Dec. 9, 1977 feature: Gospel music maven Brother Ted

 

Say hallelujah!

Dec. 9, 1977 

Brother Ted Fans Fires of Gospel 

          Roosevelt T. Johnson, better known to his listeners as Brother Ted, sits at a desk in the Saturday morning emptiness of the WUFO radio offices listening to tapes of sermons that will air the following day.

          “I’m responsible for the entire Sunday programming,” he explains, “and Saturday until noon. We have a policy. We don’t allow soothsayers or guarantee prophets. I worked hard to get them removed. We had a lot of problems, but I was determined to get true religious programming, not pie in the sky by and by. If you’ve got a dollar, you’re blessed to have it. Most of these acts were just frauds and schemes.”

          That policy came to the station when Johnson came there in 1968. He knew religion well, but his background is evangelical, not mystic.

          As a child in Macon, Ga., he accompanied his aunt, a Pentecostal preacher, to tent meetings throughout the countryside and was singing in front of audiences from the time he was five. The youngest of six children, he was orphaned while he was still in grade school and went to live with his aunt, who had nine children of our own.

          “We were self-sufficient,” he says. “Everybody had an instrument to play or something to do. Evangelistic work is very hard work, especially in the South – this was 26, 27 years ago. You had to get permission from the police to have a camp meeting. But people were longing for the Truth. People were convicted and converted. We organized seven new churches.”

          He came to Buffalo in 1957, when he was 14, and stayed with two older married sisters here. He lost no time getting involved with churches and singing, joining the Prince of Peace Youth Choir, then directing its junior choir and a group called Youth on the Go for Christ.

          After graduating from East High School, he advanced from the Buffalo Youth and Young Adult Chorus to become a second national vice president of National Gospel Choirs and Choruses under noted gospel songwriter Professor Thomas A. Dorsey. His singing also introduced him to his wife, Pearl, and they now have five children.

          He spent two years as president of the Music Department for Churches of God in Christ in New York State. He organized state music conferences for the church and staged three-day musical workshops at the larger churches in Buffalo, inviting national gospel artists to work with choir singers. From there, he went to the church’s national music organization.

          “I talk,” he says. “I’m not shy. And you can’t stop a person with drive.”

          The same drive served him well in secular life too. An employee at Western Electric Co., he joined Toastmasters International and soon was on its executive board. He was elected to the board of the local NAACP. His days became much as they are now, full of traveling and meetings.

          Since the Western Electric closing, he’s worked with the 1490 Jefferson Senior Citizens Center and numerous other volunteer groups. Currently he works in the sheriff’s Operation Awareness program. Last month he organized and produced tow major gospel music shows to benefit BUILD.

          Recent years have seen him host his own half-hour show on WKBW-TV, “Brother Ted’s World of Gospel,” and the formation of the non-denominational Love Train Gang Charity Organization, of which he is president and director. He started it after hearing of a woman here who lost four of her children in a fire.

          “We gave a program featuring a lady known as the Queen of Gospel,” he says, “and we gave all the proceeds from the program to that family. Then I thought, why should we wait till tragedy strikes to help those in need.”

          The organization raises funds through regular musical programs and has assisted nearly 3,000 persons in large and small ways since 1974. It also sponsors an annual dinner to honor persons for community service. Awards will go to 15 persons at this year’s affair Sunday evening in the Statler Hilton.

          “I do a lot of personal counseling too, on every subject there is,” he says. “I don’t mind it. I feel it’s a gift God has given me. After Western Electric laid me off, they offered me to go to Atlanta, Phoenix or Omaha, but I chose to stay here in Buffalo. There’s a lot of work to be done here.”

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IN THE PHOTO: Brother Ted in 1977.

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FOOTNOTE: Brother Ted went on to considerable prominence in his church and in gospel music. He was honored with more than 70 awards, was national public relations director for the Church of God in Christ and was national vice president of the Gospel Music Convention under the direction of the legendary Thomas A. Dorsey. He died in 1996 at the age of 54.