A move to New York to make records caused half of the members to quit outright rather than venture outside of Kinston. This left only Herring and baritone singer Louis Panella Davis. The unit was reconstituted with the arrival of Julius Davis and William Brown, a pair of versatile tenors who had sung with the Harmonizing Four. In August 1934, now managed by a former gospel vocalist named Willie Mitchell, the quartet made the long drive to the big city and cut their first 16 sides as Mitchell's New Four Singers under the supervision of producer William Calloway. Provided with seedy lodging and substandard food, the singers were pressed to rehearse for a full half-day before commencing to record; they began singing at 8:00 a.m. and knocked off at 2:30 in the morning. Although each man received $150.00 for his time, no mention was made of royalties. When they resumed recording in April 1936 as Mitchell's Christian Singers, bass singer Lewis Herring had been replaced by Sam Bryant, and the lineup would remain unchanged for the remainder of the group's professional existence.
More than 80 sides recorded during a six-year period were released on seven different labels owned by the American Record Company. The 78 rpm platters were mainly pressed at a Bakelite-enabled facility owned by the Scranton Button Company. In December 1938, the group was invited to appear at Carnegie Hall as part of John Hammond's Spirituals to Swing concert. Hammond had encountered them on their home turf while traveling through North Carolina in the company of composer Goddard Lieberson, who worked for Columbia Records, helped to introduce the LP and eventually became president of the company. As for Mitchell's Christian Singers, after cutting a dozen sides in Chicago in 1940, they ceased recording altogether and lived out the rest of their lives in Kinston, occasionally performing at churches and community functions. With the exception of one missing title from 1936, their complete works were chronologically reissued in four volumes by Document during the '90s. Some music historians hold that this group's soulful, focused presentation had a direct influence upon early modern gospel and the doo wop vocal harmony technique popularized during the '50s. ~ arwulf arwulf, Rovi