Virgil O. Stamps (1892–1940)

A Methodist and a noted singer, writer, publisher, and pioneer recording artist, his greatest accomplishment was spreading gospel music through the “glory days” of radio. For several years his company counted many salaried quartets and more than 100 affiliated quartets on radio stations nationwide. Virgil attended the Upshur County Singing Convention and fell in love with quartet singing. In 1907, he attended a singing school run by R. M. Morgan. From 1911 to 1914, he taught singing schools, while continuing to work at the family store in Ore City, Texas.

After working for the Vaughan Music Company from 1915 into the early 1920s, Stamps launched out on his own in 1924 and founded the V.O. Stamps Music Company in Dallas, Texas. Two years later, Stamps merged the company with J. R. Baxter, Jr. to form the Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company. By the late 1930s, it was the most successful publisher of shaped-note songbooks in America. The company’s annual Stamps-Baxter School of Music, that began in the mid-1920s, stood as the largest developer of gospel singers in Texas and throughout the South for more than four decades.