Inducted 1997

It can be truly said that Virgil O. Stamps was the first to popularize southern-style gospel singing across America. 

Though he was a noted singer, writer, publisher, and pioneer recording artist, his greatest accomplishment was spreading gospel music through the then-new medium of radio.  For several years his company counted many salaried quartets and more than 100 affiliated quartets on radio stations nationwide. 

After working for the Vaughan Music Company from 1915 into the early 1920s, Stamps launched out on his own in 1924 and founded the V.O. Stamps Music Company in his native Texas. Two years later, Stamps merged the company with J. R. Baxter, Jr. to form the Stamps-Baxter Music and Printing Company. Through his leadership and promotion, the company became, by the late 1930s, the most successful publisher of shape-note songbooks in America. 

The company's annual Stamps-Baxter School of Music, begun in the mid-1920s, stood as the largest developer of gospel singers for more than 30 years.