DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

Kevin Kehrberg
“I’ll Fly Away”: The Music and Career of Albert E. Brumley and the Cultural Impact of His Most Famous Composition
(research director: Ron Pen)

In Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel (2002)—the only scholarly survey of the white gospel tradition in America—historian James Goff calls Albert E. Brumley, Sr. (1905-1977) “easily the most recognizable songwriter to come out of the white gospel…music industry.” As the creator of such gospel “standards” as “I’ll Fly Away,” “Turn Your Radio On,” “I’ll Meet You in the Morning,” and “If We Never Meet Again,” Brumley has become the single most successful gospel songwriter, white or black, of the twentieth century.

This thesis represents the first thorough, academic assessment of Albert E. Brumley’s music, career, and his work’s cultural impact. Deeper examinations of the composer’s personal life, his work as a songwriter, and a fresh look at his publishing business’s growth and development will contribute to a more complete biography. A broad analysis of his output—including the first complete catalog of his works—will provide a framework for interpreting Brumley’s general compositional style, while detailed theoretical analyses of his more successful works will offer a context for understanding his music’s enduring legacy within popular music history, especially gospel (both white and black) and country music. Research into the cultural history of one particular Brumley work—“I’ll Fly Away”—and its various incarnations in music, television, film, and other outlets will act as a lens through which to view Brumley’s broad impact on American music and society. This thesis will ultimately argue that Brumley’s compositions have influenced the development of religious and popular music in America much more significantly than indicated by current scholarship, and that his music has become an important medium for American cultural expression that stretches well beyond the confines of America’s white gospel music tradition.