Carl Pickens Daw Jr

Carl Pickens Daw Jr. (born March 18, 1944, in Louisville, Kentucky) is an American Episcopal priest, hymn writer, scholar, and editor whose work has been widely used in English-language congregational song. The son of a Baptist pastor, he grew up in Tennessee and studied English at Rice University, earning his B.A. in 1966, before completing graduate work at the University of Virginia, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. He taught English at the College of William and Mary from 1970 to 1978, bringing literary training in poetry, language, and interpretation to the work he later undertook in hymnody.

Daw received the M.Div. from the University of the South in 1981 and was ordained in the Episcopal Church. His ministries included service at Christ and Grace Church in Petersburg, Virginia, and as vicar-chaplain of St. Mark’s Chapel at the University of Connecticut. He began writing hymns while serving as a consultant member of the Text Committee for The Hymnal 1982, contributing original texts, translations, and metrical paraphrases.

From 1996 to 2009 Daw served as executive director of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. He was also associated with Boston University School of Theology as a teacher of hymnology and curator of its hymnological collections. His collections include A Year of Grace, To Sing God’s Praise, New Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Gathered for Worship, and Prayer Rising into Song. With Kevin R. Hackett he produced A Hymntune Psalter, and his later scholarly work includes Glory to God: A Companion. Daw’s career joins pastoral ministry, literary scholarship, liturgical theology, and the craft of congregational song.