The Faith Tones Saga Continues

A few months ago, I wrote an extensive piece about The Faith Tones, a female gospel trio who recorded an album in 1964 titled “Jesus Use Me.” Their album cover depicting the three of them in their 1960s hair styles seems to be all the rage across the internet. 

When I was able to confirm that they’re for real and that they really did release this album in 1964, I decided to put my creative writing skills to use. I wrote some pretty extensive bios about each of the members including making up their names. 

The thing was, my entry was a work of creative writing; 95% of it was fiction. So many sites had made some pretty wild claims about them, so I decided to write a satirical piece but keep it "just" believable enough that people might buy in to it. For example, I identified one of them as Marie Samuels. But any Hitchcock fan would recognize that name as the alias the main character used in the movie, Psycho, when she checked into the Bates Motel. 

My blog entry quickly became Number One on Google. I was surprised

A couple of months later, a Wikipedia article appeared and the information from my blog entry was used as fact. (A link to my blog was provided).  And no, I did not make the Wikipedia entry. As a matter of fact, I’ve tried contacting the person who made that entry but have yet figured out how to do it. 

That’s a perfect illustration of why you can’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Or on the Internet for that matter.

So, I’m here to set the record straight. Last week, I noticed that a mint condition LP of the infamous Faith Tones album was up for auction on eBay. This album is exceedingly rare – the last one available was over two years ago. 

I read all about how to “snipe” on eBay and watched the auction carefully. Finally, with ten seconds to go, I leaped out of the bushes like a puma and entered my offer.

I won.

The mint condition album arrived in the mail yesterday. The reverse cover contained some bio information on each of the women including their names. 

From left to right:

Marilyn Seidler -- a licensed cosmetologist

Becky Seidler – has a degree in Business

Rosalie Wolff – an Education major at the University of Montana.

Daniel H. Squire - recording engineer
Bud Tutmarc - Producer.

A friend of mine has a turntable that will convert each track into MP3 recordings. That will be my project for the weekend as well as posting the recordings to YouTube. 

So, yes, my fascination with The Faith Tones is real. I would love to know more about these women and their life journeys, for I’m sure we can all relate to them in some way. 

So, I've come clean about the piece I wrote, but my blog entry remains at the top of Google and the Wikipedia article remains unchanged.  Later, I’ll have the joy of making their music available for us all to enjoy. 

The journey continues. . .