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Martin Cook, a former piano player for the Kingsmen Quartet and a chemistry teacher at Swain High School in Bryson City, NC, formed the Inspirations in 1964 with several of his teenage students: Archie Watkins, Ronnie Hutchins, Jack Laws and Dean Robinson. The Inspirations began traveling full-time in 1969, a year after hosting their first “Singing In The Smokies” event. The 1970s saw the Inspirations rise to national attention with a number of hit songs. The group continues today, still maintaining their iconic and unique sound. The Inspirations describe themselves as “an enthusiastic, sincere, clean-cut group of fundamental conservative Christian gentlemen with a desire and an objective to witness to a needful and sinful world through the medium of Gospel Music.” They have sold more than one million copies of their sixty albums. Their sound is now known in the world of Christian music as the Smoky Mountain style of Southern gospel quartet singing.