1856–1932

Introduction

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Born: Au­gust 18, 1856, Wil­ton, Io­wa.

Died: Sep­tem­ber 15, 1932, Los An­ge­les, Ca­li­for­nia, at the home of his son Charles Jr.

Buried: Cha­pel of the Pines Cre­ma­to­ry, Los An­ge­les, Ca­li­for­nia.

Pseudonyms:

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* A 1935 co­py­right rec­ord for the song Go, Tell Them credi­ts the words to Good­speed, and re­gis­ters the co­py­right to Charles H. Ga­br­iel, Jr., as child of the de­ceased au­thor. How­ev­er, oth­er cop­y­right rec­ords list Good­speed’s place of re­si­dence as Hen­nes­sey, Ok­la­ho­ma. More in­for­ma­tion is needed to re­solve this dis­crep­an­cy.

Biography

Charles was the son of Is­aac New­ton Gab­ri­el and Cle­o­pa­tra Cot­ton, and fa­ther of Charles Hut­chin­son Ga­bri­el, Jr., and Ve­ra G. Ga­bri­el. He mar­ried twice, to Fran­cil­la I. Wood­house Cool­ing (1876) and Ame­lia Moore (1889).

Growing up on an Io­wa farm, he taught him­self to play the fa­mi­ly’s reed or­gan. He be­gan teach­ing in sing­ing schools by age 16, and be­came a well known teach­er and com­pos­er.

He served as mu­sic di­rect­or at Grace Me­tho­dist Epis­co­pal Church, San Fran­cis­co, Ca­li­for­nia (1890–92), then moved to Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois. In 1912, he be­gan work­ing with Ho­mer Ro­de­hea­ver’s pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny.

Gabriel ed­it­ed some 43 song books, 7 men’s cho­rus books, 19 an­them col­lect­ions, and 23 can­ta­tas. He was in­duct­ed in­to the Gos­pel Music Hall of Fame in 1982.

Works

Sources

Lyrics

Music