William Billings

William Billings (1746-1800), American composer of choral music, the foremost representative of early American music.

Billings was born in Boston on October 7, 1746. Largely self-trained in music, he was a tanner by trade and a friend of such figures of the American Revolution as Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. Billings's New England Psalm-Singer (1770), engraved by Revere, was the first collection of music entirely by an American. He was the first American to compose fuguing tunes (a provincial English and American choral genre, in which an initial chordal section is followed by lively melodic imitation). As an itinerant singing master for local singing schools, Billings was part of an American folk tradition. Many of his hymns, anthems, psalm settings, and fuguing tunes remain in print in southern U.S. shape-note hymnals (folk hymnals in which the tone of the scale is shown by the note shape).

Especially known among his compositions are his canon (round) “When Jesus Wept,” the anthem “David's Lamentation,” and the hymn “Chester,” written to his own patriotic text and unofficially the national hymn of the American Revolution. Billings died in Boston on September 26, 1800.