2 Gospel Groups From The ‘80s Return To The Stage Together To A More Gray-Haired Crowd
MADISON, Ala. — Two gospel singing groups, the Hardeman Boys and Cornerstone Quartet, crossed paths at a youth rally in Bremen, Georgia, in 1989.
More than three decades later, they shared a stage again at the Madison Academy gym.
This time they performed — to a more gray-haired audience — a medley of gospel, country and oldies music to raise money for Project Rescue, an addiction recovery ministry in Priceville, Alabama, associated with Churches of Christ.
Both groups formed in the 1980s at universities associated with Churches of Christ — Freed-Hardeman University and Faulkner University, respectively — as traveling gospel quartets to promote their schools.
Both went off on their own, under new names, with some success before life led them in different directions.
Both said farewell to a member who passed away much too soon.
Now, the Hardeman Boys and Cornerstone Quartet both have reunited with the help of second-generation members.
College beginnings
An unlikely group of Freed-Hardeman Bible majors opened for Grammy Award-winning country music stars — the Judds and Ronnie Milsap — in 1984.
The quartet and their band were called Henderson Station, but they got their start two years earlier as the Hardeman Boys — a name they’ve since reclaimed.
The four singers — Kyle Wadley, Kevin Owen, Todd Tunnell and Steve Hammond — had come together as FHU’s first gospel quartet. The a cappella group occasionally sang in chapel and helped recruit new students to the Henderson, Tennessee, university.
After about a year, the singers went out on their own, joining with members of the FHU pop group Phoenix to add crossover country music to their repertoire and become Henderson Station.
But families, careers and moves across the country led Henderson Station to take an indefinite hiatus.
About 300 miles southeast of Henderson, in Montgomery, Alabama, another gospel quartet formed at Faulkner University.
Greg Terry, Sam Wright, Daryl Shackleford and James Faulkner — a cousin of the university’s namesake, James H. Faulkner — were the founding members of the Cornerstone Quartet in 1986.
As Faulkner recalls, a prominent traveling preacher in Churches of Christ helped pick the name. The group members were discussing Faulkner’s high school singing group in Little Rock, Arkansas, named Cornerstone, with Wendell Winkler and Faulkner President Billy Hilyer.
“I like that name,” Winkler said — and that was that.
Two years later, Matt Presley joined the group — the second replacement for Wright — and stuck with them. After some members graduated, the four began singing under the name Foundation and added a fifth singer, Bo Andrews.
They sang sparingly and produced three albums over the next two decades, including a 20th anniversary album, “Born Again,” under the Cornerstone name.
Getting the bands back together
Years later, both groups suffered loss. For Cornerstone, lead singer Greg Terry died in 2009 at 41.
For the Hardeman Boys, Steve Hammond passed away in 2017 at 57.
There seemed little chance for either group to perform again.
That changed in 2022.
Maywood Christian Camp in Hamilton, Alabama, invited Cornerstone to perform there. The three remaining members sang with Brandon Presnell, a later member of Faulkner’s Cornerstone group.
Cornerstone began performing other events, too, including Faulkner’s homecoming, and brought on Shackleford’s 27-year-old son, Dean, as a permanent fourth member.
“It was hard because we were so accustomed to singing with Greg, and he (was) just one of those bigger-than-life personalities,” said Presley, 54, an auctioneer and member of the Creekwood Church of Christ in Mobile, Alabama.
But the group has appreciated Dean — who grew up listening to them perform, often at Indian Creek Youth Camp in Oakman, Alabama — stepping into those big shoes.
“It was a pretty special moment for us,” said Dean, a project manager and graduate of the University of Alabama. “That first time, I saw Dad get emotional, and that's hard to do.”
Dean worships with the Quintown Church of Christ in Alabama alongside his 57-year-old dad, Daryl, now a massage therapist. Meanwhile, Faulkner, 57, is a factory worker and member of the Southwest Church of Christ in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Freed-Hardeman, likewise, invited the Hardeman Boys to perform at its 2022 homecoming.
“It’s kind of interesting how God brought us all back together,” noted Owen, now 62 and the preacher for the College Hills Church of Christ in Lebanon, Tennessee.
He had preached in New Mexico previously, while Tunnell had been a school principal in Texas and Wadley ministered in Alabama.
But “suddenly, we’re all back in the area,” Owen said. Tunnell, 61, is now worship minister for the Friendship Church of Christ in Olive Branch, Mississippi. Wadley, 64, is associate minister for the Hoover Church of Christ in Alabama.
They asked former Henderson Station member Mark Crawford to assemble a band and Wadley’s 36-year-old son Landon — a Faulkner alumnus — to be their fourth singer.
“It’s not easy to manage grown men,” Crawford said jokingly, “but I was happy to do it. These guys are all men of character, and we look at this as … almost a ministry in some ways.”
In addition to managing and playing piano for the group, the 62-year-old is a music professor at Tennessee State University and a deacon of the Bellevue Church of Christ in Nashville.
Crawford brought together a group of mostly FHU alumni — including some previous Henderson Station members — to join him in the band: Jerry Elder, Joey Boone, Sam McCreevy and Craig Evans on guitar; Josh James and Tommy Holland on bass guitar; Gary Miller and Dale Alden on the drums. Some rotate in and out depending on their schedule.
The band plays when the Hardeman Boys perform their country classics, but band members leave the stage for gospel songs.
“No matter where we go and what audience we perform for, the guys always do an a cappella gospel section,” Crawford told The Christian Chronicle.
The Hardeman Boys perform 1980s-era hits at a benefit concert for Project Rescue, an addiction recovery ministry. (Photo by Calvin Cockrell)
Spreading nostalgia and Good News
Since their reunion, Cornerstone has performed a concert benefiting the Mobile College Ministry in Alabama. The group is planning a 40th anniversary concert and album.
The Hardeman Boys have recorded a new album, “Our Story”; featured in two episodes of RFD-TV’s “America’s Gospel Music” program; performed at the Tammy Wynette Legacy Center in Tremont, Mississippi; and headlined a benefit for Nashville’s Inner City Ministry.
“It's like we got back together, and it was just yesterday — feels great,” the Hardeman Boys’ Tunnell told the Chronicle.
For Landon Wadley, a nurse who worships at the Hoover church, “It’s like stepping into a time capsule a little bit. Because I can see what I’m sure they were like in college.”
Both the Hardeman Boys and Cornerstone Quartet plan to continue performing as opportunities arise, carrying on the legacies of the defunct university groups and catching up with old friends and fans.
“That’s part of the fun of doing this again is reconnecting with people,” Owen said.
Important, too, is using their talents to promote good causes — like Project Rescue — and spread the Good News.
“I believe that singing … makes evil flee,” Cornerstone’s Faulkner said. “And it’s just a wonderful thing. … God inhabits the praises of his people.”
This piece is republished with permission from The Christian Chronicle.
Calvin Cockrell is a freelance digital media specialist, media editor for The Christian Chronicle and copyeditor for Religion Unplugged. He also serves as the young adults minister for the North Tuscaloosa Church of Christ in Alabama.