“Give the World a Smile” was the theme song for the Stamps Quartet, and probably the first Gospel song to become a “gold record.”
According to Otis Deaton, in November 1924, he and M. L. Yandell were students at the Stamps School of Music in Jacksonville, Texas. Yandell wrote a tune and asked James Rowe if he would write words for it. Rowe was not able to come up with suitable words, so Yandell asked Deaton, and Deaton wrote lyrics called “Keep the Song Wave Rolling On,” but when they showed this song to V. O. Stamps, he pointed out that there was already a similar song by H. W. Elliott. Deaton then wrote the lyrics for “Give the World a Smile.” V. O. paid each of them $5.00 cash for the song.
Deaton’s recollection concludes, “So I never sold the words nor assigned them to anyone. I gave V. O. permission to print the song. The next year, 1925, the Stamps Quartet recorded it on Victor label, and that’s how ‘Give the World a Smile’ was born. The Stamps Quartet was the first Gospel Quartet to record on Victor Label, which became RCA Victor label. The Stamps Quartet recorded 'Give The World A Smile' and the recording sold over one million records. www.thestampsquartet.com 'Give The World A Smile'.
The basic lyrics for the chorus are:
The United States copyright status of this song is not clear. Assuming it was first copyrighted in 1924, it would have been eligible for renewal in 1952 (28 years after its first copyright). If it was renewed in 1952, it will enter public domain in 2019 (95 years after its first copyright), but if it was not renewed in 1952, it is now in public domain. A search of the Library of Congress web site shows that there have been later attempts to copyright this song. Most of them are arrangements, copyrights on collections (which do not alter the copyright status of songs in the collection), or sound recordings, but some appear to be attempts to re-copyright the original song as part of a large accumulation of songs. It should be kept in mind that only the original copyright and any 1952 renewal are valid.
The song, as sung by the Corley Family (in a style that might be called "folk-primitive")can be heard on-line. More recently it has been recorded by a number of different Gospel quartets, and it is still the theme song of the Stamps Quartet.
A version of the song was recorded in 2000 by James Blackwood.