R. Fisher Boyce
Musician · 1887–1968 · Rutherford County, Tennessee
Best known for
Songwriter
R. Fisher Boyce was a Rutherford County, Tennessee dairy farmer, voice teacher, and Baptist deacon whose 1938 hymn “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” has become one of the most-recorded country and bluegrass Christmas standards, cut by Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, the Judds, Patty Loveless, and Alison Krauss, among many others.
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- Born in November 1887 in the small community of Link, in southern Rutherford County, Tennessee, the third of six children.
- Sang solo and in quartets from his early teens; later taught private voice lessons across the county.
- Married Cora Carlton of the Rockvale community in 1910; the couple raised eleven children, five of whom lived to adulthood.
- Served as a deacon at Mt. Carmel Baptist Church near Murfreesboro.
- Worked dairy farming, insurance, and nursery sales to support his family; said he could only concentrate on writing songs out in the barn at milking time.
- Wrote “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem” around 1938, on the family’s Plainview dairy farm.
- Sold the song outright to the Vaughan Music Publishing Company; Vaughan’s Adger M. Pace arranged it for the Vaughan Radio Quartet and is often given mistaken authorial credit as a result.
- Died October 1, 1968, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at age 80, beating time with his arm as his family sang at his bedside.
