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Albert E. Brumley was born near Spiro, Oklahoma on October 29, 1905. In 1922, chance attendance at a rural singing school gave him his life's vocation. When the teacher wrote a scale on the chalkboard and explained that every song ever written was contained within it, the boy was thrilled and galvanized. "That set me afire," he said.
In 1926, he took a bus to Hartford, Arkansas, and enrolled at Eugene M. Bartlett's Hartford Musical Institute, a branch of Bartlett's gospel music songbook publishing company. By 1929, he was touring as a bass singer and piano player with the Hartford Quartet and leading his own singing schools using Hartford songbooks. In Powell, Missouri, at one of these schools, he found a wife—Goldie Edith Schell later claimed that she knew at once that "he would be a great songwriter and I just wanted to help him." The couple married in 1931, settled in Powell, and eventually raised six children. Brumley's most famous song, "I'll Fly Away," was first published in Bartlett's 1932 collection, The Wonderful Message.
He eventually wrote more than 800 songs, an impressive total even in a field known for prolific composers. No other title achieved the renown of "I'll Fly Away," but many Brumley numbers, including "I Will Meet You in the Morning," "Rank Strangers To Me," and "Turn Your Radio On" remain popular with gospel singers and audiences. Another Brumley composition, "Nobody Answered Me," was sung so often by Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff that many assumed he'd written it. Brumley's songs have been recorded by scores of artists, ranging from Elvis Presley to Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles to Loretta Lynn. Brumley's stature in the gospel music field is comparable to that of the great African-American composer and promoter Thomas A. Dorsey. Brumley died in 1977.
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