Career
Ernest Phipps was singing preacher from Corbin, Kentucky who had also worked as a coal miner. He took this larger group down to Bristol, Tennessee in response to advertisements put out by Ralph Peer looking for local artists to record on Victor Records. He recorded six sides in 1927 and six more in 1928.
All were religious in subject matter.
Although his records were all released by Victor he did not record again and returned to Corbin where he continued to preach for the rest of his life. The material was based on traditional hymns which allowed a large number of singers to quickly learn the songs.
Phipps led the quartet with a clear voice and a broad mountain accent which can be heard in his pronouncing of words like "where" and "there" as "whaar" and "thaar". Phipps" backing band was a stringband which included fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, auto-harp and sometimes piano.
The exact identity of Phipps backing band and singers are unknown although it is believed that at Bristol they included Alfred Karnes and B.F. Shelton who had also come down to Bristol from Corbin to record.
Karnes was a fellow singing preacher, albeit from a different denomination as he was a Baptist, and should have been familiar with the songs which were at any rate simple enough in form being basic repeating riffs at mid-tempo.
