Introduction

Biography

Meredith’s fa­ther played the vio­lin, and his mo­ther sang in the church choir.

By age 10, Is­aac was tak­ing or­gan les­sons. By age 12, he was sing­ing al­to in the choir at the Oak Street Me­tho­dist Church in Nor­ris­town.

At 13, he was con­vert­ed by the per­son­al in­vi­ta­tion of his bro­ther. For a num­ber of years, he sang to pri­son­ers in the coun­ty jail each Sun­day morn­ing. In the sum­mer of 1891, while va­ca­tion­ing in Ocean Grove, New Jer­sey, a Dr. Mun­hall in­vit­ed him to sing in ev­an­gel­is­tic meet­ings.

Shortly there­af­ter, he en­tered ev­an­gel­ism & be­gan writ­ing Gos­pel songs. In 1893, he and Grant Tul­lar found­ed the Tul­lar-Me­re­dith mu­sic pub­lish­ing house. Me­re­dith him­self com­posed ov­er 1,000 songs.

During World War I, he served in France with the Young Men Chris­tian’s As­so­cia­tion. Af­ter the war, in ad­di­tion to his mu­sic bu­si­ness, he served as mu­sic di­rect­or for (at va­ri­ous times) the Bush­wick Ave­nue Me­tho­dist Church, Brook­lyn, New York; and the Ped­die Me­mo­ri­al Bap­tist Church and Cen­ten­ary Me­tho­dist Church, New­ark, New Jer­sey.

Works

• Sermons in Song, with Grant Tul­lar (Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois: Tul­lar-Me­re­dith, 1893)
• Sunday School Hymns No. 1, with Grant Tul­lar & Jo­seph Ler­man (New York: Tul­lar-Me­re­dith, 1903)
• The Bi­ble School Hym­nal, with Grant Tul­lar (New York: Tul­lar-Me­re­dith, 1907)
• Sunday School Hymns No. 2, with Grant Tul­lar (New York: Tul­lar-Me­re­dith, 1912)
• Jehovah’s Praise (New York: Tul­lar-Me­re­dith, 1928)