Darrell’s tenure with Banks lasted just less than a year, but was a vital, and intense tutorial on the actual life of a professional touring and recording musician, and the business realities—not always pretty—that lay behind it. He returned to Brooklyn with no stars in his eyes about the sometimes harsh demands of his chosen trade, but still all the more determined to make his mark in it. Reforming the Golden Sons, Darrell soon found the group the most popular and in-demand quartet in the metropolitan New York area.
Recording offers were not long in coming, yielding four small-label releases over the group’s tenure together, but even as the Sons’ fortunes were clearly rising, Darrell found himself faced with a group that balked at taking that next step onto a national stage, and the sacrifices and commitment it required. Frustrated at that reluctance, Darrell departed the Golden Sons in 1992 and formed what was, and would remain to this day, Darrell McFadden & the Disciples.
Having long ago developed into a prolific songwriter, Darrell was more than ready to see his years of investment begin to bear the kind of fruit he knew they merited. Long before EMI and I’ve Got A Right finally placed Darrell McFadden and the Disciples on the national platform they had sought for so long, the group had already built a significant regional following, performing constantly—largely up and down the East coast—and making five more independent label projects that all did well, especially in the absence of a national network of promotion and distribution.
Darrell was acquainted with EMI vice-president, Larry Blackwell Jr., ever since the days the Golden Sons had recorded one of their first albums for Blackwell Sr.’s HSE Records, and in 2003, Darrell felt the time was right to begin discussions with EMI about a major-label affiliation. With a solid, largely self-built fan base and track record to show, not to mention a huge catalog of original material and recordings, Darrell & the Disciples’ brand of young, modern Gospel quartet music found a welcome reception at EMI, and wheels began turning that led today to I’ve Got A Right , and a strong label commitment to helping Darrell attain the goals for which he had so single-mindedly strived for over two decades.
Having always had a larger pool of musicians and singers who, as Darrell puts it, “rotated in and out and back in again” to the Disciples’ roster, the core of the group today, in addition to Darrell, consists of original members Gene People and Spanky Williams.
