Gospel Songwriter. He is remembered as a prolific composer of "shape note" gospel songs (estimates range from 600 to 800), some of which are still available in religious songbooks today, including the popular "I'll Fly Away", "Jesus Hold My Hand", "Turn Your Radio On", "If We Never Meet Again (This Side of Heaven)", "I'll Meet You in The Morning", and "He Set Me Free". Born to sharecropper parents, he spent much of his early life chopping and picking cotton. He attended public school in Rock Island, Oklahoma but left after completing the 10th grade. He sang in a quartet, but his shyness of solo work prevented him becoming a singer. In 1926, determined to become a songwriter, he enrolled in the Hartford Musical Institute of Hartford, Arkansas. Virtually penniless, he made an impression on the institute's owner, E.M. Bartlett, who took him under his wing and allowed him to live at his home. During this time, he taught singing schools and appeared at many singing conventions in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. After he finished his music schooling in 1931, he continued working for Bartlett on a part-time and freelance bases, and with a string of successful songs published in the 1930s, including "I'll Fly Away" (1932), and he decided to try composing full time. By the early 1940s, he was earning $200 a month as a staff songwriter for the famous Stamps-Baxter Music Company in Dallas, Texas. In 1943 he established his own publishing company, Albert E. Brumley and Sons, and in 1948 he purchased the Hartford Music Company of Hartford, Arkansas. In 1969 he established the Albert E. Brumley Sundown to Sunup Gospel Sing (now Albert E. Brumley Gospel Sing) and became one of the few writers to have whole albums of work recorded by groups such as the Chuck Wagon Gang, Smitty Gatlin Trio, and the Statesmen. In 1972 he was one of the first inductees into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and two years later he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. In 1998 he was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame. His songs have been recorded by such legendary performers as Elvis Presley, Roy Acuff, Ref Foley, Johnny Cash, Webb, Pierce, Jim Reeves, Charley Pride, George Jones, the Louvin Brothers and many other singers and quartets. "I'll Fly Away" alone has been recorded well over 500 times and continues to be successful. He died at his home at the age of 72. The first refrain (including the musical score) of his "I'll Meet You in The Morning" is engraved on his tombstone.