O What a Savior

"O What a Savior" is a Southern gospel song written by the Free Will Baptist musician Marvin P. Dalton in 1948. The first line is "Once I was straying in sin's dark valley" and the chorus starts "O what a Savior". It was first recorded in January 1950 by the Original Stamps Quartet, a male-voice quartet, accompanied by piano.^[1] It was included as the first hymn in the Blackwood Brothers collection Sunday Meeting Songs in 1957.^[2] Dalton's works were popular locally in the 1940s and 1950s, and he is also known for his hymn "Looking for a City".^[3][4]