William Walker (May 6, 1809 – September 24, 1875) was an American Baptist song leader, shape note "singing master", and compiler of four shape note tunebooks, most notable of which are the influential The Southern Harmony and The Christian Harmony, which has been in continuous use (republished 2010). Life Walker was born in Martin's Mills (near Cross Keys), South Carolina, and grew up near Spartanburg. From an early age he became deeply involved in music and became a song leader in the Baptist church. To distinguish him from other William Walkers in Spartanburg, he was nicknamed Singing Billy. He married Amy Golightly in 1832 and they lived in Spartanburg. Her sister Thurza had married Benjamin Franklin White in 1825; while is clear that there was strife between the two brothers-in-law, there is no evidence for the claim, sometimes heard among Sacred Harp singers, that B.F. White helped Walker compile the Southern Harmony, only to be cheated of authorship rights when it was finally published. In 1842 the Whites moved from Spartanburg District, SC to Harris County, Georgia, and in 1844 B. F. White, in concert with Elisha J. King published The Sacred Harp. Walker died in Spartanburg in 1875. Walker is buried in Magnolia Cemetery, Spartanburg, Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Tunebooks Walker learned shape note music in singing schools; it had been used by Baptist and Methodist preachers in the Second Great Awakening to help spread Christianity in the South. Because the music could be read and sung by amateurs, hymns in shape note annotation became the centerpiece of many revivals and camp meetings on the frontier. Walker composed his first piece of music at the age of 18. In 1835, Walker published a tunebook entitled The Southern Harmony, a compilation of hymns using the four-shape shape note system of notation. This collection was revised in 1840, 1847 and 1854. In 1846 he issued The Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist. Intended as an appendix to the Southern Harmony, the Pocket Harmonist contains numerous camp-meeting songs and their with refrains. After the Civil War, Walker published a tunebook entitled The Christian Harmony (1867), in which he adopted a seven-shape notation. He incorporated over half of the contents of The Southern Harmony into the Christian Harmony, adding alto parts to those pieces which had lacked them. For the additional three shapes, Walker devised his own system - an inverted key-stone for "do",