Herbert Pickard

Born in 1933, Pee Wee is considered one of Detroit’s most esteemed keyboardists. Pickard served both as pianist and organist for Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes of Birmingham, Alabama when Evelyn Starks Hardy, the original pianist, returned to public school teaching. Pickard is also a noted songwriter, director and arranger who began his musical career in Detroit at the age of four. In 1945 he appeared with the Dean Robert Nolan Choir alongside the headlining Lionel Hampton Band. His experience with the choir led him to decide on a future career in gospel music. During high school he played on the daily morning broadcast of Rev. W. Cornelius Barnes’ Church of Our Faith. On Sunday mornings he played on broadcasts with Chas Pennington and the United Gospel Singers. With time left over he sat in on piano for Rev. Ralph Boyd and Bishop Tefferoa. Pickard holds two B.S. degrees from Wayne State University, one in Math Education, which led to a teaching job in Detroit’s public schools, and one in Mechanical Engineering which later helped steer him into finding an engineering job at the Ford Motor Company for a short while. On the music front he toured with the late Prof. Alex Bradford from Bessemer, Alabama and Bro. Joe May of East St. Louis. After serving two years in the U.S. Army as x-ray technician, Pickard joined forces with Coates and the Harmonettes, with whom he stayed as pianist and organist for most of the 1950s. In 1959 Pickard joined Rev. James Cleveland and Rev. Chas Ashley Craig at Detroit Prayer Tabernacle Church. During the early 1960s he sat on the organ bench and directed the all-male choir, the Mighty Voices of Thunder, at the Greater New Moriah Baptist Church pastored by B.L. Hooks. Between this and serving as organist at Rev. C.L. Franklin’s New Bethel Radio Choir under the direction of Prof. Thomas H. Shelby, Pickard recorded with the late great Prof. Alfred Bolden for Atlantic Records. He has cut two albums for Savoy under his own name, one with his own aggregation, the Pickard Singers. He appears in the new Baptist Hymnal as having arranged “God never fails,” a song made widely popular by Rev. Clay Evans. He is composer of many gospel songs including “Give God a chance” and “He knows it all.” Pickard plays on the 1953 Gospel Harmonettes hit recording of “No hiding place,” a song used in Jerry Zucker’s 1990 movie “Ghost.” Pickard’s piano style is full, bold and soulful, incorporating some of the blue colors used in secular music ___________________________________________________________________