William Whitney Pursell (June 9, 1926 – September 3, 2020) was an American composer and onetime session pianist.
He studied composition at The Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore and arranged for the U.S. Air Force Band while serving in World War II.
His symphonic poem "Christ Looking Over Jerusalem" (the first movement of "Three Biblical Scenes for Orchestra") was the inaugural recipient of the Edward B. Benjamin Prize in 1953.
He played piano on many of Johnny Cash's albums in the 1960s, and worked as a session musician and arranger for Patsy Cline, Johnny Paycheck, Hoover, Joan Baez, Eric Andersen, Scotty Moore, J.J. Cale, Willie Nelson, Dan Fogelberg, and others.
On September 3, 2020, Pursell's daughter, Laura, announced on Facebook that he had died at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville after contracting COVID-19 amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee and developing pneumonia.