Charles Davis Tillman

This article is about the pioneer of southern gospel music. For American football player Charles Tillman, see Charles Tillman.
Charles Davis Tillman
Born20 March 1861 Edit this on Wikidata
Died1943 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 81–82)

Charles Davis Tillman (March 20, 1861, Tallassee, Alabama – September 2, 1943, Atlanta, Georgia)[citation needed] —also known as Charlie D. Tillman, Charles Tillman, Charlie Tillman, and C. D. Tillman—was a popularizer of the gospel song. He had a knack for adopting material from eclectic sources and flowing it into the mix now known as southern gospel, becoming one of the formative influences on that genre.[1]

The youngest son of Baptist preacher James Lafayette Tillman and Mary (Davis) Tillman, for 14 years prior to 1887 he painted houses, sold sheet music for a company in Raleigh, North Carolina, and peddled Wizard Oil.[2] In 1887 he focused his career more on his church and musical talents, singing first tenor in a church male quartet and establishing his own church-related music publishing company in Atlanta.[3]

  1. ^ See southern gospel and James David Vaughan.
  2. ^ For a description of Wizard Oil, see Hamlin's Wizard Oil Archived April 5, 2011, at the Wayback Machine and site tabs. Note its association with songbooks.
  3. ^ William Jensen Reynolds, Companion to Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1976), p. 444, ISBN 0-8054-6808-0.