This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we return to our American stories. Up next, a story about a man who had an extraordinary impact on American music,

writing bluegrass and gospel standards such as, I'll Fly Away and Turn Your Radio on.

Here's our own Monty Montgomery with a story.

Albert E. Brumley was born on October 29, 1905.

Here's his granddaughters, Betsy and Elaine, to tell the rest of the story.

Grandpa grew up in a little town in Oklahoma.

He was born near Sparrow, Oklahoma, close to Rock Island, Oklahoma.

He grew up really poor.

His family were sharecroppers, and they sharecropped cotton.

If you've ever picked cotton, if you've ever done that, it's terrible.

It's awful.

It hurts.

I mean, because I remember doing it as a school experiment when I was a kid, I don't know why they had us do that.

You know, the pricks from the thorns or whatever those little sticky things are.

But that was his childhood, but it was

musical because his dad played instruments and taught him how to love music and he played

the piano. And we really hated picking cotton, didn't like the life, which is one of the reasons

he decided to move toward the music in Hartford, Arkansas. I've heard two different stories.

The one that I grew up hearing was he walked over from Spiro and his home farm to Hartford

with, you know, it varies, but around $2.50 or so, not much money in his pocket at all.

Hartford is like actually 28 miles from Spiro, so the fact that he walked 28 miles to go to school

...