in 1980. During this time, the group counted Jo Jo, Charles Johnson, Horace Thompson, and Darrell and Ricky Luster among its members while touring the world and becoming the first gospel quartet inducted into the American Gospel Quartet Hall of Fame. The group received Grammy nominations in 2004 and 2019, and in 2018 was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
A Special Tribute to Jo Jo Wallace of the Sensational Nightingales, 1926-2025. Music: ‘Face to Face,’ The Sensational Nightingales with vocal by Calvert McNair, who succeeded Charles Johnson as lead vocalist in 1984. Posted at YouTube by Devyn Antwan.
In 1951 Jo Jo married Inez Evelyn Jones. They were married for 55 years, until she predeceased him in 2006. Jo Jo credited Inez with helping him accept Christ and commit to living out the gospel beyond the stage.
Though he retired from full-time touring in 2021 at age 94, Jo Jo continued to make guest appearances at gospel events and remained active in his local community. He spent his final years in Durham, North Carolina. On May 7, 2025, his work here done, his life’s crown won, his troubles and trials over, Jo Jo’s spirit made its way to the loved ones who’ve gone on before, in the land where we’ll never grow old.
