The Inspirations took a breather from recording new music for a few months after releasing the album, “When I Wake Up”, but in July 1974, they returned to the RCA Studios in Nashville to record the album, “More to Go to Heaven For”, which was subsequently released in early fall, and would be their only release for that year. Though Roger Fortner had been traveling with the Inspirations part-time for about a year, by late Spring 1974, Roger became a full-time member of the group, and this is his first album as such. For a bit a history, Roger grew up around the Bryson City area, and was somewhat familiar with the Inspirations, but he eventually came to know them better through his older brother and through church. Roger started playing with the Inspirations part-time the same weekend that Troy officially took over the lead position with the group, in May 1973. Roger was initially brought on to play bass guitar part-time, but shortly thereafter Jack Laws moved from playing flattop guitar to playing the upright bass, and Roger switched to the acoustic/electric guitar. It appears this was mostly due to the fact that Martin really wanted that iconic guitar intro for “Touring that City” in their live performances, and Jack was more of a rhythm player and wasn’t able to accurately duplicate that intro, so at that point Jack and Roger switched and Roger took over guitar duties. Roger would remain with the Inspirations for about 8 years, and his outstanding musical creativity and guitar prowess added immensely to the Inspirations’ sound and live performances.

The album, “More to Go to Heaven For” was, of course, produced by Marvin Norcross, and the services of Chuck Seitz was utilized for engineering the recording, once again giving the Inspirations’ music a nice, crisp studio sound, very similar to the feel of their 1972 album, “We Shall Rise”. The cover shot was taken somewhere around Waco, Texas in a beautiful garden of flowers. On the front cover, the shot of the group sits in the middle of a rose, and it’s a nice cover shot and graphic, I just wish the group shot was a little bigger. The all smiles from the guys on the cover gives good indication that this is a happy album, filled with lots of fun, upbeat songs, with only 2 songs that I would qualify is slow, or slower tempo.

With a nice piano intro, the album kicks off with the title song, “More to Go to Heaven For”, which features Archie, and ultimately became one of his best loved songs (and one of my personal favorites). The song was a huge hit for the Inspirations, peaking at #3 for 2 non-consecutive months in the March and May 1975 Singing News chart. Another spectacular song written by Jack Campbell, he was inspired to write the song under sad circumstances by the untimely death of his wife Vivian at age 43 in 1973. Particularly, the lines “there’s a brand-new angel in the choir, I want to hear her sing” and “I’ve watched the angels come and take my loved ones home to stay” are especially poignant given the circumstances around the song’s inspiration, and through Campbell’s pen, we’re left with the promise that each passing day offers “more to go to Heaven for, than I had yesterday”!

The convention feel of the Stamps-Baxter tune, “I Soon Shall Move Away”, features the high and the low (Archie and Mike) and was written by John Shrader, who was an editor, writer and arranger for the Stamps-Baxter Music Company, who also taught in numerous singing schools throughout the deep south from the 1920’s through the 1950’s. The current group pulls this song out of the hat from time to time and it has a wonderful old-time quartet feel, leading perfectly into “I Just Heard From Heaven”, which was written by Martin Cook. Featuring a cool guitar intro, Archie does a great job on the song, and it fits the Inspirations perfectly. Around this time, the Inspirations saw the need to create their own publishing company, Inspirations Quartet Music, and Martin’s song is one of the first published by the Inspirations. Along with Inspirations Quartet Music, which was affiliated with BMI, they eventually created another publishing arm that would be licensed with ASCAP called Tuskaseigee Publishing a few years later. Additionally, they eventually bought another publishing company called Praise Music. Much like the Kingsmen, Rambos, Nelons, Goodmans, Downings and other groups, the Inspirations found that having their own in-house publishing company allowed them to find and publish their own songs to record, as well as build relationships with new or unknown songwriters. Speaking of writers, one songwriter they immediately signed was Ila Knight, and the next song, “Listen to the Call”, was her first song published by the Inspirations (her previous songs had been published by Beasley and Barker Publishing). This was a sparkling tune that featured the classic “stair step” vocal arrangement, which was a hallmark of many classic Inspirations tunes during the late 60’s and early 70’s.

With a nice steel guitar intro, the tempo slows down as Eddie takes the lead on the song, “The Life He Endured”. The song was written by Billy Dale Sexton, who was the writer of the classic song, “I Want to See Jesus” and was the tenor for the Dixie Echoes around this time. Sexton eventually went into evangelistic work, but he continued writing songs through the years that were recorded by other groups such as Gold City, Down East Boys, Dixie Echoes and Sego Brothers & Naomi.

The Inspirations enjoyed great success over the previous year with the song “The Fa Sol La Song”, and in the spirit of those all-day singings and shape note songs, they recorded the tune, “Marion County Tradition”, which featured the group singing the shape notes. Featuring a rustic, country feel, and written by Bill Cantrell, Terry Hutchison and Thomas Pairamore, the Inspirations did not know how to sing the shape notes (do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do), so they asked Ben Speer to write down the shape notes for each vocal part, and from that, the Inspirations learned how to sing the song. Featuring Archie, it’s an entertaining tune, wrapping up the first side of the album on a fun note.

One of the most popular songs around this time was the Linda Stalls penned classic, “Stepping on the Clouds”, which features Troy. The song was a massive hit for the LeFevres (who Ronnie Hutchins was singing with at the time), who took the song all the way to #2 in January 1975, but the song was also a big concert favorite for the Inspirations, and with its “stair-step” vocal arrangement on the chorus, it was a perfect fit for the guys. The Inspirations’ version actually charted for a few months, eventually stalling out at #19 in the May 1975 Singing News chart. The Hoppers recorded the song several years later, on their 1998 recording, “One Foundation”, and the song enjoyed a new life in the charts, as the Hoppers took it into the Top 10. There’s actually a funny story connected with this song…the second verse of the song starts off with “Going past the moon, the stars and the planets…”, and one night, Troy was playing around backstage, and he was going around singing, “Going past the moon, in a balloon…”, and just having himself all kinds of fun with that! But when the Inspirations hit the stage that night and it came time for Troy to sing the verse, he got caught and could not get the “balloon” out of his head, and he ended up singing, “Going past the moon, doodle do de do do”! It was a classic moment for sure that has brought Troy and the Inspirations much laughter over the years!

The bouncy, “Jesus Opened Up the Way”, written by Eugene Bartlett and Aclen Webb, features both Archie and Troy, and is a fantastic convention song that fit the Inspirations like a glove. The Hemphills also recorded an excellent rendition of the song on their 1974 album, “Ready to Leave”, and the Perrys also brought this song back several years later, on their 2004 recording, “Life of Love”.

Keeping the tempo light and airy, the ¾ time of the convention tune “I Hold His Hand”, which was written by JR Baxter and Allan Sims, is another song featuring both the high and low, as Archie and Mike trade off the lead lines in the chorus. It’s an enjoyable song with some nice piano fills, before Jack steps up next to sing the poignant Albert E. Brumley penned classic, “I Cannot Find the Way Alone”, which would become one of Jack’s signature songs. Over time, as the Inspirations performed the song in concert, Martin would stop playing midway through the song and they’d finish it acapella, and eventually, they started doing the song acapella all the way through, which is how they performed it on their “12th Anniversary-Live” album which came out in 1976. Jack would record the song one more time with the Inspirations several years later, on their 2004 recording, “What a Day”.

Picking the tempo back up, Eddie sings his own self-penned composition, “Bells of Joy”, which also features a couple of step-out lines by Mike on the chorus. It’s a nice inclusion for the recording, and of course the song is published through the newly created Inspirations Quartet Music publishing company.

The snappy, “It’s Not What You Know” is a quirky little tune that was written by Billy Dale Sexton and was something a little different for the Inspirations. Featuring some nice piano and guitar highlights, the song features both Troy and Mike, and it rounds out this upbeat recording on a happy note.

“More to Go to Heaven For” was another album that I did not grow up listening to, and though I was familiar with a couple of songs from the recording, I didn’t hear the album in its entirety until I added it to my personal collection when I was in my early 20’s, back in the mid-90’s. Much like the album “We Shall Rise”, this was also another album that I did not instantly fall in love with when I first heard it. Over time though, I have grown to enjoy this album immensely, and the upbeat, bright nature of this recording makes it a pure delight to listen to, as it’s filled with lots of really great songs and was an outstanding representation of their music at the time.

Speaking of the Inspirations at that time, between the songs “Touring that City” and “When I Wake Up”, the Inspirations held the #1 position in the Singing News chart for every month in 1974 except for the month of November, when the Thrasher Brothers took the #1 spot for their song, “One Day at a Time”. Also, during 1974 and throughout much of 1975, the Inspirations were singing just about every Friday and Saturday night with the Happy Goodman Family in a series of concerts called “The Battle of Songs”, promoted by JG Whitfield. Since the Inspirations and Happy Goodmans were the hottest groups in Southern Gospel Music at the time, this packaged tour was thrilling audiences everywhere and was an extremely successful venture, filling auditoriums, gymnasiums and concert halls across the country, even taking it all the way to Hawaii! To cap off the year, the Inspirations took home 4 Singing News Fan Awards…Archie won “Favorite Male Singer”, Mike won “Favorite Bass”, the group walked away with “Favorite Group”, and their song, “Touring that City” won “Song of the Year” honors. From a professional standpoint, 1974 was probably their biggest and most successful year, and the successes would continue coming, as they maintained their status as the top male quartet throughout the remainder of the decade!

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