The longtime leader of the Swan Silvertones, Claude Jeter towers among the most celebrated and influential gospel singers of the postwar era. While his silken falsetto inspired a generation of crossover soul superstars including Sam Cooke and Al Green, Jeter steadfastly refused to abandon spiritual music for secular fame and fortune, and in the latter decades of his life he shifted his focus away from performing in favor of the ministry. Jeter was born October 26, 1914, in Birmingham, AL. Following his attorney father's 1922 death, the family relocated to Kentucky, and by the ...