Joe, I've been working on how Welsh and American gospel music went back and force between the US and Wales. Since the Welsh, of course, love great church music, they were bowled over by Moody and Sankey when they came to the UK. Sankey granted only one exception and allowed a number of his and other gospel hymns in his songbooks to be translated into Welsh. Some of the Welsh translations of US hymns are now so Welsh the Welsh have forgotten the US origins. In addition to Moody in Chicago around 1900, there was minister, musician and college president Frank Gunsaulus, who started the mega-Central Church in the still-standing Auditorium Theatre. His music director was the famous Welsh musician, Daniel Protheroe, who put together one of the first hymnals with both Welsh and English lyrics for each hymn. Much of the tradition of easy to sing hymns came out of the Welsh and American revival traditions that began around 1860 and continued up to WWI. Evan Roberts, who started one of the Welsh revivals, also teamed up with Gypsy Smith, another great-named revivalist in the Billy Sunday tradition. Both made gospel singing a major part of their programs. There is an amazing amount of material on all this in Google Books!
Chris