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From PRX's Radio-Topia, this is

2:05

Radio Diaries. I'm Joe Richmond.

2:11

There ain't no grave can

2:13

hold my body down. There

2:16

ain't no grave can hold my body down.

2:19

This is one of the last songs that Johnny

2:21

Cash recorded before he died. When

2:24

I hear the trumpet sound. One

2:27

of the things to know about this song is

2:29

that it's had many, many different lives. Ain't

2:33

no grave hold my body

2:35

down. There ain't no

2:37

grave can hold my body down. There

2:42

ain't no grave can hold my

2:44

body down. The

2:51

other thing to know about this song is

2:53

that it's had a strange and surprising history.

2:56

The song was actually written by a

2:59

12-year-old boy. A boy who was

3:01

on his deathbed. A boy who,

3:03

instead of dying, went on to become a

3:05

Pentecostal preacher. A boy who

3:07

would later help inspire the birth of rock and roll.

3:10

His name was Brother Claude Ealy. Outside

3:13

of the Appalachian Mountains, hardly anyone knew his

3:15

name at all. Even his

3:18

extended family didn't know much about him. This

3:20

is a story about the story behind that song.

3:23

Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down. But

3:26

it's also the story of one man's search to

3:28

find out more about his great uncle. A

3:31

man they called the Gospel Ranger. My

3:37

name is Maisel Ealy. I'm the great

3:39

nephew of Brother Claude Ealy. 2001

3:44

I was going on a vacation to London,

3:46

England. I went to a record shop

3:49

and then began to play music

3:51

over the Intercom system. Hey, here's

3:54

a lebun. I

3:56

wanna go to heaven. And

3:58

I recognized it as my own. Uncle Claude's

4:00

music. Just

4:03

to make sure I wasn't going crazy, I went to

4:06

the store manager who was at the register and I

4:08

said, are you playing Claude Ealy's music?

4:11

And he took me down an aisle and

4:14

there was an actual display of Brother Claude

4:16

Ealy. They had a picture and they had blown

4:18

it up and cut it out. And they

4:20

had old 45s, they had old

4:22

LP albums. I stood

4:25

there for an hour and people were coming

4:27

in the store and they were buying my uncle's music

4:29

right in front of me. It

4:35

really freaked me out to be perfectly honest. I

4:39

had grown up hearing my uncle singing

4:41

and preaching and praying and it to me

4:43

was just the same screaming and shouting that

4:45

we had grown up in church hearing. I

4:48

had no idea that outside of those

4:50

Appalachian Mountains that people had heard about

4:52

Brother Claude Ealy. And so 50

4:55

years after these recordings, I wanted

4:57

to know who this man really

4:59

was. So

5:02

every free weekend that I had, I would get in

5:04

my car. You know, if you

5:06

go to the small Eastern Kentucky towns, you

5:09

can hit 10 or 11 churches in a

5:11

two mile radius. And if it

5:14

said Pentecost or if it said holiness, I was

5:16

inside knocking on the door asking if there was

5:18

people there that I could speak to. And

5:20

did they mind if I recorded them? Okay, I've got it

5:22

recorded. Tell me your name. Okay, my name is Linda Morgan.

5:25

And I

5:28

would begin to ask people, did you ever hear

5:30

of a man named Claude Ealy? I

5:32

can still remember. It just seems

5:34

like yesterday. He had a tent revival in

5:36

Cumberland, Kentucky was raised. The

5:39

first time I ever made him, he

5:41

just opened his mouth and

5:43

let her fly. My

5:46

name is Christine Cronoevis and I'm

5:48

from Bell County. My name is

5:50

Robert Charles Long of Rose Hill,

5:52

Virginia. Jeanette Barrett. Danni Hudson. Mary

5:54

Lynn Frank from Big Stone Gap,

5:56

Virginia. I've been to hundreds of

5:58

churches, thousands of churches. miles. Over

6:01

nine years I've interviewed over 1,300 to 1,400 people.

6:11

My name is Roberta Pratt. I

6:13

was a member of the Cumberland Pentecostal Church

6:15

where Brother Claude Ely was pastor. Even

6:18

as a child, he really

6:20

had a very strong personal

6:22

relationship with God. Brother

6:24

Claude Ely was born in 1922 in Puckett's Creek,

6:28

Virginia. When he was

6:30

12 years old, he was diagnosed

6:33

with tuberculosis and told that

6:35

he was going to die as a child. His

6:38

uncle, Leander, gave him an old

6:41

beat-up guitar and he

6:43

would practice it on his bed. He

6:47

was dying and they had called

6:49

the family in and they gathered in

6:51

the room where he was in bed and prayed

6:53

for him. Then he said, I'm

6:56

not going to die. And he

6:58

started singing the song. There

7:01

ain't no grave. They felt that

7:04

God had supernaturally healed him and

7:06

they believed that God had given him a song.

7:09

And the name of that song was, There Ain't

7:11

No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down. Well, I'm

7:13

going to the river of Jordan, where everybody's

7:15

down in the sand, on

7:17

the Hollerhile, kind of. The

7:19

other guys don't just pray.

7:21

Pray. That

7:29

song became an anthem among Pentecostal and

7:31

his people in the Appalachian Mountains. It's

7:34

just a plain sentence

7:37

that we'll never have to face

7:39

eternity without God. It's

7:41

a hope song. It's a

7:43

hope song. He

7:49

didn't have a formal education. He never

7:51

went to high school. He had the

7:53

reading ability of maybe a first grader.

7:56

But as he was entering adulthood, he felt

7:59

that it was impossible. important for him to be on the

8:01

road. And so he would travel

8:03

from city to city, and he would wear

8:05

a cowboy hat and a white suit. He

8:08

was a very heavy-sit person, and he had

8:10

a gold tooth in the front, and

8:13

he had been nicknamed the Gospel Ranger. He

8:16

would be driving a car, and with one

8:18

hand, he would drive with a steering wheel,

8:20

and the other, he would have a bullhorn

8:22

outside the window, and he would denounce, later

8:24

tonight at seven o'clock, I'll have a tent

8:27

set up in the middle of town, please

8:29

come out and experience the fire and Holy

8:31

Ghost. Thank the Lord, hallelujah, I'm glad today

8:33

that we can stand on holy ground, thank

8:35

the Lord. The way he carried himself, and

8:38

that'll get her to swing on his back, and

8:40

that big old smile. Claudio,

8:43

he didn't disappoint anybody at

8:45

all. I've got the joys of God

8:48

down in my soul, and I'm not

8:50

ashamed, hallelujah! I was having trouble with

8:52

my back as a child, and

8:54

so I got in the line to be praying

8:56

for, and the power of

8:59

God came down, and I was healed right

9:01

there in the line. Hallelujah, thank the

9:03

Lord. My name is Dennis Hensley, and I

9:05

traveled with Brother Ely, playing lead guitar for

9:07

him, finished Revival. Don't you know how I

9:09

feel good in my soul, and I feel

9:11

like singing today. Don't feel much like preaching,

9:13

but I feel like singing. When Brother Claude

9:15

would get up to sing, I

9:17

mean, he would just hit a key on

9:20

the guitar, and when he started singing, it's

9:22

just like, like the heavens would open up.

9:24

Well, I'm crying holy. I'm

9:28

through the war, and I'm crying

9:30

holy. People heard about this country

9:32

preacher that sang like a black

9:34

man. He played

9:37

like a washboard-style guitar, like

9:40

an up-and-down, up-and-down type rhythm, like

9:42

they're painting a house. He

9:44

would shake and tirade from one part of the stage to

9:46

the other, and they would have

9:48

young men running up to watch his

9:50

forehead because he was sweating. People would

9:52

cry. People would

9:55

cut their hands. Everybody would just kind of

9:57

cut away in the spirit. I

10:01

heard he was so

10:03

beloved. Gladys

10:07

Presley, Elvis' mother, was a huge fan

10:09

of Brother Claudia Lee's ministry. People have

10:11

talked about Gladys and Elvis getting blessed

10:14

at Brother Claudia Lee's tent revival and

10:16

John's been singing and praying while Brother

10:18

Claudia Lee laid hands on him and

10:20

prayed for him. And

10:22

that's what Claude was all about. He wanted

10:25

you to feel the same spirit of

10:27

the Lord that he saw. Thanks

10:29

to the Lord, how do you represent the Lord? My

10:32

name is Kevin Fontenot and I'm an

10:34

expert on country music history at Tulane

10:36

University. In

10:38

1953, King Records heard about

10:40

Brother Claude and wanted to record

10:42

him live and in action at

10:44

a Pentecostal service. Brother Ely

10:47

came to the courthouse in Letcher

10:49

County, Kentucky for a few nights

10:51

revival. King Records set up their

10:53

equipment in the courthouse. Those

10:56

were the initial recordings that made Brother

10:58

Claudia Lee pretty popular. Thank the Lord.

11:00

Get up here right close to the

11:02

microphone. Don't be afraid to sing for

11:04

the glory of God. The courthouse was

11:06

packed. It was full of people. This

11:17

is the first time we really get

11:19

to hear a Pentecostal service live on

11:21

record. For that reason,

11:23

it's a very valuable historical document.

11:26

It was like a church service,

11:28

really. You would hear people saying

11:30

Amen, clapping hands. Pentecostals

11:34

clap off the beat.

11:37

Other people who clap with clap with the beat. Pentecostals

11:42

crazy. We prefer our

11:44

style of hand clapping. Jerry

11:48

Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny

11:50

Cash, Elvis Presley. They all

11:52

grew up in the Pentecostal

11:55

church. Grew up on that

11:57

same style that Brother Ely grew up on. It

12:02

might be hard to say, well this

12:04

comes from here and that comes from

12:06

there, but if I was going to

12:08

make a case that Pentecostal music had

12:10

an impact on the Rock and Roll,

12:13

I wouldn't tell them anything. I would

12:16

play in Brother Claude Ealy and

12:18

I would say, listen, until

12:21

you hear Brother Claude do, you know,

12:23

send down that ladder rain and you

12:25

hear that rhythm coming in there. And

12:27

then you hear them sisters behind him

12:30

getting down too. You just

12:32

don't know. May

12:46

7th, 1978 is when Brother Claude Ealy

12:48

passed away. He was in

12:50

his church in Newport, Kentucky. There happened to be

12:52

a tape recorder that someone brought to record the

12:54

hearts of the service. And

12:57

when he got through preaching, he

13:00

went over and sat down at the organ and

13:02

started singing a song, Where Could

13:04

I Go But To The Lord. And

13:09

he got middle ways through the song and

13:12

he just fell backwards. And

13:15

you can hear the screaming and the moaning,

13:17

people praying for him. He

13:21

died of a heart attack in front of his

13:23

entire congregation. He

13:27

dies singing and preaching and praying. Since

13:44

that time, there's been many, many artists

13:46

that's recorded called Soul. There ain't no

13:49

grave. I'm going to hold my body

13:51

down. The

13:56

sun has floated. Some

14:01

of them made it faster. That's

14:03

gonna hold my body down. Ain't

14:05

no grave, hold my

14:08

body down. Ain't no

14:10

grave, hold my body

14:12

down. Ain't

14:15

no grave, hold my body down.

14:21

The list just goes on and on. It

14:24

makes you feel good to know that a

14:26

little country preacher from down in Virginia wrote that

14:29

song. And it just pretty much went

14:31

all over the world. A

14:37

few years ago, I went to the cemetery

14:39

where Brother Claude Ely was buried in Dryden,

14:41

Virginia. And when

14:43

I arrived, there was a handwritten

14:46

note taped on his cemetery plot.

14:48

And it just simply said,

14:51

Dear Brother Ely, you sung

14:53

it and preached it to us. I

14:56

know one day you'll come up

14:58

out of this here ground. Thank

15:00

you for being so good to us. It

15:03

made a big difference and we won't forget it. Ain't

15:13

no grave, hold my body down. Ain't

15:19

no grave gonna hold my body down. It was

15:22

written 90 years ago this year. Our

15:25

story, The Gospel Ranger, originally aired on NPR in

15:27

2011. It was produced

15:29

by me along with Tamara Fremark. The

15:32

Radio Diaries team includes Nelly Gillis, Micah

15:34

Hazel, Elisa Scarsay, Lena Englestein, and myself.

15:37

Our editors are Deborah George and Ben Shapiro. We're

15:40

part of RadioTopia from PRX, a

15:42

collective of the best independent podcasts

15:44

around. You can listen to all

15:47

the shows at radiotopia.fm and find

15:49

our show at radiodiaries.org. We

15:51

have support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the

15:53

National Endowment for the Arts, the New York

15:55

State Council on the Arts, and from listeners just

15:58

like you. I'm Joe Richmond. Thanks

16:00

for listening.