Just wondering if any of you have ever heard of The Singing Johnson Family, a Christian singing group from probably the '50s or '60s…I found their album in a Chicago thrift store some years ago and I’ve been scouring around looking for details about it…I bought it partly because 1) I like weird stuff, and 2) it was at the height of the “bad album covers” meme…
All I know is from the notes on the back of the album cover: the family is from Southport, Indiana. The album was recorded in Kokomo, Indiana. The label is Motif Records. Google is no help. I contacted the only church I could find in Southport, but the minister wasn’t able to help…
Southport, Indiana, is a southside suburb of Indianapolis only a few blocks square; it’s quite possible that the family did not attend a church directly in Southport, but in a church in the more general southside Indianapolis area. (That said, Google returns far more than a single church for Southport… search churches southport indiana; Google maps will pinpoint nearby churches lying outside of the suburb, too).
I found a death notice for a Harry A. Johnson (the father’s signature seen at the top of your photo) with a SS# of 407-26-6307 at HARRY A JOHNSON - people search, genealogy, find deceased relatives and locate ancestors ; born in 1926, died in 1999, from Indianapolis, though his zip code on the site is for the east side of town, not the southside. I don’t have access to Indianapolis Star microfilm right now to check on his obituary to see if it mentions kids or churches attended. The age range sounds about right for the dad on that record.
Stu - thanks for the pointers! Never thought of checking the autographs! Heh…Google only gave me one church in Southport itself, but plenty in the surrounding area in Indianapolis; will have to check it out…
Newspaper Archive returns hits for “Singing Johnson Family” in Indiana papers from 1967-72. Not many, and they sang at various churches. No mention of their own.