Sacred-music writer spends 100th working on new songs

When music publisher G. Schirmer came out with its list of "100 Greatest Sacred Songs" a few years back, five were written — both words and music — by A.W. "Mickey" Hart.

"If Christ Should Come Tomorrow," "They Found Him In The Temple," "I Walked In God's Garden," "God Knows," "My Mother's Prayer." These are among the Hart songs that have earned him a place in the hearts of sacred-music lovers everywhere.

In the mid-20th century, few people were writing more beloved songs than Hart. One of the first LDS songwriters to tap into the popular market, he laid the groundwork for the explosion that would come later.

His songs, including "He That Hath Clean Hands," "The Heavens Were Opened" and "The Missionary," were sung by Jessie Evans Smith , wife of LDS Church President Joseph Fielding Smith, among others, and were part of the standard repertoire of church choirs and soloists everywhere.

He has written more than 360 songs — and he's not done yet.

If Hart shares a name with the famous drummer of the Grateful Dead, he shares longevity with legendary songwriter Irving Berlin. Hart turned 100 on December 28.

He celebrated that milestone — and the first few weeks of the new year — by working on new songs. "We Honor Our Savior and King" would be a good one to sing at the Second Coming, muses Hart, who still sits down at the piano regularly.

His "I Know God Lives!" is a tribute to LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley. "I thought I better do one for President Hinckley," Hart says. After all, not only has Hart dedicated songs to other LDS church presidents, but he knew President Hinckley's father, Bryant S. Hinckley, when they were both living in Chicago.

That was when Hart was studying at the Chicago Music College and where the elder Hinckley was an LDS mission president. How Hart ended up in Chicago is just one of many interesting stories he tells.

Born in Preston, Idaho, he began to study music only because a piano teacher ran up a $6 debt with his father. The teacher worked it off in piano lessons, at 35 cents a session.

Hart loved music, despite the fact that "my fingers were too short to really hit the keys. I could only do fifths." It might have slowed him down a bit, but it didn't stop him.

He attended the Agriculture College in Logan, as Utah State University was known in those days. (And he later wrote "Hail The Utah Aggies," the school's official fight song.)