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758:, also on the campus of Grace College, offer rich research collections of Rodeheaver archival materials, original photographs, correspondence, biographies, dissertations and theses, and hymnals published by the Rodeheaver Company. Grace College holds the Billy Sunday Papers and a near exhaustive collection of Sunday print materials. The Winona History Center is located inside the restored Westminster Hotel, which had been the Rodeheaver Company offices.
31:
620:, 95. According to Jones, Rodeheaver also proposed to the operatic contralto Doris Doe, and she might have accepted but believed if any woman accepted Rodeheaver's proposal, "Homer got frightened and ran, and I wanted to keep his friendship; so I said no." Jones himself believed Rodeheaver was never "seriously in love with any woman. He was just in love with the idea of romance itself."
156:. During the heyday of the Sunday evangelistic campaigns, Rodeheaver directed the nation's largest choruses: from a few hundred to as many as two thousand volunteers in Sunday's various campaigns. To him there was nothing incongruous about having his choirs sing Horatio R. Palmer's gospel song "Master, the Tempest is Raging", followed by the
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In the days before electronic amplification, Rodeheaver quickly discovered that his trombone could be heard when his voice or the piano could not. He often led congregational singing with his trombone, switching from playing to directing halfway through the song and then allowing the trombone to hang
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In 1910, Rodeheaver started his own publishing business, the
Rodeheaver Company, compiling gospel songs to sell at revivals. In 1936 Rodeheaver purchased the Hall-Mack Company and merged it with his own publishing house, headquartered in Winona Lake, Indiana. Rodeheaver employed songwriters such as
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and had it rebuilt to look like a ship—including adding a railing around its flat roof. There he entertained hosts of preachers, businessmen, opera singers, and radio personalities, sometimes as many as twenty at a time. His business cards, living room rug, and bathroom towels featured rainbows, a
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Rodeheaver—called "Rody" by associates and reporters alike—had a genial, extroverted personality. Although he was not ignorant or unappreciative of classical and traditional sacred music, Rodeheaver enjoyed and promoted lively new gospel songs among Sunday's congregations. Rodeheaver was a natural
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Rodeheaver appeared on at least eighteen record labels and five hundred sides during his recording career. His most recorded piece was Sunday's theme song "Brighten The Corner Where You Are," which
Rodeheaver recorded for at least 17 different labels. Rodeheaver's other most recorded titles were
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on his arm at the elbow. During a Sunday tent campaign in Kansas, a heavy storm with near-hurricane winds caused the top and sides to sag, and a quarter pole fell, striking a woman on the head. When the crowd panicked and rose to flee, Rodeheaver began playing his trombone and the crowd quieted.
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to write songs for his company, but he also composed a number of tunes himself, including most notably, "When Jesus Came." Around 1922, his company began issuing 78-rpm records on its own
Rainbow label, the nation's first record company devoted solely to gospel music. The Rodeheaver Company was
105:
showman who could warm his audience with jokes and direct choirs and congregations with his trombone. For instance, he would say that his instrument was a "Methodist trombone" that would occasionally "backslide." Or he'd pull his lips from the mouthpiece and say, "Just imagine! I'm being
287:, who turned him down. His half-sister Ruth and her husband, Jim Thomas, lived with him and served as his hostess. Rodeheaver "loved to be surrounded by women of charm and beauty, and with them his manner was always extremely gallant". Mary Gaston Jones, the wife of evangelist
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At one point
Rodeheaver had a sliding board extending from an upstairs room to the lake so that he could take a morning dip, but he removed it after Will Rogers wrote a newspaper column about it and strangers climbed up on his roof to use it. Porter, 34; Wilhoit, xvi,
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The 75-year-old founder and president of the world's largest publishing house of gospel music died Sunday morning at his picturesque
Rainbow Point home on Winona Lake. Convalescing from a previous heart attack early in the week, Dr. Rodeheaver suffered a cerebral
176:
246:
Billy Sunday perhaps paid
Rodeheaver $ 80,000–90,000 over the course of their twenty-year partnership, but Rodeheaver admitted that he made more than four times that amount from other sources, especially music publishing, during those same years.
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120:
said, "Rody is the fellow that can make you sing whether you want to or not. I think he has more terrible voices in what was supposed to be unison than any man in the world. Everyone sings for Rody!" When
Rodeheaver was introduced to
125:, on a golf course, Rockefeller delayed his golf game long enough to sing with Rodeheaver, "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go, Dear Lord." In 1940, Rodeheaver led the singing for 250,000 people who attended the
263:
Bible
Conference, Indiana, a two-week-a-summer seminar to stimulate laymen to develop their musical abilities for their local churches. Rodeheaver traveled around the world on mission trips, and at the
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41:(October 4, 1880 – December 18, 1955) was an American evangelist, music director, music publisher, composer of gospel songs, and pioneer in the recording of sacred music.
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4: 8 (March 26, 2009), 3. Apparently
Rodeheaver used the trombone he purchased at Ohio Wesleyan through his career as the music director for Billy Sunday. Porter, 33–37.
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voice to good effect as a soloist and as a participant in ensembles composed of other members of Sunday's evangelistic team—especially duets with contralto
88:, the most popular evangelist of the period. Shortly after Billy Sunday's death in 1935, Rodeheaver wrote a memoir of his relationship with the evangelist.
306:. He was raised in Lake City-Warsaw Lodge No. 73, Warsaw, Indiana on December 30, 1914; demitted November 16, 1934 and reaffiliated December 1, 1952.
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were so popular that they had to be rerecorded to keep up with demand. Other records featured
Rodeheaver's recitations of sentimental poetry, such as
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Wilhoit, 87–88. Another of Rodeheaver's trombones, a gold-plated one, is displayed in the lobby of Rodeheaver Auditorium at Bob Jones University.
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presented Rodeheaver to the New York Advertising Club, Rodeheaver succeeded in getting the advertising agents to sing "Pray the Clouds Away."
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in eastern Tennessee and there worked with his father in the lumber mill business. Although he learned the mountain ballads, he preferred
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Rodeheaver never married, though he "had a few very close brushes with matrimony" and even proposed to the Canadian-American evangelist
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Thomas Henry Porter, "Homer Alvin Rodeheaver, Evangelist, Musician and Publisher" (Ph.D. diss., New Orleans Baptist Seminary, 1981).
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and visited it often, singing and playing the guitar for the boys. He created and subsidized the Rodeheaver School of Music at the
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Roger Butterfield, "Homer Rodeheaver: A Happy Christian with One Old Trombone Is Successfully Preaching Salvation through Song,"
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Rodeheaver contributed $ 25,000 to the construction of the building, easily $ 200,000 at the beginning of the 21st century.
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because they emphasized harmony and rhythm and had a "definite religious purpose." Rodeheaver early learned to play the
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A similar incident occurred in Toledo when a section of bleachers crumbled in an armory where a meeting was being held.
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An associate recalled that Rodeheaver was never the same after his favorite trombone was stolen in February 1952.
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Rodeheaver founded Rainbow Ranch, later renamed Rodeheaver Boy's Ranch, a home for abused and abandoned boys in
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reference to a line of a frequent theme song, "Every cloud will wear a rainbow/If your heart keeps right."
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custom of an Easter sunrise service, Rodeheaver helped popularize the concept across the United States.
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268:, while floating in the brine, he played "Brighten the Corner" on his trombone. Introduced to the
550:$ 80-90,000 was easily more than a million dollars at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
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4: 8 (March 26, 2009), 3. Rodeheaver had earlier received an honorary degree from BJU in 1942.
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McNeil, W. K. (2013-10-18). "Rodeheaver, Homer Alvan". In W. K. McNeil (ed.).
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In 1969, long after Rodeheaver's death, the Rodeheaver Company was sold to
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as music director and then served, from 1910 to 1930, in the same role for
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song, "Molly and the baby, Don't you know", sung by Homer Rodeheaver, 1916
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In 1898 he left college to serve in the Fourth Tennessee Band during the
373:(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991), 1, 93–95.
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In 1912, Rodeheaver bought an old farm house on "Rainbow Point" at
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213:"Mother's Prayers Have Followed Me", "If Your Heart Keeps Right", "
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Singing the Prohibition Song "Molly and the baby, don't you know
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at Winona Lake in 1955, aged 75. Auditoriums on the campuses of
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label. Some of his records, such as "The Unclouded Day" and "
604:(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, Inc., 1993), 333.
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Butterfield, 66 includes a photograph of his playing in the
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Bob Olson, "Homer Rodeheaver, Pioneer of Sacred Records,"
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Homer Rodeheaver and the Rise of the Gospel Music Industry
754:, on the campus of Grace College in Winona Lake, IN and
732:(Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 2000).
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428:"Homer A. Rodeheaver Dies. Funeral to be Tuesday"
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371:Billy Sunday and the Redemption of Urban America
715:(Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University, 1985).
495:"Homer Rodeheaver, Pioneer of Sacred Records."
829:Discography of American Historical Recordings
774:contains a collection of Rodeheaver ephemera
696:(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021).
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806:78 rpm recording by Homer Rodeheaver (1914)
493:For a thorough discography, see Bob Olson,
329:, Winona Lake, Indiana, are named for him.
189:In 1913 Rodeheaver began recording for the
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602:Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister
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799:Tim's Phonographs and Old Records website
73:, where he also served as a cheerleader.
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144:"H. A. Rodeheaver training chorus girls"
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772:The Archives of the Billy Graham Center
148:In his prime, Rodeheaver also used his
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217:", "Since Jesus Came Into My Heart", "
920:People from Kosciusko County, Indiana
725:(Rodeheaver Hall-Mack Company, 1936).
528:Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music
855:20th-century American male musicians
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80:. Around 1904 he joined evangelist
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743:Works by or about Homer Rodeheaver
730:Rody: Memories of Homer Rodeheaver
325:, Greenville, South Carolina, and
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860:20th-century American songwriters
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332:Rodeheaver was inducted into the
100:Homer Rodeheaver, circa 1910–1915
875:People from Hocking County, Ohio
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209:'s "When Malindy Sings" (1916).
915:Ohio Wesleyan University alumni
692:Kevin Mungons and Douglas Yeo,
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530:. Routledge. pp. 320–322.
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92:Music director for Billy Sunday
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910:People from Jellico, Tennessee
895:American Christian hymnwriters
825:Homer A. Rodeheaver recordings
723:Twenty Years with Billy Sunday
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387:. Nashville: Cokesbury Press.
385:Twenty Years with Billy Sunday
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294:Rodeheaver was a third degree
191:Victor Talking Machine Company
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778:, and several collections of
383:Rodeheaver, Homer A. (1936).
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300:Knights Templar (Freemasonry)
221:", and "My Wonderful Dream".
53:, he was taken as a child to
516:of Waco, Texas. Porter, 103.
203:The Great Judgment Morning,"
34:Homer Rodeheaver, circa 1912
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804:"If Your Heart Keeps Right"
705:(September 3, 1945), 59-66.
600:Edith Waldvogel Blumhofer,
197:, Columbia and for his own
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940:Songwriters from Tennessee
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950:American male songwriters
930:Musicians from Appalachia
885:American male trombonists
865:20th-century evangelicals
756:The Winona History Center
665:Gospel Music Hall of Fame
334:Gospel Music Hall of Fame
945:Songwriters from Indiana
925:Vocalion Records artists
870:20th-century trombonists
49:Born in Cinco Hollow in
900:Gennett Records artists
123:John D. Rockefeller Sr.
905:Gospel music composers
782:material (Collections
285:Aimee Semple McPherson
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39:Homer Alvan Rodeheaver
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935:Songwriters from Ohio
890:American evangelicals
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71:Ohio Wesleyan College
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880:American trombonists
768:, December 19, 1955.
713:Cornbread and Caviar
618:Cornbread and Caviar
323:Bob Jones University
277:Winona Lake, Indiana
215:The Old Rugged Cross
207:Paul Laurence Dunbar
78:Spanish–American War
51:Hocking County, Ohio
762:Rodeheaver obituary
661:"Inductees Archive"
436:. December 19, 1955
317:Rodeheaver died of
183:Temperance movement
27:American songwriter
766:Warsaw Times-Union
752:The Morgan Library
721:Homer Rodeheaver,
633:, March 27, 2009;
500:2006-09-26 at the
433:Warsaw Times-Union
236:Charles H. Gabriel
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109:just to do this!"
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728:Bert H. Wilhoit,
537:978-1-135-37700-7
369:Lyle W. Dorsett,
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158:Hallelujah Chorus
16:(Redirected from
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810:Homer Rodeheaver
776:(Collection 130)
747:Internet Archive
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671:on 14 March 2018
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313:Death and legacy
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82:W. E. Biederwolf
69:while attending
65:but switched to
59:Negro spirituals
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780:Billy Sunday
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673:. Retrieved
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86:Billy Sunday
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45:Early career
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850:1955 deaths
845:1880 births
559:Porter, 93.
466:Porter, 34.
351:Wilhoit, 4.
261:Winona Lake
118:Will Rogers
839:Categories
440:2011-03-24
340:References
241:Word Music
18:Rodeheaver
336:in 1973.
243:in 1969.
675:13 March
570:Dead Sea
498:Archived
270:Moravian
266:Dead Sea
162:Handel's
150:baritone
67:trombone
827:at the
745:at the
687:Sources
616:Jones,
304:Shriner
195:Gennett
165:Messiah
55:Jellico
790:, and
648:Accord
635:Accord
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393:899999
391:
302:and a
63:cornet
296:Mason
160:from
112:When
702:Life
677:2018
532:ISBN
514:Word
389:OCLC
234:and
107:paid
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