Gospel Project Preview: Joe Thomas
The Louisville Story Program’s signature publication in 2024 will be the Louisville Gospel Music Restoration Project!
Throughout the year, we will roll out some spectacular music, footage, excerpts, and images. Here is your first preview for 2024: a video, courtesy of Lamont Butler, of beloved musician and instructor Joe Thomas. Here he is on December 22, 1973 on Bishop Cliff Butler's local TV show, Lifting Jesus, performing "I Feel Like Pressing My Way."
To watch, click the video image or follow this link.
Joe Thomas grew up in Winchester, Kentucky, and came to Louisville to attend the Kentucky School for the Blind. He went on to become a giant in the Louisville gospel community. He was a renowned organist and pianist who played all over town and on many local gospel recordings. For decades, he gave lessons to young people, never once raising his fee of $1.50 per half hour.
He created B-J Sounds Studio in his home on 22nd Street, and in that studio he recorded countless gospel acts from Louisville and other cities in the region. He released many remarkable gospel records on his labels Sensational Sounds, B-J Sounds, and Des Moines.
We are excited to honor his legacy along with many other Louisville gospel greats in our upcoming box set, I'm Glad About It: The Legacy of Gospel Music in Louisville, which we will be releasing in September 2024.