RANCE ALLEN GROUP
When you hear contemporary Gospel music today, you are traveling a road paved by one of the most successful Gospel groups in history, The Rance Allen Group; a trio of three brothers whose first concerts was block parties in their native Monroe, Michigan over 30 years ago.

Rance Allen and his brothers, Thomas and Steve, are three of a dozen children from a church-active family that nearly filled the small Goodwill Church of God In Christ (COGIC) the family attended. Both grandparents were pastors and their Mother played piano and guitar.

Rance began singing and preaching at age five, then learned the piano at age seven to accompany his singing. Thomas was inspired by Rance's talent and picked up the drums. Then Steve saw how music was bringing the two of them together and joined them. When Rance was 12, he took up guitar and it became his formal instrument. It was in the little Michigan church that the group's style evolved, often accompanied by the rattling of the windows and the roar of the wheels of passing trains. They found an avid audience in the youth membership. The Allen boys also came up in the COGIC Convention under the teaching of the late Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.

They began to listen to Motown songs on the sly and also listened to the greats of Gospel, Mahalia, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, James Cleveland, etc. They took the tunes of the Temptations, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and Dionne Warwick, rearranged the words and gave it back its roots. It was a new Gospel style and the young people loved it, but there was resistance to the non-traditional style from other churches. They were ahead of their time. They, however, never cared what people thought because their main concern was their music and reaching out to young people who might be saved.

About the time of Edwin Hawkins' super hit, "O Happy Day," a local promoter named Larry Giles approached Rance and his brothers and wanted to manage them. "Giles was a visionary--he arranged for them to tour around and make their first recordings. Giles wanted nothing but major pop success and invested everything in the group. However, because of the Group's gospel focus, he went broke doing it.

The group played live on WCHB radio in Detroit for a year. Then in mid 1970 they won a Detroit talent show with a stirring three minute performance that brought down the house. One of the judges was record man Dave Clark who introduced them to Toby Jackson who soon became their manager.

They put together a tape of the group and shopped it around. Their first recorded single, "Let's Get Together and Love" was recorded on Monroe, Michigan based Reflect label. Singing in their contemporary innovative and unique style no others could or would dare touch at the time, the group set out to make their presence known. They went to Memphis and met with Al Bell, then the head of Stax Records, who was so impressed that he started a new label, Gospel Truth, just for them.