Country gospel super-picker Dwayne Friend (1936-2019) came to fame in the late 1960s as the lead guitarist for the Happy Goodman Family, and soon set out as a solo performer with an evangelical ministry of his own. Friend worked with several prominent southern gospel acts, including The Blackwood Brothers, Smitty Gatlin, and the Oak Ridge Boys, performed live on the Grand Ole Opry, and won industry awards that earned him the nickname "Mr. Gospel Guitar."

Dwayne Friend grew up near Springfield, Missouri, raised in a highly musical family that also included his older brothers, Derrel Friend (1926-2016) a revival preacher and guitar picker who played on the radio and led congregations in western Missouri and eastern Kansas, and Harold Hobert Friend (1933-2012) a railroadman who also performed is several local gospel groups and in high-profile Branson groups such as The Baldknobbers The Bob-O-Links, and The Foggy River Boys, as well as touring as part of Dwayne's ministry.

Dwayne Friend "...Picks Happy Goodman Hits " (Canaan Records, 1967) (LP)
(Produced by Rusty Goodman & Chuck Seitz)
Frightfully dull, sedate instrumental versions of southern gospel classics associated with bandleader Happy Goodman. This was the first album by Dwayne Friend, a hotshot guitarist who grew up in Mountain Grove, Missouri and found success as a studio picker while also pursuing a path as an evangelical preacher... At the time he cut this album he had been performing with the Goodman Family band for over a year, and was an associate pastor at Howard "Happy" Goodman's own Life Temple Church, in Madisonville, Kentucky. That's all well and good, but aside from the classy guitar licks, this really is an awful album, with all melody and sense of religious rapture buried under a slow, inexorable of emotionally inert easy listening treacle, chaining Friend's pickin' to Bill Walker's monotonous string arrangements. I'm sure there's an eager audience out there somewhere... I'm just not part of it.

Dwayne Friend "Mr. Gospel Guitar" (Skylite Records, 1968) (LP)
(Produced by Joel E. Gentry)

Dwayne Friend "Just Pickin' " (Steeple Records, 1969) (LP)

Dwayne Friend "Dwayne Friend Sings" (Steeple Records, 1969) (LP)

Dwayne Friend "The Four Horsemen" (Artist's Recording Company, 1972) (LP)
An album-length sermon, ruminating on the apocalypse. Fun.

Dwayne Friend "Dwayne Friend Sings, Write, Picks" (Artist's Recording Company, 1973) (LP)

Dwayne Friend "Just Me" (Artist's Recording Company, 1975-?) (LP)
(Produced by Jim Dahlem)

Dwayne Friend & The Victory Sounds "Singing His Praise" (Artist's Recording Co., 1972-?) (LP)
(Produced by Jim Dahlem)

Dwayne & The Friends "Coming Your Way" (Dwayne Friend Crusades, 1976) (LP)
I was hopeful that this was a family-band album featuring Dwayne Friend and some of his brothers, but alas, no. The friends in question are longtime collaborator, pianist Dave Gourley along with Milo Herrick, Daphne Schaffer, and Ed Unicurne (who had a great name!) No mention of who played which instruments, though.

Dwayne Friend "Songs Of David" (Dwayne Friend Crusades, 1978) (LP)

The Clott Family "...With Dwayne Friend" (Wildwood Records, 1978) (LP)
Gospel picker Dwayne Friend backs a family band trio made up of Mr. Gene Clott, and his wife Carrol, and their daughter Laurie. Hailing from Plummer, Idaho (near Lake Couer d'Alene) Mr. Clott was a prolific composer of religious material, and wrote most of the songs on this album. The Clotts were already an established group and had recorded a few other albums before this collaboration with Dwayne Friend; Laurie Clott also recorded as a solo performer, under the name Laurie Ann. Wildwood Records seems to have been their own private label.

Gary Cooper & Glinda Cooper "Thanks To Calvary" (Sunburst Records, 1972-?) (LP)
Bedrock gospel with a bouncy, modern country beat, recorded by a husband-wife team from Springfield, Missouri... The Rev. Gary Lowell Cooper (1949-2008) was a trucker by trade, but also worked as an evangelical pastor, as well as attending a local congregation called the James River Assembly. The Coopers recorded several albums worth of country gospel material, with this one possibly being the first. They are backed by veteran gospel singer Jerry Short (of The Countrymen) on bass, along with Short's son Steve on drums, and several musicians Mr. Short had used on his own solo albums around this same time, David Gourley (piano), Jerry Hall (steel guitar), Ray Owens (lead guitar) and Mr. Cooper playing rhythm guitar. Mrs. Cooper, whose maiden name was Glinda Friend, appears to have been a relative of gospel guitar star Dwayne Friend, who himself had multiple guitar-picking siblings, including Derrel Friend (1926-2016), who played on the Cooper's album, Gospel Favorites. The Friend family was clustered around Springfield, Missouri and several smaller surrounding towns, such as Mountain Grove, Nixa and Monett, with show business ties to venues in Branson, as well as several local radio stations and churches. Mrs. Cooper's exact relationship to Derrell Friend and his many brothers is unclear, but it seems likely he was one of her uncles. At any rate, both she and her husband were pretty solid country singers, particularly Mr. Cooper, who had an amiable persona and a Buck Owens-ish vocal tone. They were pretty young when they made this album, so it's possible they didn't start out as secular singer, but if they had, I bet they were pretty good. Also worth noting: even though this LP is credited to the Sunburst label, the fine print also mentions GRS Recordings, in Springfield, which was the local label that also put out their other early album.

• Discogs has entries for both Dwayne Friend and Harold Friend

• Singing News ran an obituary for Dwayne Friend following his passing in 2019; a slightly more in-depth profile was published by the mortuary

Hick Music Index