Paul Belcher- Celebrates Fifty Years Promoting Concerts By: Robert York
It was a cold, clear day on August 25, 1955, in Wyandotte, Michigan. Weather reports showed that the low was 42 and the high was only 46, but that didn’t stop Mammie Belcher from having a bouncing baby boy as her husband Sam stood waiting on the good news. The baby’s parents loved gospel music and booked groups in their local church. Sam worked for a steel mill in Ecorse, Michigan, and Mammie was a stay home wife and mom taking care of everything, cooking, cleaning canning – just a good wife. Paul said, “My childhood was great. We grew up in church, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night and Saturday night at a singing. I played sports in high school, football and baseball. Delivered Detroit News before school, went to school and sports, then worked in a shoe store in the evenings.” He graduated in 1973 from John F. Kennedy High School in Taylor, Michigan. Belcher got introduced to gospel music when mom and dad would book groups in church. The first groups he remember seeing were The Gospelaires from Athens, Tennessee, The Pathways from Sandusky, Ohio (Darrell Freeman family), and The Sing-
ing Echoes. He said, “Groups suggested since I like singing so I should try a ticketed event. I thought it would be neat to do one.” So at age 16 Paul booked his first groups, Hopper Brothers and Connie and The Hymnals from Lafolette, Tennessee, and held the concert at Romulus High School, a suburb of Detroit. In 1974 at a singing in her home church, Paul met Helen Branscom. She had grown up in Taylor, Michigan, just as he did. Her parents were from Kentucky. About a week later he took her to supper which eventually led to marriage May 21, 1977. They have two children, Tim and Katie, and three grandchildren Landon, Tanner and Kora. In 1983 their work caused them to leave Michigan for Dallas, Texas. They lived there for five years until the company went under. He stated, “Helen’s parents died young and we had no desire to move back north, so in 1988 we moved to a 103 acre family farm in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, which we now own and live.” He continued, “Helen is very important to me. She’s my heart in this. I just wanted to make her proud of
