Born: De­cem­ber 13, 1851, Stark Coun­ty, Ohio.

Died: June 10, 1921, Chi­ca­go, Ill­i­nois. He was on an evan­gel­ism tour with Gyp­sy Smith at the time of his death.

Buried: Oak Woods Cem­e­tery, Chi­ca­go, Ill­inois.

Son of a Ger­man Re­formed Church pas­tor, Ex­cell start­ed his work­ing life as a brick­lay­er and plas­ter­er. His love of mu­sic called him though, and he went to Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois, to stu­dy un­der George Root. Ex­cell went on to found sing­ing schools at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions in Amer­i­ca, and to ex­pand in­to the re­li­gious field, work­ing with evan­gel­ist Sam Jones for two de­cades. Ex­cell al­so wrote over 2,000 Gos­pel songs, and worked at a mu­sic pub­lish­ing house in Chi­ca­go. His works in­clude:

Sources

Lyrics

  1. Grace, Enough for Me
  2. His Love Is All I Need
  3. I Am Hap­py in Him
  4. Little Bit of Love, A
  5. Since I Have Been Re­deemed

Music

  1. Count Your Bless­ings
  2. His Love Can Ne­ver Fail
  3. Hope Set Be­fore You, The
  4. I Saw One Hanging on a Tree
  5. I Will Follow Thee
  6. I’ll Be a Sunbeam
  7. In the Shadow of His Wings
  8. Jesus Bids Us Shine
  9. Let Him In
  10. Scatter Sun­shine
  11. Some One Who Knows
  12. Spend One Hour with Je­sus
  13. What Would Je­sus Do?
  14. Will Your Heart Ring True?
  15. Your Best Friend Is Always Near