Rudolph Atwood (December 16, 1912 – October 16, 1992) was an American Christian music pianist, known primarily for his years as accompanist on the long-running ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'' radio program led by
Charles E. Fuller Charles Fuller (1939–2022) was an American playwright and writer.
Charles Fuller may also refer to:
*Charles Fuller (footballer) (1919–2004), English footballer
*Charles E. Fuller (Baptist minister) (1887–1968), American Christian clergyman ...
from 1937 to 1968 on the
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...
and later on the
ABC Radio Network
Cumulus Media Networks was an American radio network owned and operated by Cumulus Media. From 2011 until its merger with Westwood One, it controlled many of the radio assets formerly belonging to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which w ...
. After Fuller's death in 1968, Atwood continued to play on the successor program, ''The Joyful Sound''. He made many recordings accompanying the program's quartet and choir and made appearances playing the piano at various churches and concerts until his death in 1992.
He was known as "the most imitated pianist in gospel music", for his improvisations and arrangements of traditional hymns.
Early years
Atwood was born in 1912 in
Marion, Illinois
Marion is a city in Williamson and Johnson Counties, Illinois, United States, and is the county seat of Williamson County. The population was 16,855 at the 2020 census. It is part of a dispersed urban area that developed out of the early 20th ...
, to a Baptist family. When he was 10 years old, he began taking piano lessons, which he enjoyed greatly. Atwood wrote in his autobiography, ''The Rudy Atwood Story'', that he needed no encouragement from his parents to practice for hours, scarcely stopping for dinner.
Also that year, he responded to a
revival meeting
A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held to inspire active members of a church body to gain new converts and to call sinners to repent. Nineteenth-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "Many blessings may come ...
altar call
An altar call is a tradition in some Christian churches in which those who wish to make a new spiritual commitment to Jesus Christ are invited to come forward publicly. It is so named because the supplicants gather at the altar located at the fro ...
at the Baptist church that the Atwoods attended, becoming a
born-again Christian
Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and sepa ...
, shortly before the family moved to California.
At age 14, Atwood started playing the piano at a church in Pasadena and became interested in studying the music of his favorite composer,
J. S. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
. In later years he attributed his hymn-playing technique to the influence of Bach and the study of classical music.
As a 17-year-old in 1929, he began playing the piano regularly for
Paul Rader
Paul Alexander Rader (born March 14, 1934), is an American religious leader, who was the 15th General of the Salvation Army from 1994 to 1999, and was the President of Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, from 2000 to 2006.
Biography
Born in N ...
when the Chicago
evangelist
Evangelist may refer to:
Religion
* Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels
* Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ
* Evangelist (Anglican Church), a c ...
started a Tabernacle in Los Angeles. It was the first time young Atwood had the thrill of playing a
concert grand piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
.
[Atwood, p. 23-24.] It was also the first experience he had playing on a live radio broadcast, accompanying the singers.
In 1933, he began playing the piano for the radio broadcasts on
KFAC of the then-new Country Church of Hollywood, which had as its theme song "
The Church in the Wildwood
"The Church in the Wildwood" is a song that was written by Dr. William S. Pitts in 1857 following a coach ride that stopped in Bradford, Iowa. It is a song about a church in a valley near the town, though the church was not actually built until ...
".
[Atwood, pp. 29-31.] It was then, said Atwood, that he realized gospel radio music was his life's calling.
Atwood was often called upon to preach at the Country Church and he was eventually ordained by the church's board. It was also there that he met his future wife, Grace. Atwood continued playing piano at the Country Church of Hollywood until 1938. Among the vocal soloists he accompanied was
Wilbur Nelson
Wilbur Eugene Nelson (September 25, 1910 – August 22, 2003) was an American Christian radio broadcaster, church minister, gospel singer and composer, and published author. He produced and hosted the nationally-syndicated ''Morning Chapel Hour' ...
.
Through these experiences and practice, Atwood developed his skill in improvisation, writing: "As I look back now, I really can't tell when I found the ability to improvise. I suppose it was in those
igh schooldays that I began to experiment, playing the bass in octaves and filling in the chords of the right hand. It was in those first efforts when I came up with the right harmonies, and the runs began to fall into place".
Music career
Atwood joined evangelist
Charles E. Fuller Charles Fuller (1939–2022) was an American playwright and writer.
Charles Fuller may also refer to:
*Charles Fuller (footballer) (1919–2004), English footballer
*Charles E. Fuller (Baptist minister) (1887–1968), American Christian clergyman ...
's popular ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'' nationwide radio broadcast in 1937, accompanying the choir and paid quartet on the piano.
By the end of that year, the weekly program with Atwood at the piano was heard by a nationwide audience of 10 million listeners on 88 stations.
In its heyday in the 1940s and early 1950s, the program was carried on hundreds of stations across the United States on the
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Old-time radio, golden ...
and, later, the
ABC Radio Network
Cumulus Media Networks was an American radio network owned and operated by Cumulus Media. From 2011 until its merger with Westwood One, it controlled many of the radio assets formerly belonging to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which w ...
, and the audience had grown to an estimated 20 million listeners.
Atwood played the piano for the entire 32-year run of the ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'', until Fuller's death in 1968.
Atwood wrote of the broadcast's theme song, "Heavenly Sunshine", "A thrill reaches to my toes each time I play
t, and the familiar piece was his most-requested number during concerts. He continued to play on the successor program, ''The Joyful Sound'', when
David Hubbard succeeded Fuller.
Atwood's signature style of continuous left-hand
triplet-note octave doubling
In music theory, voicing refers to two closely related concepts:
# How a musician or group distributes, or spaces, notes and chords on one or more instruments
# The simultaneous vertical placement of notes in relation to each other; this rela ...
s and right-hand
arpeggios
A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves.
An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...
captivated audiences and was widely copied by many other evangelical pianists of the period.
His prominence was enhanced by the popularity of radio as a mass medium for evangelism in the 1930s–1950s by such radio evangelists as Fuller,
M. R. DeHaan
Martin Ralph DeHaan (March 23, 1891 – December 13, 1965) was an American Bible teacher, the founder of Radio Bible Class, and the co-editor of the monthly devotional guide '' Our Daily Bread''.
Early life
M. R. DeHaan was born in Zeeland, Mi ...
,
Theodore Epp
Theodore H. Epp (January 27, 1907 – October 13, 1985) was an American Protestant Christian clergyman, writer, and radio evangelist. Epp was the founding director of the '' Back to the Bible'' radio broadcast and speaker on the program from 193 ...
,
Percy Crawford
Percy Bartimus Crawford (October 20, 1902 – October 31, 1960) was an evangelist and fundamentalist leader who especially emphasized youth ministry. During the late 1950s, he saw the potential of FM radio and UHF television and built the first ...
, and, later,
Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...
.
Atwood was known as "the most imitated pianist in gospel music" for his improvisations and arrangements of traditional hymns.
In his treatise on the increasing importance of the piano in twentieth-century American Protestant
evangelism
In Christianity, evangelism (or witnessing) is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Christians who specialize in evangelism are often known as evangelists, whether they are i ...
, ''The Origins of Evangelical Pianism'', author Theodore L. Gentry called Atwood "probably the most important pianist of the radio revival period".
Throughout his career, Atwood made concert appearances, playing the piano at various churches and concert halls until shortly before his death at age 79 in 1992.
[ Among his audience favorites were "]Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
"Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" is a Christian hymn written by the pastor and hymnodist Robert Robinson, who penned the words in the year 1758 at the age of 22.
Tunes
In the United States, the hymn is usually set to an American folk tun ...
", " In the Garden", "When They Ring the Golden Bells
When They Ring Those Golden Bells (also known as There's a Land Beyond the River or When They Ring the Golden Bells) is a prominent American gospel and bluegrass song written in 1887 by Daniel de Marbelle, a European immigrant, veteran of the Ame ...
", "Now I Belong to Jesus", and "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
The hymn, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", was written by Isaac Watts, and published in ''Hymns and Spiritual Songs'' in 1707. It is significant for being an innovative departure from the early English hymn style of only using paraphrased bib ...
". His performances included New York City's Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...
with Jack Wyrtzen
John Von Casper "Jack" Wyrtzen (22 April 1913 – 17 April 1996) was an American youth evangelist and founder of Word of Life ministries, which operates Christian camps, conference centers and Bible institutes.
Wyrtzen produced the ''Word o ...
, Constitution Hall
DAR Constitution Hall is a concert hall located at 1776 D Street NW, near the White House in Washington, D.C. It was built in 1929 by the Daughters of the American Revolution to house its annual convention when membership delegations outgrew Memo ...
in Washington, D.C., Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Red Rocks Amphitheatre (also colloquially as simply Red Rocks) is an open-air amphitheatre built into a rock structure in the Western United States, western United States, near Morrison, Colorado, west of Denver. There is a large, tilted, flyi ...
in Colorado with Ralph Carmichael
Ralph Carmichael (May 27, 1927 – October 18, 2021) was an American composer and arranger of both secular pop music and contemporary Christian music. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of contemporary Christian music.
Early Life and Career
...
conducting an orchestra, Maple Leaf Gardens
Maple Leaf Gardens is a historic building located at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was initially constructed in 1931 as an arena to host ice hockey games, though it has sinc ...
in Toronto with Fuller speaking, and the Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018.
The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...
.
Atwood became staff pianist in 1968 at the Church of the Open Door
Built in 1914, the 4000-seat Church of the Open Door was conceived by R. A. Torrey who had come to Los Angeles to start a Bible institute (now known as Biola University) similar to Moody Bible Institute. The church was to be strictly non-denominat ...
in Los Angeles, where his family attended, also playing at the large Youth for Christ
Youth For Christ (YFC) is a worldwide Christian movement working with young people, whose main purpose is evangelism among teenagers. It began informally in New York City in 1940, when Jack Wyrtzen held evangelical Protestant rallies for teenagers ...
rallies held at the church on Saturday nights. He was pianist at Perry Hall Baptist Church in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, from 1971 to 1973. Atwood wrote in his autobiography that wherever he played in a church, he felt that music should be an integral part of worship, citing Bible verses in which singing and music-making are mentioned: : "I will sing to the Lord as long as I live", and : "Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts".
Personal life and legacy
Atwood married Marguerite Grace Murray (1915–1983) in 1938. They made their home in Pasadena, California
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
I ...
, having two children. For relaxation, they enjoyed attending concerts at the Hollywood Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl is an amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was named one of the 10 best live music venues in America by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in 2018.
The Hollywood Bowl is known for its distin ...
and going to Dodgers baseball games. Atwood, an avid sports fan, wrote in his autobiography, ''The Rudy Atwood Story'', of their excitement when they witnessed Willie Stargell
Wilver Dornell Stargell (March 6, 1940 – April 9, 2001), nicknamed "Pops" later in his career, was an American professional baseball left fielder and first baseman who spent all of his 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) ( 1962– 1982 ...
hit the first out-of-the-park home run at Dodger Stadium
Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ( ...
, a blast off the Dodgers' Alan Foster on August 5, 1969, that completely cleared the right-field pavilion and struck a bus parked outside the stadium.
Atwood's music is still heard on rebroadcasts of the ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'', aired on the Fundamental Broadcasting Network
The Fundamental Broadcasting Network (FBN) is a network of Conservative Christian radio stations in the United States, based out of the Grace Baptist Church in Newport, North Carolina.
Programs heard on FBN include ''Family Altar'' with Lester R ...
and streamed on the internet, and during music programming segments on the Bible Broadcasting Network
The Bible Broadcasting Network (BBN) is a listener-supported global Conservative Christian radio network staffed and headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was founded in 1971 by Lowell Davey, who was the network's president until his de ...
(BBN) (although Atwood is no longer mentioned by name on BBN, since the network instituted a policy of not making artist attributions). Several of his recordings have been re-mastered on compact disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...
, such as ''Our Great Savior with Rudy Atwood''. As to his preference for traditional hymns over contemporary Christian music
Contemporary Christian music, also known as CCM, Christian pop, and occasionally inspirational music is a genre of modern popular music, and an aspect of Christian media, which is lyrically focused on matters related to the Christian faith and s ...
, Atwood wrote: "I must play what I feel is my ministry to play. God blesses hearts, wherever He finds them, with whatever means He has at hand".
Discography
Atwood made more than 60 recordings, both as piano soloist and as accompanist to various ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'' ensembles. Many of his recordings were made in collaboration with Christian Faith Recordings
Christian Faith Recordings was an American record label based in California that specialized in mainstream Christian music in the 1950s and 1960s. It was one of the most significant producers of Christian music in the United States during that t ...
, and others with Paul Mickelson and Ralph Carmichael
Ralph Carmichael (May 27, 1927 – October 18, 2021) was an American composer and arranger of both secular pop music and contemporary Christian music. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of contemporary Christian music.
Early Life and Career
...
. His recordings include:
* ''My Savior First Of All''
* ''Wonderful Old Chestnuts''
* ''The Incomparable Rudy Atwood''
* ''Keyboard Rhapsodies: Gospel Organ & Piano Duets With Registrations For All Organs''
* ''Just A Little Talk With Jesus''
* ''Blessed Be The Name''
* ''Gospel Grandeur''
* ''Rudy Atwood Piano Favorites''
* ''Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine''
Published works
Atwood published his autobiography, ''The Rudy Atwood Story'', in 1970. Many of his hymn arrangements for piano have been published in collections, among them:
* ''Gospel Piano Techniques''
* ''Jesus Shall Reign: 10 Classic Solo Piano Arrangements''
* ''Rudy Atwood Piano Arrangements'', vols. 1 and 2
* ''The Golden Collection of 50 All-time Great Hymns and Gospel Songs''
References
External links
''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'' website
Archived ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour programs''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atwood, Rudy
1912 births
1992 deaths
People from Marion, Illinois
Musicians from California
Musicians from Illinois
Male pianists
American performers of Christian music
20th-century male musicians