Virgil Oliver Stamps

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Virgil Oliver Stamps (1892 – 1940) was a shape note promoter, singer, composer, and singing school teacher.

He was born in and raised in the Stamps Community in Upshur County, Texas, and was a key individual in early gospel music publishing. In 1907 he attended the singing school of Richard M. Morgan, and later started teaching schools himself. He taught singing schools while working as a clerk in his father's store from 1991-1914.

In 1914 he became a field representative for the James D. Vaughan Music Company of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Stamps worked for the Tennessee Music Company, Samuel Beazley and J. D. Vaughan from 1914-24, including singing in a quartet representing the Vaughan company. Around 1915 he composed his first song, entitled "The Man Behind the Plow".

In 1924 he founded the V. O. Stamps Music Company in Jacksonville, Texas. In that year the first session of the V. O. Stamps School of Music was held, and in 1925 he published Harbor Bells - his first song book. In 1927, with J. R. Baxter, Stamps formed the Stamps-Baxter Music Company, based in Dallas, Texas. Stamps organized a personal quartet in which he sang bass. He was a pioneer is the use of radio for promoting gospel music and quartet singing.

V. O. Stamps was inducted into the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1997.