Tracy Y. Cannon influenced Latter-day Saint hymnbook history by steering away from the pioneer folk tunes of his grandfather, Brigham Young, toward a refined, European-influenced aesthetic. As chairman of the General Music Committee, Cannon professionalized the Church’s musical identity, famously pivoting the 1948 hymnal to mirror the harmonic elegance of Lutheran and Anglican traditions. This strategic move established the solemn, organ-centric sound that defined worship for the rest of the 20th century. In this interview, biographer Shelby Fisher discusses Tracy Y. Cannon’s training as a Mormon organist and explains how he modernized the Church’s musical tradition in a way that can still be seen today.
Don’t Miss Our Latest Interviews!
Be part of a growing community exploring topics like the Bells at Temple Square and Heber J. Grant Quotes on Music and Hymns.
Tracy Y. Cannon: Musical Training and Ambition
Who was Tracy Y. Cannon?
Biographical overview: The Cannon family compound
Tracy Cannon was born in 1879 as Tracy Young Croxall to one of Brigham Young’s daughters.
Tracy’s parents divorced, and his mother married George Q. Cannon as his sixth wife. The children took Cannon as their legal surname and grew up together with Cannon’s 43 children on a compound located near the Jordan River on Salt Lake City’s west side.
Tracy was shy and small for his age, with poor eyesight and glasses, which made him a target for some of his more robust step-siblings.
Musical beginnings: From student to tabernacle organist
He showed an early interest in music and a desire to become a professional musician like his biological father, something his mother initially discouraged.
Tracy went on to become an organist at the Salt Lake Tabernacle, where he accompanied the Tabernacle Choir and played in the noon organ recital series for 30 years.
At the same time, Tracy was also a teacher and later administrator of the McCune School of Music and Art. This LDS church-owned institution was the first music conservatory established west of the Missouri River and provided the only advanced music education in the Intermountain West for many years.
Service on the General Music Committee
Tracy also served for many years on the General Music Committee of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before eventually serving as chairperson.
During his time with the committee, they published two hymnals as well as countless choral anthem collections and anthologies for organists. They also provided all training and guidance for those who served in music positions in their local congregations.
The work of the General Music Committee is what really refined the musical “voice” of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and created the sound we are accustomed to today.
What level of professional musical training did he receive?
Tracy Cannon received his initial training in organ and piano from J. J. McClellan, who served as organist at the Salt Lake Tabernacle from 1900–1925. He then went to the University of Michigan, where he studied organ with Albert Stanley and piano with the great pedagogue, Alberto Jonás.
Being able to say you had studied with a European pedagogue gave you enormous credibility.
Serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in London really ignited Cannon’s interest in studying abroad.
At the time, there were a handful of young adults from Utah studying music in Berlin that Cannon playfully called “the colony,” so a year after the close of his missionary service, Cannon returned to study piano in Berlin and organ in Paris. This was a very common practice for American musicians at the time, and being able to say you had studied with a European pedagogue gave you enormous credibility.
Did he fulfill his dream of raising musical standards in the Church?
This is an interesting question because I do not think Cannon ever felt like he achieved his dream. However, a ripple effect becomes evident when researching his life.
For example, Cannon trained the next generation of professional music teachers, performers, and composers in Utah—and beyond.
Additionally, he also influenced many amateur musicians who faithfully served their congregations for many years.
What are his best-known hymns and arrangements?
I don’t think Tracy Y. Cannon really saw himself as a composer or arranger. However, his role as a member of the General Music Committee periodically thrust him into that position.
Cannon wrote a number of hymns that are still in use in the 1985 LDS hymnal, including “Come, Rejoice” and “Praise the Lord With Heart and Voice.”
Don’t Miss Our Latest Interviews!
Stay connected with fresh content and scholarly insights every week.
How did he honor women through his hymns?
The title of a hymn like “Praise the Lord with Heart and Voice” refers primarily to the text. Tunes have their own names because they are interchangeable with texts of the same meter.
My favorite anecdote is that Tracy Cannon named his hymn tunes after the important women in his life. For example, he titled tunes “Elsie”, “Lettie”, and “Hinckley” in honor of his wives’ first (or maiden) names, and “Rose Ann”, “Francis”, and “Judith” for his daughters.
I thought this was a very sweet gesture to honor the women he loved.
Forming the Church’s General Music Committee
How did Heber J. Grant pave the way for the committee?
The biggest change that Grant made was to begin disentangling the First Presidency from direct leadership of the various auxiliary organizations and from the Church’s financial holdings.
I think Grant must have realized that the Church could not expand in the ways he wanted without releasing the narrow, communal grasp of power that had worked well during the territorial era.
I see Heber J. Grant as the church’s first “modern” president. He was the first president born and raised in Utah and the first to have never known Joseph Smith personally. Even his physical appearance was decidedly more modern than his predecessors.
As a result of Heber J. Grant’s reforms, we see the expansion and creation of new auxiliaries and committees—including the General Music Committee.
What was the General Music Committee’s purpose?
The purpose of the committee was to provide a single authoritative voice for all matters related to music that could speak on behalf of the Church.
In the absence of such official direction, congregations were left to their own devices (sometimes with less-than-ideal results).
The 1927 Hymnal: “Latter-day Saint Hymns”
Why were so many different hymnals used in the Church during the 1920s?
I think there were a number of compounding factors that led to the proliferation of hymnals and songbooks. If you look at the period between Joseph Smith’s commission of the first hymnal in 1835 and the first hymnal published by the General Music Committee in 1927, there was so much cultural turmoil within the Latter-day Saint community.
While the lived practice of music (choirs, bands, dancing, etc.) was important during this period of Latter-day Saint history, I don’t think church leadership had the capacity to concern itself with matters like official hymnals when faced with more pressing concerns, such as safety and financial solvency.
Most American denominations followed the same pattern in producing their hymnals.
In that void, there were books like Songs of Zion, published by the church’s Northeastern Mission, and Latter-day Saints’ Psalmody, compiled by a group affiliated with the Tabernacle Choir.
If we look more globally, most American denominations followed the same pattern in producing their hymnals, beginning with publications written and disseminated locally by congregations or small groups before adopting an official hymnal assembled by a committee.
What were the goals for the 1927 hymnbook?
The committee recognized the need to establish consistency across congregations, especially as the Church grew. The 1927 hymnal, called Latter-day Saint Hymns, was the General Music Committee’s first attempt at creating an updated, official church hymnal.
Congregations had considerable latitude at this time in which hymnals they used.
For example, many wards in Utah were using Songs of Zion (even though it was meant for missionaries), while others were compiling their own cut-and-paste choir hymnals.
Which poets and composers caught their attention?
The General Music Committee was not necessarily discerning with the 1927 hymnal. Many of the texts they collected were difficult to sing and poorly executed.
Orson F. Whitney
One poet who appeared several times in the hymnal was Orson F. Whitney. Whitney was an apostle, a prolific writer, and a bit of a mystic.
He was part of an underground group that believed in the doctrine of reincarnation. He was publicly rebuked for his teachings and renounced them before being appointed an apostle.
Leroy Robertson
Another contributor who made a more lasting impact on the Latter-day Saint musical compendium was Leroy Robertson. His hymn tune was selected by the committee to win a $25 prize.
At the time, Robertson was a public school music teacher in rural Utah, unknown to the committee. But this exposure helped catapult both his teaching and compositional careers to the next level.
It wasn’t long before Robertson gained a teaching position at Brigham Young University.
How was the 1927 hymnal received by members?
Many bishops balked at the cost of replacing perfectly usable copies of Songs of Zion or the popular Deseret Sunday School Songbook and simply ignored the committee’s suggestion to purchase the new hymnal. Instead, they continued working with whatever books they had been using.
Although it wasn’t uniformly adopted, the committee achieved several successes with the 1927 hymnal.
For example, Latter-day Saint Hymns solved some issues in Psalmody (such as strange formatting that was nearly impossible for the accompanist to read) and began to address the problem of uniformity among church congregations.
The 1948 and 1950 Latter-day Saint Hymnals
Why was a new hymnbook needed in the 1940s?
Several factors led the committee to determine that a new hymnal would be beneficial in the 1940s. For example:
- Hymn Quality: Many of the songs in the 1927 were unsingable.
- Administrative Stability: The Church was on a more stable financial and political footing by the 1940s and was therefore finally ready to invest in a more versatile hymnal as it continued to grow beyond Utah.
- Diverse Membership: The 1927 hymnal also included several hymns that were steeped in regional imagery and lore. Members outside the Wasatch Front found those difficult to relate to.
What radical “policy reversal” characterized the 1948 hymnal?
Tracy Y. Cannon was serving as the chairperson of the General Music Committee at this point. His experience as a committee member during the production of the 1927 hymnal served him well, and Cannon created a much more rigorous and systematic process for selecting hymns.
When seeking inspiration for their new hymn collection, the committee made the rather radical decision to look beyond Mormonism to mainline Protestant traditions.
This was in direct opposition to the approach they took in 1927.
This was in direct opposition to the approach they took in 1927 when they sought to cultivate “homegrown talent.”
The impulse to look to the musical traditions of other denominations can be traced directly to both Tracy Cannon and Alexander Schreiner (a colleague of Cannon’s at the Salt Lake Tabernacle).
Both men had studied in Europe and gained an appreciation for the refined, harmonic elegance of the Lutheran and Anglican traditions.
What hymns did Tracy Cannon contribute to this edition?
In addition to his committee leadership, Cannon also contributed several hymns and/or tunes, including:
- “Come, Rejoice”
- “God of Power, God of Right”
- “Praise the Lord with Heart and Voice”
- “The Lord Be with Us”
- “How Beautiful Thy Temples, Lord”
How did the Church’s marketing for this hymnal differ from the 1927 version?
The 1948 hymnal was released with considerably more fanfare—and clearly designated as the Church’s only official hymnal going forward. Both the celebration of the book’s publication and its lensing as the new official hymnbook are evident in articles published at the time in the Deseret News and church magazines.
Unlike in 1927, congregations were now expected to make the necessary adjustments.
The General Music Committee also sponsored a hymn festival to generate excitement around the new hymnal.
The Legacy and Future of Church Hymnbooks
How did the 1948/1950 hymnal influence future Church hymnbooks?
Though the 1985 hymn committee made significant changes that differ from the 1948/1950 hymnal, such as removing the section for the choir and significantly reducing the sections for men’s and women’s voices, the two publications are organizationally very similar.
This is a pretty significant departure.
Perhaps more importantly from a musical standpoint, 1985 Hymns follows the same traditional four-part harmony based on 17th-century Western European practice.
This type of voice-leading centers the organ as the primary instrument in worship.
If you look at the newest hymns released by the Church, you see a mix of traditional four-part harmony and fluid pianistic textures that are not well-suited to the organ. The new hymns also include chord symbols along the top stave, primarily for guitar accompaniment.
This is a pretty significant departure from both the 1948/1950 and 1985 hymnals.
Want More Scholar Interviews in Your Inbox?
Stay connected with fresh content and scholarly insights every week.
About the Scholar
Shelby Fisher is a professional organist, music educator, and the Director of Music at Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City. Her academic expertise centers on organ performance and sacred music history, underpinned by a Master of Music degree from the University of Utah and a Doctor of Sacred Music from the Graduate Theological Foundation. She is also a Faculty Associate in the Music Department of the College of Arts & Sciences at Utah State University. Fisher’s research has appeared in The Diapason and Sacred Music, culminating in her comprehensive biography, Tracy Y. Cannon: Tabernacle Organist and Pioneering Musician, 1879–1961. She currently serves as Dean of the Salt Lake City chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
Further Reading
Explore more From the Desk articles about Latter-day Saint hymns and music:
- What Are the Bells at Temple Square?
- What Does President Oaks Teach About Singing Hymns?
- How Was the Hymn “Carry On” Written?
- What Hymn Did Andrés Carlos González Write?
- What Hymns Did W. W. Phelps Write?
Latter-day Saint Hymn Evolution
Read what top scholars and publishers say about Latter-day Saint hymnbook history and musical traditions:
- Tracy Y. Cannon: Tabernacle Organist and Pioneering Musician, 1879-1961 (Signature Books)
- The 1927 Latter-day Saint Hymns (Times and Seasons)
- History of Hymnals (ChurchofJesusChrist.org)
- How to Make (and Unmake) a Mormon Hymnbook (BYU Religious Studies Center)
- You Have Been Listening to “Latter-day Saint Music,” 1937 (Keepapitchinin)
- The Sound of Mormonism: A Media History of Latter-Day Saints (Utah State University)
One reply on “How Did Tracy Y. Cannon Shape Latter-day Saint Hymnbooks?”
Alexander Schreiner as a 14 year old immigrant from Germany was a member of Tracy Y. Cannon’s Cannon Ward when he was bishop. Schreiner was also the ward organist at the time.