William M. Golden
Musician · 1878–1934 · Webster County, Mississippi
Best known for
Songwriter
William M. Golden was a Mississippi gospel songwriter and singing-school teacher whose hymns — “Where the Soul Never Dies” and “A Beautiful Life” chief among them — entered the standard country and bluegrass gospel repertoire and have been recorded by everyone from Jim Reeves and Johnny Cash to Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice. Most of his best-known songs were written during an eight-year stretch in the state penitentiary, a biographical detail that gives the hopeful imagery of his lyrics an unusual undertow.
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- Born William Matthew Golden on January 28, 1878, in Webster County, Mississippi.
- Worked as an itinerant gospel composer and singing-school teacher across the Deep South in the early twentieth century.
- Wrote “To Canaan’s Land I’m on My Way” — better known by its subtitle “Where the Soul Never Dies” — in 1914 while serving time in the Mississippi state penitentiary.
- Wrote “A Beautiful Life” (also titled “Each Day I’ll Do a Golden Deed”) in 1918, also during his prison years.
- “Where the Soul Never Dies” was first commercially recorded in 1928 by Rev. M. L. Thrasher and His Gospel Singers and has since been cut by Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice, and dozens of other country and bluegrass acts.
- Also credited with the gospel song “Will My Mother Know Me There?”
- Died May 13, 1934, in a traffic accident near Eupora, Mississippi.