The Waco-based Trio Music Company was a vital training ground for Texas gospel teachers and composers from 1895 to 1925, although it began losing contributors to Austin-based competitor Firm Foundations in the 1910s. Both publishing companies catered to the region’s Restorationist movement and its many Church of Christ congregations. Gospel Songs co-compilers William Daniel Evridge (1873–1932) and James Warren Acuff (1864–1937) were students of Trio founder Frank L. Eiland (1860–1909) through his Southern Development Normal. Evridge and Acuff would eventually collaborate on New Ideal Gospel Hymn Book (1930), the first full-size hymnal issued by a Church of Christ affiliate in Texas. This early collaboration of these two successful songwriters includes Evridge’s best-known composition, “Just Over in the Gloryland.”

—Erin Fulton