G.T. Speer
Musician · 1891–1966 · Fayette, Georgia
Best known for
Songwriter
George Thomas “Dad” Speer was the patriarch of the Singing Speer Family — the Georgia gospel group that, beginning in 1921, helped invent the mixed-voice Southern-gospel format that Vestal, Brock, Ben, and Rosa Nell Speer carried into the 1990s. He and his wife Lena taught singing schools across the South and wrote an estimated six hundred gospel songs together.
Assisted by AI.
Spot something off? Help us fix it.
- Born March 10, 1891, in Fayette, Georgia, the son of fiddler James J. Speer and Emma Speer.
- Grew up in Cullman County and on a farm near Double Springs in Winston County, Alabama.
- Served in the U.S. Army during World War I.
- Met Lena Brock at a singing convention after the war; the two married in 1920.
- Formed the Singing Speer Family in 1921 with his wife Lena; they sang and taught singing schools across Alabama and Georgia.
- With Lena, wrote an estimated 600 gospel songs across their teaching careers.
- Joined the James D. Vaughan Music Publishing Company of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee in 1934 as a teacher and songwriter.
- Brought the Speer Family to early Nashville television on WLAC Channel 5 in the early 1950s and to Bullitt Records in 1955.
- The family became regular performers on the syndicated Singing Time in Dixie in 1964.
- Died September 7, 1966.
- Inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1971.