Donna Marshall Damron

Musician

Donna Marshall Damron sang, played and wrote songs with the Marshall Family, the gospel group of West Virginians living in Ohio that recorded for Gloryland and then for Rebel Records in the 1970s. She sang the lead on Judy Marshall’s “I Just Want to Thank You Lord” on the family’s first Rebel album, Come Springtime (1975).

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On the family’s first album, Sing “The Valley” (Gloryland, 1969), Donna Marshall played guitar and bass alongside Judy and Glen Marshall on guitars, Dave Marshall on banjo and Ben Marshall on bass. Its follow-up, Beautiful Is the Land Where I’m Going (Gloryland, 1971), was made up of the family’s own songs, and she wrote one of them, “The D-E-V-I-L.”

After Ralph Stanley heard the family at his festival in May 1974 and helped them to a contract with Rebel, she was part of Come Springtime (1975), which had liner notes by Stanley. She sang lead on two songs, “I Just Want to Thank You Lord,” with Judy Marshall and David Marshall singing harmony, and her own “Pray for Your Fellow Man,” and she sang harmony behind Judy on “Waitin’ for the Master to Come.” She also wrote “I’ll Be Coming Home” for the album. Larry Sparks later made “I Just Want to Thank You Lord” the title song of an album.

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