When My Boat Sails

Author (Chorus): Marion W. Easterling

Born: March 12, 1910, Clanton, Alabama. Died: December 10, 1989, Birmingham, Alabama. Buried: Martin Memorial Cemetery, Clanton, Alabama. Marion W. Easterling, composed over 300 southern gospel songs. He received his music education in various singing schools, being taught by Ocie Lee DeVaughan, Dad Speer and others. In 1938, he was the youngest composer to sign a five year contract with the Stamps-Baxter Publishing Company. He has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for his long career as the programmer for the WKLF Radio stations's gospel program "America's Favorites". The program began in December 1947 and continued for 39 years, during which time, he broadcast over 20,000 shows. --www.findagrave.com/  Go to person page >

Author: J. R. Baxter

Jesse Randall (Pap) Baxter, Jr. (1887-1960) Born: December 8, 1887, Lebanon, Alabama. Died: January 21, 1960. Baxter grew up in De­Kalb Coun­ty, Al­a­ba­ma. In 1926, he bought part of Vir­gil Stamps’ Gos­pel mu­sic firm, which be­came the Stamps-Bax­ter Mu­sic and Print­ing Com­pa­ny, one of the most suc­cess­ful Gos­pel mu­sic pub­lish­ers of the ear­ly 20th Century. Bax­ter ran the com­pa­ny’s Chat­ta­noo­ga, Ten­nes­see, of­fice un­til Stamps’ death in 1940, then moved to Dall­as, Tex­as, to run the main of­fice. Af­ter Bax­ter’s death, his wife, Clarice, ran the bus­i­ness un­til she died; it was then sold to Zon­der­van. Bax­ter was in­duct­ed in­to the South­ern Gos­pel MuÂ… Go to person page >