James B. Davis, 90; founded Dixie Hummingbirds

James B. Davis was only 12 years old when he founded the Dixie Hummingbirds gospel singers in 1928. But it didn’t take long for him to figure out that survival required more than a great sound.

During the golden age of gospel, the audience was all black, the venue was often a church, and the expectation for conduct of any artist singing for the Lord was high.

As an adult Davis laid out the rules: No women in the group’s car, except wives of the members. No whiskey. No showing up tardy to rehearsals -- and if you did, there’d be a fine.

And even when cops stopped their car, harassed and arrested them, “the Birds,” as they were known, did not strike back. Instead they sang their harmonies for the Lord -- in jail.

“Down through the years, the group has tried to carry ourselves in a way that the people would respect the aggregation and we wouldn’t be doing anyone else any harm,” Davis said in a 1998 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Going through the South from time to time, we were mistreated to some degree, but we always took everything in stride because we didn’t want to mess up for anyone else.”

Davis died April 17 in Philadelphia, the group announced without specifying a cause of death. He was 90.

The group Davis so carefully tended changed personnel and names over its more than seven decades of existence, but it remained committed to Davis’ ideals. The Birds influenced generations of vocalists with their harmonic arrangements, improvisational skills, passion and visceral sound.

“The Dixie Hummingbirds, the Blind Boys of Alabama, the Swan Silvertones, the Mighty Clouds of Joy -- these are the people that other quartet gospel groups, in my opinion, have tried to emulate,” said Walt “Baby” Love, author of “The Gospel According to Rev. Walt ‘Baby’ Love” and disc jockey of a syndicated gospel radio program.

The group left its sound print on a long list of artists, including Bobby “Blue” Bland, Hank Ballard, Paul Simon, the Temptations and Deniece Williams.

In those early years, people noticed more than the sound.

“I really looked up to them,” gospel great Albertina Walker said in a 1998 segment of ABC’s “Nightline” that was dedicated to the group. “I thought they were the finest young men to have been so nice and so respectable and carried themselves in such a way.”

If proper conduct was a requirement for singing for the Lord, quiet praise was not. The men came out of a church tradition that allows for a full range of expression. They could sing in sweet harmony, shout, moan, posture and gesture. The group’s members dressed as if they had a meeting with the Lord and wanted to look their best. Decked out in white ties and tails, they sang in the 1950s at a church in Detroit.

In the early years, the group performed on a circuit of mostly small churches near Davis’ hometown of Greenville, S.C. Born June 6, 1916, Davis learned to appreciate music from his father, who sang religious music. Faith was an important component of his upbringing, taught by the elders in his segregated community.

“We got everything we wanted within the black community,” he said in Jerry Zolten’s book “Great God A’Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music.” “I give all the credit to my mother. She used to say, ‘Be yourself and you don’t have to bow down to anybody!’ ”

As the group’s popularity grew, the list of venues available to it expanded. Over the years they sang at the Cafe Society, an integrated nightclub in New York; the Apollo Theater; and the Newport Jazz Festival. Davis retired in 1984.

Davis is survived by five children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His wife, the former Hortense Eddings, died in 1993.

A young Stevie Wonder heard the group on the radio and thought, “Wow, it’s impossible for those voices to sound like that....How can it be that clear and pure?” he said during the 1998 “Nightline” program.

The Dixie Hummingbirds recorded numerous albums and collaborated with other artists. In 1973 Simon invited the group to sing on his record “Loves Me Like a Rock.” The record was a hit and the group won a Grammy with its own version of the song.

The group declined an offer to tour with Simon.

“We knew that was instant money, instant money, big money,” Davis said on the 1998 “Nightline” segment. “But we were booked in five states. And as far as I was concerned, our word was our word.”

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jocelyn.stewart@latimes.com