[2] The influence of his sacred music on American popular culture through revival meetings, religious conventions, circuit chautauquas, and church hymnals was substantial enough by the 1920s to garner a satirical reference by Sinclair Lewis in the novel Elmer Gantry.

[4] The music publishing business he started in 1881 and that eventually bore his name was the highest volume producer of hymnbooks in America at the time of his death.

[7] His focus was turned to sacred music through his experience leading songs at revivals and worship services of Methodist Episcopal churches, first in East Brady and then, starting in 1881, Oil City, Pennsylvania.

[8] Excell was described as "a big, robust six-footer, with a six-in caliber voice"[9] and extraordinary range that enabled him to solo as baritone or tenor.

Publisher George H. Doran observed him leading songs at a revival and later noted that Excell "was a master of mass control; he might easily have become conductor of some mighty chorus".

[10] These talents fostered his early success as a rural singing teacher in Pennsylvania and helped secure a position as church choirmaster for the two years preceding his move to Illinois.

[12] Vincent was also co-founder of the original Chautauqua Assembly and involved with the burgeoning church youth movements of the era, such as Christian Endeavor and Epworth Leagues.

In 1885 he met Sam P. Jones, a Georgia evangelist of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was invited to join him as vocalist the following year, which included a campaign in Toronto during October 1886.

While serving as Jones' chorister, Excell became adept at crafting large volunteer choirs out of recruits from multiple local churches that had never sung together before.

He worked as a vocalist for William E. Biederwolf, a Presbyterian minister active with the Winona Lake Bible Conference and its related chautauqua, with whom he also collaborated on a number of hymnbooks.

A contemporary writer explained that prominent evangelists always "had their leading singers, they were billed on the hoardings of the cities after the manner of theatrical companies – Moody and Sankey; Sam Jones and Excell; Chapman and Alexander; Torrey and Towner; and so on.

Excell and his song books received significant exposure in the majority of U.S. states and Canadian provinces of his day during the twenty years they worked together.

Some of the most substantial were: The portfolios of copyrights for contemporary songs and plates for classic hymns that Excell accumulated as a publisher and composer also led to printing work on denominational hymnals.

He produced the 1909 edition of Spiritual Hymns of Brethren in Christ in which he held copyrights for about one third of the six hundred songs selected by the hymnal committee.

Colleagues at the International Sunday School Association, where he had served for thirty-six years, said the following of him at their next convention:[28]Mr. Excell will be remembered as the great song leader.

One of these was The Excell Hymnal published by his company in 1925; it was completed by his long-time collaborators Hamp Sewell and W. E. M. Hackleman as "a fitting climax to its long line of illustrious predecessors".