Edwin Othello Excell (December
13, 1851 ? June 10, 1921),
commonly known as E. O.
Excell, was a prominent
American publisher, composer,
song leader, and singer of
music for church, Sunday
school, and evangelistic
meetings during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Some of the
significant collaborators in
his vocal and publishing work
included Sam P. Jones, William
E. Biederwolf, Gipsy Smith,
Charles Reign Scoville, J.
Wilbur Chapman, W. E. M.
Hackleman, Charles H. Gabriel
and D. B. Towner.
His 1909 stanza selection and
arrangement of Amazing Grace
became the most widely used
and familiar setting of that
hymn by the second half of the
twentieth century. The
influence of his sacred music
on American popular culture
through revival meetings,
religious conventions, circuit
chautauquas, and church
hymnals was substantial enough
by the 1920s to garner a
satirical reference by
Sinclair Lewis in the novel
Elmer Gantry.
Excell compiled or contributed
to about ninety secular and
sacred song books and is
estimated to have written,
composed, or arranged more
than two thousand of the songs
he published. The music
publishing business he started
in 1881 and that eventually
bore his name was the highest
volume producer of hymnbooks
in America at the time of his
death. (Hide extended text) ... (Read all)
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