The Gospel Ranger
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2021
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is the story of a song, “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down.” It was written by a 12-year-old boy on what was supposed to be his deathbed. But the boy didn’t die. Instead, he went on to become a Pentecostal preacher, and later helped inspire the birth of Rock & Roll.
The boy’s name was Brother Claude Ely, and he was known as The Gospel Ranger.
Also, we remember Joe Newman from our Hunker Down Diaries series, who passed away this week at 108 years old.
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| 0:00.0 | Radiotopia |
| 0:02.4 | From PRX |
| 0:05.7 | From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. |
| 0:08.7 | I'm Joe Richmond. |
| 0:12.9 | There ain't no grave can hold my buddy down. |
| 0:18.2 | This is Johnny Cash, singing one of the last songs he recorded before he died. |
| 0:23.4 | It's called Ain't No Grave. |
| 0:25.8 | When I hear that trumpet sound, I'm going to rise right out of the ground. |
| 0:31.8 | One thing you should know about this song is that it's had many, many different lives. |
| 0:36.7 | Ain't no grave hold my body down. is that it's had many, many different lives. |
| 0:58.7 | Ain't no grave, don't keep my body down. Ain't no grave has a wonderfully strange history. |
| 1:02.6 | It was written by a 12-year-old boy who was on his deathbed. |
| 1:06.5 | Instead of dying, that boy went on to become a Pentecostal preacher, |
| 1:09.8 | and he would later help inspire the birth of rock and roll. |
| 1:12.8 | His name was Claude Ely, and for many years, |
| 1:15.6 | hardly anyone outside the Appalachian Mountains had ever heard of him. |
| 1:18.3 | Even his extended family did know much about him. |
| 1:23.6 | Today on the show, a story about a song, |
| 1:26.8 | and one man searched to find out more about his great uncle, the man they called the |
| 1:28.7 | gospel ranger. |
| 1:42.3 | My name is Maisel Ely. I'm the great nephew of Brother Claude Ely. |
| 1:50.0 | In 2001, I was going on a vacation to London, England. I went to a record shop and they began to play music over the intercom system. |
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