Jerry Summers
Any fan of Gospel music in the 55 years that the Reverend J. Bazzell Mull and his wife, Elizabeth, were on the air will immediately recognize the trademark of the Mulls Singing Convention. “I’m back with our TV family. Ain’t that right, Mrs. Mull” that opened their long-running preaching and gospel music show “Mulls Singing Convention of the Air.” It was a program of Gospel music favorites on 50,000 and 100,000 watt stations nationwide. He later bought an FM station in Knoxville, which he nicknamed “Praise 96.3”.
Jacob Bazzell Mull was born on October 4, 1914 in Valdese, North Carolina, the grandson of Wallace B.
Mull, who had been a circuit riding preacher in the 1800s. His parents had formed a gospel music group, The Valdese Sacred Band, and he played banjo even though he had been blinded at the tender age of nine months when he somehow had accidentally fallen into a fireplace. This unfortunate freak accident did not deter young Bazzell as he had a photographic memory and would memorize verses from the Bible when someone would read them aloud.
He was called to preach the gospel in 1932 and seven years later he began broadcasting his sermons and playing gospel music on radio stations in his native North Carolina. After another three years he began broadcasting his program on radio stations in Knoxville. In 1942 he began his first radio station, then he moved to television in 1957.
Every Sunday morning the Mull Singing Convention was carried on stations all across America and it was considered to be the largest running locally produced television show in the country. The success of his program allowed him to acquire several radio stations and to organize several churches in North Carolina and Tennessee. “Lady Mull” was both his eyes and voice during the 55 years of their program and Bazzell said “he couldn’t have accomplished anything without my wife, Elizabeth, by my side.”
1991 was when Praise 96.3 FM at WJBZ went on the air and it claims to still play the best in Southern Gospel Music 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He was inducted into the Southern Gospel Hall of Fame in 2003 and she was likewise honored in 2009. When selected for the high honor he stated. “There’s no way to tell you what it means to me, because Gospel music has been my life since I was a kid growing up with my family.”
After he started his television shows in Knoxville in the 1950s he also broadcast his gospel music show in Chattanooga on WRGP-TV when the station first went on the air in 1957. The program later moved to WTVC when it started broadcasting in 1959. Although Reverend Mull was born and raised in the Republican area of East Tennessee he always remained a dedicated and staunch Democrat. When questioned about his Democrat background, he jokingly would comment “that the Lord rode a donkey, not an elephant into Jerusalem.
Many famous gospel groups such as “The Chuck Wagon Gang” and individuals such as “twice Governor of the great state of Louisiana," Jimmie Davis, writer and performer of You Are My Sunshine, were frequent guests on the show. Throughout the years the Mulls gave many new and old gospel groups their first big breaks by having them perform on the convention program.
J. Bazzell died on September 5, 2006, at the age of 91. He was followed by Lady Mull in death on January 9, 2012 at the age of 85. Both are buried at Lakeview Memorial Gardens in Lenoir City, Tennessee.
J. Bazzell Mull will be inducted into the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame in August in Murfreesboro.
When 2nd District Congressman John J. “Jimmy” Duncan spoke on the House of Representatives floor to honor J. Bazzell he got it right when he said the minister and religious broadcasters’ most famous line was:
“Ain’t that right, Ms. Mull?”
And it was that line that came into play in one of the many stories about the sometime irreverent J. Bazzell. It was around Christmas and he was advertising the grocery business of his great friend Cas Walker when he declared on TV. "Cas Walker's got the biggest nuts in town? Ain't that right, Ms. Mull?"
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Jerry Summers
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The Mulls