Ain't No Grave: The Life and Legacy of Brother Claude Ely

Ain’t No Grave: The Life and Legacy of Brother Claude Ely is written as an oral, biographical history taken from the recorded interviews of more than 1,000 people in the Appalachian Mountains who knew Brother Claude Ely. Coined as the King Recording Label’s “Gospel Ranger,” Brother Claude Ely was well-known and loved by many in the earlier part of the 20th century as both a religious singer-songwriter and a Pentecostal-Holiness preacher. Few people, however, knew the personal details of his childhood, military service, and years of hard work in the coal fields of southwestern Virginia.

Now, decades after his legendary death, many fans still seem mesmerized and touched by this humble man’s quick wit and sincere desire to share the Gospel’s “Good News” with everyone who would listen to his message of hope and love. Having received popularity for his song, “There Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down,” Brother Claude Ely passed along a musical and spiritual influence which can still be heard today like a mountain echo in those long, winding hollows and impoverished coal fields. Hollywood and the “King of Rock and Roll” also later acknowledged their admiration for and fascination with the late Brother Claude Ely. This book chronicles the life of one man who made an eternal impact on thousands of Appalachian dwellers. His simple sermons and folkloric songs are still providing assurance, hope, and faith to many mountain people.

Acknowledgments

"It’s sanctified singing like (Brother Claude) Ely’s that we hear echoes of in Elvis and Little Richard, in James Brown and especially in Jerry Lee Lewis. But not a one of them ever burned on record, not even Jerry Lee Lewis, the way that Ely burns on (his) recordings. The main difference is this: Most musicians were merely called by fame, by the Opry. Brother Claude Ely had been called by God." — Dana Jennings, New York Times editor and author of Sing Me Back Home: Love, Death, and Country Music

"...and Holiness preachers such as Brother Claude Ely rave on like renegade rockabilly cats... You have Brother Claude Ely doing radio broadcasts that sound like a tent revival... I think his material is as strong as anything Sun Studio did. Even the wildest rockabilly rarely reached the unhinged delirium of "There Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down," ... A Holiness preacher from Kentucky, Ely was a faith healer and a terrific guitarist, judging from the ferocious rockabilly rhythms on "Grave," a country hit in 1953. Ely and many others... foreshadow the rock-and-soul explosion, when church-reared performers such as Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin fused sanctified and secular style to revolutionize pop music." — Eddie Dean, Washington Post