From small acorns, large oak trees grow, and so did a Union County gospel group. This group started jamming about 1978, so said one of the founding members to me. They included Jerry Cole, Sr., Bill Turner, Neal Walker, and Dannie Peters.
Then they became known as Union Grass, a bluegrass and bluegrass gospel band. Union Grass started entertaining at bluegrass festivals, local churches and pie suppers. They always closed with a bluegrass gospel song or a gospel song by Hank Williams.
As Union Grass started singing southern gospel songs, their first singing engagement was at Oak Grove Church in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee. Nancy Cole came up with a new name for Union Grass, that would cover bluegrass, bluegrass gospel, southern gospel and country gospel. (Most of the songs were by Hank Williams.) The new name was The Betterway Quartet.
Now on to bigger and better things. As Betterway expanded its booking area from East Tennessee to eventually include 10 states, they used a Ford van for transportation. The next van was a Dodge van and later a 35’ GMC tour bus. The GMC tour bus made traveling for their mostly weekend engagements much easier on the singers. They could stand up and stretch, change seats, snack or eat on the bus and take naps in the bus.
Betterway now was booking larger churches and festivals, and appearing on Mull’s TV Show on Channel 10 in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1982, Mull’s Gospel Show featuring Betterway played to a packed crowd at Horace Maynard High School at Maynardville, Tennessee, their home county. At this time, Shannon Walker became Betterway’s manager and their bookings greatly increased.
They were performing at concerts with The Primitive Quartet, The Paynes, The Spencers, The Inspirations and The Cooks. They also performed regularly on WJBZ 96.3 that was Mull’s radio station. They performed on television in Indiana, Ohio and Bristol, Tennessee.
They were also featured on Grant Turner’s Early Bird Show that aired at 5:45 a.m. Monday - Friday on WSM 650 AM radio station that was the home of the Grand Ole Opry on Friday and Saturday nights.
They made videos with Eddie Crook Gospel Music Productions. They recorded albums, eight track tapes and later cassettes and CDs in Nashville. They performed at an Amish Festival in Pennsylvania along with The Primitive Quartet and others. Stuart Wyrick joined as singer, musician and bus driver around 1984 or 1985.
On a trip to Ohio and Indiana after driving all night, they shut the bus off. When ready to go the bus would not crank. They had to push the bus to crank it. Remember this bus was 35 feet long and weighed probably 18,000 pounds, but they were lucky it was on a slight downhill grade and they were able to push it and crank it.
On one trip to West Virginia to play Saturday night at an outside venue at a church, it was evidently too far to find sleeping accommodations at a motel so they had to sleep on the pews and the floor inside the church that night. I was told it was a very restless night for Betterway.
While traveling through Halls Crossroads, Tennessee, the bus stopped and would not restart late one Friday afternoon. The only mechanic they could find lived in Maryville, Tennessee. He agreed to come over and get the bus running. While he was under the bus working on it a car slowly drove by and someone threw a large pack of firecrackers on the mechanic under the bus. He came out from under the bus swearing cuss words that would make a sailor blush. Then he remembered he was working on a gospel quartet’s bus and they were standing around watching him, wide-eyed and with their mouths open. He then cleaned his language up, crawled back under the bus and made the necessary repairs that put them on their way.
The Betterway Quartet entertained for over 30 years. Here is a partial list of members of Betterway from 1978- 2014: Jerry Cole, Sr., Bill Turner, Neal Walker, Dannie Peters, Gale Lee, Stuart Wyrick, Shannon Walker- Manager, Paul Carter, Darrell Williams, Arnold Branton, Scott Payne, Vic Graves, Wade Brantley, Ronnie Kitts, Johnny Raley, Jonathan Brogan, Kenny Dryer, Jerry Cole, Jr., Savannah Cole Brogan (daughter of Jerry Cole, Sr.)
The life of music entertainers is very hard. Like Betterway, who booked mostly on the weekends, you drive all night Friday and most of the day Saturday to arrive at your destination in time to perform.
You are expected to look fresh and neat, and put on a good show even though you are tired, hungry or sick. That’s the life of an entertainer.
The three of the original Betterway members who were interviewed for this article all said the rewards are worth it because they met a lot of good people along their way.
They got to perform with and meet and become friends with members of some of the greatest gospel groups of all times. Groups such as J.D. Sumner and the Stamps, The Primitive Quartet, The Inspirations, The Sego Brothers and Naomi, The Cathedrals, The Isaacs, and The McCameys.
For the three remaining original members there are good memories. For the rest of the living members of Betterway, there are dreams to resurrect the group and go forward.
Let’s all pray that this happens.