Evelyn Hardy, Oral History
Title
Evelyn Hardy, Oral History
Subject
Music
Description
Evelyn Hardy, piano player and founding member of the Gospel Harmonettes, a famous female gospel group based in Birmingham, Alabama. Evelyn shares her recollections of the group’s beginning in the 1940’s.
Creator
Evelyn Hardy
Bob Friedman
Publisher
Birmingham Black Radio Museum
Date
January 26, 2007
Contributor
Lindsey Reynolds
Emily Bibb
Format
JPG
MP3
PDF
Language
English
Identifier
HardyOH
Interviewer
Bob Friedman
Interviewee
Evelyn Hardy
Location
WJLD Studios, Birmingham Alabama
Transcription
Transcript from audio snippet:
Bob Friedman: Vera Kolb
Evelyn Hardy: Vera Kolb, that was her name when she passed.
EH: Let’s see, how many is that..Odessa, Mildred, Vera, Willie May Thomas, she’s gone, she passed. She married Newbury, who was a Black Baron, a baseball player. You ever heard of him?
BF: What was his first name?
EH: Jimmy
BF: Jimmy Newbury
EH: Ok so how many, so then there was Evelyn so that made five. That was the original Gospel Harmonettes. Dorothy Love Coates later joined the group about five or six years later.
BF: So did that original group record?
EH: Yes we sang and recorded. We recorded with RCA
BF: With RCA? Under the name the Gospel Harmonettes? So that means there should be 78’s.
EH: I have some
BF: You need to let us take pictures of them, or I’ll visit you. Because I know how 78’s are. I have a bunch myself. So that’s great. I don’t think anybody, now I would love to record them, record them and clean them up and put them on a cd for you. I would love to do that. We recently…Gatemouth Moore.
EH: I remember him.
BF: He started out in blues in the 40’s and he shifted to Gospel in the early 50’s . He was at EDR and WJLD. And we have a 78 of his blues work in the 1940’s and just recently, here in Birmingham, got a Chess 78 of him singing “Thank You Jesus” so we have his whole career plus a live interview, so that stuff’s real interesting to us.
Bob Friedman: Vera Kolb
Evelyn Hardy: Vera Kolb, that was her name when she passed.
EH: Let’s see, how many is that..Odessa, Mildred, Vera, Willie May Thomas, she’s gone, she passed. She married Newbury, who was a Black Baron, a baseball player. You ever heard of him?
BF: What was his first name?
EH: Jimmy
BF: Jimmy Newbury
EH: Ok so how many, so then there was Evelyn so that made five. That was the original Gospel Harmonettes. Dorothy Love Coates later joined the group about five or six years later.
BF: So did that original group record?
EH: Yes we sang and recorded. We recorded with RCA
BF: With RCA? Under the name the Gospel Harmonettes? So that means there should be 78’s.
EH: I have some
BF: You need to let us take pictures of them, or I’ll visit you. Because I know how 78’s are. I have a bunch myself. So that’s great. I don’t think anybody, now I would love to record them, record them and clean them up and put them on a cd for you. I would love to do that. We recently…Gatemouth Moore.
EH: I remember him.
BF: He started out in blues in the 40’s and he shifted to Gospel in the early 50’s . He was at EDR and WJLD. And we have a 78 of his blues work in the 1940’s and just recently, here in Birmingham, got a Chess 78 of him singing “Thank You Jesus” so we have his whole career plus a live interview, so that stuff’s real interesting to us.
Duration
Full interview: 35 minutes
Audio snippet: 2 minutes
Audio snippet: 2 minutes
Files
Collection
Citation
Evelyn Hardy and Bob Friedman, “Evelyn Hardy, Oral History,” The Birmingham Black Radio Museum, accessed September 7, 2026, https://thebbrm.org/item/73.
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