In a cotton field situated in Spiro, Oklahoma, a small child called Albert came into the world in 1905. From his humble beginnings Albert went on to compose the most well-known songs we chant to this day.
It is certain that Albert loved music since the age of. His sharecropper parents brought him up in a musical and religious family. When he was a child He attended the Hartford Musical Institute located in Hartford, Arkansas, and was a member of Hartford Quartet. Hartford Quartet.
In the following years, Albert taught “singing schools” in towns that were small around the Ozarks. In one of the singing classes held at Powell, Missouri, he got to know his bride-to-be, Goldie Schell. They got married in 1931 and then continued to reside in the city she grew up in.
Albert was employed by his father-in-law’s general store for just a $1 a day. The couple had six children there, five sons and one daughter. He also learned how to tune pianos.
Over the course of several years, he attempted to try writing songs but mostly for his personal musical pleasure. Goldie advised him to try to publish his song and reminded him of the song he’d composed in 1929.
He wrote the song to the Hartford Music Company on a hot day in July 1931. They included the song in their book of hymns “The Beautiful Message.” The song was soon to be recognized nationally as well as other publishers seeking permission to incorporate it into their hymnals for churches.
The Hartford Music Company hired Albert as an in-house writer for $12.50 each month. His writing career spanned 34 years, and he wrote nearly 600 Gospel songs. He was also employed by Stamps/Baxter Music and eventually formed his own business.
It’s been reported that the songs of Albert Brumley have been used 15 million times on hymnals, sheet music, and songbooks. He composed such classics as “Jesus Grab My Hand,” “I’ll Meet You in the Morning,” “He Set Me Free”” along with “Turn Your Radio on.”
The artists who have recorded his songs includes Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and the Chuck Wagon Gang, and the Blackwood Brothers. The first song that he sold was the most recorded Gospel song ever recorded.
The idea for the song was discovered by him when picking cotton while singing a hit song from 1929, “If I Had The Wings Of An Angel.” Then, Albert began to daydream about flying away. Similar to the ideas behind many of his songs the lyrics were inspired by his personal spiritual beliefs.
Christians can be assured that once we depart from our physical bodies and earthly lives, we will be “present in the presence of our Lord,” in our heavenly home (2 Corinthians 5:8). Perhaps that verse popped into Albert Brumley’s head when he wrote “Some joyful morning, in the morning when this life is over I’ll take off; To a new home at the shores of heaven. It’s time to fly off. As the shadows of this world are gone I’ll fly off; as a bird fleeing from prison bars and you’ll be flying away. ….I’ll be flying away in glory I’ll fly away When I die, praise God in the near future you’ll be flying away.”
Jan White has compiled a collection of her columnists in her book “Everyday The Faithful Daily Life.”
The article Looking towards the day we leave was first published at The Andalusia Star-News.
