Paul A. Richardson is Professor of Music in the School of the Arts at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where he teaches voice and church music. In 2007, he received the university’s John H. Buchanan Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching.

A past president of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, Dr. Richardson was named a Fellow of that organization in 2010. He served on the editorial committee for The Worshiping Church (Hope, 1990) and contributed to its Worship Leaders Edition (1991). He also wrote for the Handbook to The Baptist Hymnal (Convention, 1992) and The New Century Hymnal Companion (Pilgrim Press, 1998). Together with Harry Eskew and David Music, he is joint author of Singing Baptists: Studies in Baptist Hymnody in America (Church Street Press, 1994). Will You Come and Follow Me, a worship and devotional resource on faith, vocation, and learning (Samford University Press) was released in 2007. His most recent book, a collaboration with David Music of Baylor University, is “I Will Sing the Wondrous Story”: A History of Baptist Hymnody in America (Mercer University Press, 2008). He and Tim Sharp of the American Choral Directors Association have edited Jubilate, Amen! a Festschrift for Donald P. Hustad (Pendragon, 2010). With Michael Hawn of Southern Methodist University, he is preparing a new edition of Sing with Understanding, a hymnology textbook by Harry Eskew and Hugh T. McElrath, to be published by GIA.