Introduction

Biography

Walter was the hus­band of Ada Ba­ma Lee Gil­bert, and bro­ther of Stan­cel Ga­nus.

He and Stan­cel re­ceived mu­sic­al train­ing at Liv­ing­ston Col­lege in Liv­ing­ston, Ala­ba­ma (now the Uni­ver­si­ty of West Ala­ba­ma). In 1900, Wal­ter helped es­tab­lish the Ga­nus Bro­thers School of Mu­sic in Tus­ca­loo­sa, Ala­ba­ma.

Walter lat­er moved to Birm­ing­ham, Ala­ba­ma, where he found­ed the W. P. Ga­nus and Sons Mu­sic Com­pa­ny, which spe­cial­ized in Gos­pel music song books and church hym­nals.

Walter sang with the Ga­nus Bro­thers Quar­tet from Birm­ing­ham in the late 1920s and ear­ly 1930s. Later, his sons sang in their own ver­sion of the quar­tet.