Ralph Erskine Hudson

Ralph Erskine Hudson was an American gospel-song composer, editor, publisher, music teacher, and licensed Methodist Episcopal preacher born at Napoleon, Ohio, on July 9, 1843. His family moved to Philadelphia while he was young. During the American Civil War he served with Pennsylvania troops and spent part of his service as a nurse at the military hospital in Annapolis, Maryland. After the war he taught music in Alliance, Ohio, and eventually established a music-publishing business there.

Hudson became known for the energetic gospel-song style associated with camp meetings, evangelistic gatherings, and late nineteenth-century Protestant revivalism. His collections included “Salvation Echoes” in 1882, “Gems of Gospel Songs” in 1884, “The Temperance Songster” in 1886, and “Songs for the Ransomed” in 1887. He also wrote “My Life, My Love, I Give to Thee” and supplied music or refrains for older hymn texts.

The musical ancestry of “Blessed Be the Name” begins with Hudson's 1887 setting called BLESSED NAME, originally printed with selected material from Charles Wesley's “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” William J. Kirkpatrick subsequently arranged the music for William H. Clark's new Common Meter text in 1888.