While most people realise that music has been a longstanding feature of the Salvation Army, few outsiders are aware of the gifted musicians who helped to construct this important part of the organisation's identity. Gordon Cox, a retired senior lecturer in music education at the University of Reading, sets out to address this historical concern in The musical Salvationist. Much of the book's focus is on Richard Slater, a self-taught man who lectured on free thought and played in amateur orchestras before coming into contact with the Salvation Army in 1882. Given his considerable musical abilities, Slater was soon appointed to the organisation's nascent Musical Department, where, for several decades, he sought to place music-making in the service of Evangelical religion. As Cox amply demonstrates, Richard Slater was pivotal in creating a self-contained Salvationist musical world, not only by composing vocal and instrumental music but by providing aspiring musicians with in-house educational resources and opportunities (for example, instructional books, examinations and competitions). Those acquainted with Army history will find little fault with Cox's thesis, which expands upon the earlier work of Arch Wiggins, who called Slater the father of Salvation Army music. Drawing upon an impressive number of primary and secondary sources, Cox generally exhibits a good command of his subject matter. Despite being trained primarily in music history, he also manages to capture the theological motivation behind Salvationist music – the redemption of the lost – which left an indelible imprint on the Army's vocal and instrumental compositions. One only wishes that Cox had spent more time analysing the theology of Richard Slater's hymns, which number in the hundreds. To what extent did Slater's lyrics reflect the Salvation Army's Methodist and transatlantic revivalist heritage? What part did they play in framing or reinforcing the Army's understanding of the wider world? Answers to these questions might add further depth to our understanding of Slater and the organisation to which he belonged. For, as Cox points out in the book, however eager Salvationists may have been to adapt working-class culture (for example, music hall tunes, brass bands) to religious ends, they ultimately forged a musical world that separated them from the broader society. This sectarian ethos, which Slater appears to have supported quite willingly, only started to erode in the early 1990s, when the Salvation Army began to reconnect with other musical traditions. Although Cox applauds this reconciliation, he clearly hopes that Salvationists will remain engaged with their own tradition as well, not least because of the need to appreciate the substantial contributions of Richard Slater and other notable Salvationist musicians of the past. Such a balanced assessment should make this well-researched volume appealing to religious and social historians of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain.