Falling Out of Step at the Close of an Era

Abstract

In the final decade of his life, Homer Rodeheaver enjoyed financial success and national fame, though his health and trombone playing declined precipitously. His business model for promoting gospel songs proved increasingly less effective, bypassed by a younger generation who moved gospel music from its communal roots to a popular performance idiom. Rodeheaver’s aging song catalog from the early 1900s could not keep up with the next generation of gospel music. Still, he befriended the young Billy Graham and Graham’s trombone-playing songleader, Cliff Barrows, and strongly influenced their methods for large-scale evangelistic meetings. Upon his death, the Rodeheaver Company was sold to Word Music and then a succession of music industry conglomerates which continued to profit from his gospel song copyrights.