BOGARD BROTHERS

The Bogard brothers came from a musical family, and sang with other groups before forming their own group in 1963. They grew up singing in church, but also listened to recordings of the big-name quartets – favorites were the Highways QCs, the Sensational Nightingales, and especially the Pilgrim Travelers. Their group included Etoy and Leroy as the main lead singers, Sidney playing guitar, singing and arranging, and Willie playing bass guitar, with other singers recruited from the Memphis quartet fraternity. Alfred Bogard, the youngest brother – 15 years junior to Etoy – joined the vocal lineup in 1978.

Their first single was made in 1965 on the small Savior label, owned by Ronald “Slim” Wallace. Leroy Bogard is not present on Savior 201; he had dropped out of the group, staying out for about a year. His place was taken by George Turner. The other non-Bogard in the group for that first recording session was Bob James; when James went into the Army, Isadore McGee, with whom Leroy sang pre-Bogard Brothers in the Redemption Harmonizers, replaced him. Leroy left again for a while in the early 1970s, but came back again. Turner had left the group by the mid-1960s, but McGee stayed at least until the mid-1970s. 

After the Savior recordings, the brothers made two singles for the J&W label, owned by singer and preacher Willie Morganfield and his brother, James. The second single and the group’s next record, issued on Gospel Sound and credited to the “Bogart Brothers” were also released on the nationally-distributed Jewel label, owned by Stan Lewis in Shreveport, Louisiana.   The group’s next single was made for the Holiday Inn label, an unlikely subsidiary of the famous motel chain, in Memphis. From Holiday Inn, the Bogards went to the Philwood label, started by Tom Phillips, brother of Sam, who had the Select-O-Hits record shop in Memphis. Between around 1969 and 1974, they recorded four singles for Philwood. Two years later they issued  I’ve Been Changed/I Don’t Mind on their own label. Bogard Sound. In 1980, the group made an album and issued it on Bogard Brothers Records (BBR-1280). On this album, One More Time, Bob James is back with the group, and Alfred Bogard makes his recording debut. Years later, the album was reissued without the knowledge or permission of the Bogard Brothers, on the Chicago label One-Way label, owned and operated by one-time Kelly Brothers gospel and soul singer Offe Reese/Offie Reece. Sidney recalls that the group met Reese in Chicago in the late 1980s while they were in the city to sing on a program. He liked the Bogards well enough to take them into a studio and record an album from them. “But then he never released it,” says Sidney. “I asked him why it didn’t come out, and he never could give me a reason.”  Instead, Reese issued One More Time as One-Way OW-50 under the title I Know It Was the Blood.

The Bogard Brothers last issued recordings – the album Help Somebody  – were made in 1992. The personnel on this disc includes what seems to be another family member, Russell Bogard. But it isn’t, as Sidney explains: “No, that’s Alfred. His name is Alfred Russell; some call him Alfred, some call him Russell”.

Alan Young, John Glassburner, August – October, 2009.

Special thanks to Sidney Bogard for his generosity in providing records, photographs … and most of the information above, given  in several phone calls with John Glassburner and Alan Young. Also to David Evans for extra information.

Contributors:

- Sidney Bogard

- Alan Young

- John Glassburner

- David Evans