Rudy Atwood

==Music career==
Atwood joined evangelist [[Charles E. Fuller (Baptist minister)|Charles E. Fuller]]'s popular ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'' nationwide radio broadcast in 1937, accompanying the choir and paid quartet on the piano.<ref name=Ward /> By the end of that year, the weekly program with Atwood at the piano was heard by a nationwide audience of 10&nbsp;million listeners on 88&nbsp;stations.<ref name=Ward /> In its heyday in the 1940s and early 1950s, the program was carried on hundreds of stations across the United States on the [[Mutual Broadcasting System]] and, later, the [[ABC Radio Network]], and the audience had grown to an estimated 20&nbsp;million listeners.<ref name=Gentry /><ref>Ward, p. 3.</ref><ref name=RadioWorld>{{cite journal|title=Charles E. Fuller's ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour''|first=Read G.|last= Burgan|journal=[[Radio World]]|date=February 2, 1996|url=http://www.rgbdigitalaudio.com/Old_Fashioned_Revival_Hour_.htm|via=rgbdigitalaudio.com}}</ref> Atwood played the piano for the entire 32-year run of the ''Old Fashioned Revival Hour'', until Fuller's death in 1968.<ref name=Gentry /><ref>{{cite news|title=Rudy Atwood|newspaper=[[Pomona Progress Bulletin]]|date=September 27, 1956|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73243457/pomona-progress-bulletin-92756/|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}{{open access}}</ref> Atwood wrote of the broadcast's theme song, "Heavenly Sunshine", "A thrill reaches to my toes each time I play [it]", and the familiar piece was his most-requested number during concerts.<ref>Atwood, p. 35-36.</ref> He continued to play on the successor program, ''The Joyful Sound'', when [[David Allan Hubbard|David Hubbard]] succeeded Fuller.<ref name=Ward /><ref>Atwood, p. 121.</ref>

Atwood's signature style of continuous left-hand [[tuplet#Triplet|triplet-note]] [[octave doubling]]s and right-hand [[arpeggios]] captivated audiences and was widely copied by many other evangelical pianists of the period.<ref name=Gentry /><ref name=RadioWorld /> His prominence was enhanced by the popularity of radio as a mass medium for evangelism in the 1930s–1950s by such radio evangelists as Fuller, [[M. R. DeHaan]], [[Theodore Epp]], {{nowrap|[[G. E. Lowman]],}} [[Percy Crawford]], and, later, [[Billy Graham]].<ref name=Gentry /> Atwood was known as "the most imitated pianist in gospel music" for his improvisations and arrangements of traditional hymns.<ref name=BC /><ref name=WV /> In his treatise on the increasing importance of the piano in twentieth-century American Protestant [[evangelism]], ''The Origins of Evangelical Pianism'', author Theodore L. Gentry called Atwood "probably the most important pianist of the radio revival period".<ref name=Gentry>{{cite journal|title=The Origins of Evangelical Pianism|first=Theodore L.|last= Gentry|journal=American Music|volume=11|number=1|date=Spring 1993|pages=106–108|publisher=University of Illinois Press|doi=10.2307/3052448 |jstor=3052448}}</ref>

Throughout his career, Atwood made concert appearances, playing the piano at various churches and concert halls until shortly before his death at age&nbsp;79 in 1992.<ref name=WV/> Among his audience favorites were "[[Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing]]", "[[In the Garden (1912 song)|In the Garden]]", "[[When They Ring the Golden Bells]]", "Now I Belong to Jesus", and "[[When I Survey the Wondrous Cross]]".<ref>Atwood, pp. 89 and 117.</ref> His performances included New York City's [[Madison Square Garden (1925)|Madison Square Garden]] with [[Jack Wyrtzen]], [[Constitution Hall]] in Washington, D.C., [[Red Rocks Amphitheatre]] in Colorado with [[Ralph Carmichael]] conducting an orchestra, [[Maple Leaf Gardens]] in Toronto with Fuller speaking, and the [[Hollywood Bowl]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Gospel recital set at Winifred church|page=9C|newspaper=Marysville Advocate|location=[[Marysville, Kansas]]|date=October 8, 1992|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68729545/marysville-advocate-1081992/|via=[[Newspapers.com]]}}{{open access}}</ref><ref>Atwood, pp. 107 and 110.</ref>

Atwood became staff pianist in 1968 at the [[Church of the Open Door]] in Los Angeles, where his family attended, also playing at the large [[Youth for Christ]] rallies held at the church on Saturday nights.<ref>Atwood, pp. 39, 75, and 115.</ref> He was pianist at Perry Hall Baptist Church in a suburb of [[Baltimore, Maryland]], from 1971 to 1973.<ref name=WV /> Atwood wrote in his autobiography that wherever he played in a church, he felt that music should be an integral part of worship, citing Bible verses in which singing and music-making are mentioned: {{bibleverse|Psalms|104:33}}: "I will sing to the Lord as long as I live", and {{bibleverse|Ephesians|5:19}}: "Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts".<ref>Atwood, p. 70.</ref>