Despite the march of time and age, The Fairfield Four soldiers on
By Steve Wildsmith
of The Daily Times Staff

It’s been more than 60 years, but Isaac “Dickey” Freeman still remembers the exact amount of money he received from his first gig with the legendary gospel group The Fairfield Four.

“My first check was for $468.75,” Freeman told The Daily Times this week, his deep voice booming through the phone line during a Wednesday interview. “I’d never made that much money at one time, so I was kind of excited over that. I wasn’t used to that much money in my pocket from one program. I was at the hotel that night, but I didn’t sleep because I was just so happy and excited about it.”

At 79, Freeman is the elder statesman of the renowned a cappella gospel outfit, whose roots date back to 1921, when the group was founded in Nashville. Throughout the years, the Fairfield Four have retired and emerged from retirement, suffered death and loss and watched a cappella music fade from popularity before finding a newfound resurgence and respect by contemporary artists.

The Fairfield Four began in a Sunday school class at the Fairfield Baptist Church in Nashville, and for years, the singers performed locally until breaking into radio on WSIX. In 1942, seven years before Freeman joined the group, the Fairfield Four won national exposure on WLAC radio, at the time a CBS affiliate. After splitting acrimoniously in 1946, group leader Sam McCrary reformed the Fairfield Four in 1949, adding James Hill, “Preacher” Thomas Jones and Freeman.

“Before I joined, I was singing with another group, the Harmony Kings out of Birmingham, Ala.,” Freeman said. “During that time, there wasn’t too much money being made — the biggest day you had during that time was singing on a Sunday; there wasn’t too much singing going on through the week.

“At the time, The Fairfield Four was real popular, because WLAC was broadcasting in 120-something cities. They were making more money than the group I was in was making, simply because they were on that 50,000-watt station, and everybody heard them. They were one of the top groups, money-wise.”

The Kings of Harmony was enjoyable, Freeman added, but it wasn’t paying the bills. When he was asked to join The Fairfield Four, he talked with the group’s manager, who gave him his blessing to make the leap. 

“He said, ‘Yeah, man, go ahead if you got that offer — those guys make more money than anybody else out there,’” Freeman said. 

It was Freeman’s astounding bass that laid the foundation for the group’s harmony style, but another split a year later silenced the Fairfield Four until 1980. That year, a reunion concert was organized in Alabama by Doug Seroff, a gospel and blues music collector, and the singers found they still had that old magic.

Freeman, who had gone on to join the group The Skylarks after leaving the Fairfield Four, wasn’t even singing professionally anymore — after 13 years of singing with The Skylarks, he had retired from music to get a 9-to-5 job. With Hill and Jones on board, Freeman decided to give it a try again as well. They didn’t modernize their sound; they went with the old gospel numbers that had been the group’s bedrock in the early days, and within a few years, The Fairfield Four was earning respect from artists and fans of all genres — country-rock maverick Steve Earle, who’s tapped the group for a number of his albums; Elvis Costello; and the Del McCoury Band, among others.

The group added new members as well — Wilson Waters, who joined in 1982, and Robert Hamlett, who joined in 1984. Along with new member Joe Rice, The Fairfield Four performed at Carnegie Hall appeared at the Smithsonian Institution’s Festival of American Folklife and at the Lincoln Center’s Folk and Heritage Festival. In 1992, Warner Bros. signed the group to its first major label record contract, and suddenly the Fairfield Four seemed to be all over the place. Whether opening dates for Lyle Lovett or appearing on Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion,” the group has yet to slow down.

But there have been tragedies. Lead singer Walter Settles, replaced by Rice in 1995, suffered a stroke. “Preacher” Jones died in 1993, and Hill passed on in 2000. Waters died in 2005, and Freeman suddenly found himself as the only link to the band’s past. It’s a weight he feels keenly, especially when he performs and looks for the men who used to be at his side, all those years ago.

“Things like that are hard to get over — you stand beside a guy for 25 or 40 years, and it’s like losing one out of the family,” he said. “I still think about those guys and the times we had together and how we got along. All this kind of stuff kind of crosses your mind, and you can’t keep from thinking about it. Every time we sing one of the songs we used to do, I think about them all.”

If there’s one thing the faith-based music of The Fairfield Four has taught him, however, it’s this — he’ll see them again. And in the meantime, his old friends are out there somewhere, harmonizing along with Freeman and his new bandmates on a spiritual scale that only the angels can hear.

“I’m pretty sure they are, man, especially every time we sing a song they sang,” he said. “They’re still with me in spirit.”