Kemble Stout was born in 1916 to a music store owner in Kirksville, MO. In 1945, Stout, along with his wife and two daughters, moved to the Pullman area to begin a 34 year teaching career with the Washington State University music department. He was elected department chair in 1951 and served for sixteen years until 1967 and retiring in 1979. The next year, the listening library in Kimbrough Hall was dedicated in his name.

Stout wrote more than 50 musical compositions and arrangements, most of them choral works. As a pianist, he performed in two-piano duos and other faculty ensembles, including The Kimbrough Trio. For two decades he directed the Greystone Presbyterian Church choir. He wrote scripts and recorded half-hour radio shows for a series titled The Legendary Pianists. The 242 programs, which consist of the reel-to-reel recordings in this collection, were distributed for broadcast use by WSU’s Radio Tape Network, aired weekly over KWSU and more than 200 educational and commercial stations nationally during the 1960s and 1970s.