Edward Boatner received his musical education at Western University (Kansas), Boston Conservatory, and graduated from Chicago College of Music. Boatner published his first arrangement, "Give Me Jesus" in 1918. Along with his more than two hundred published arrangements of sprituals, he has written: "Thirty Afro - American Choral Spirituals," "Sixteen Solo Spirituals for Voice and Piano," "Spiritual Triumphant Old and New," and "Story of the Spiritual: Thirty Spirituals and Their Origins." He was music director of the National Baptist Convention (1925 - 1933), Dean of Music at Wiley College, and operated the Edward Boatner Studio in New York City.

Source: Perkins Holly, Ellistine. Biographies of Black Composers and Songwriters; A Supplementary Textbook. Iowa:Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1990.