He began studying at the University of Kansas, but attended a revival meeting conducted by evangelist Jesse Kellems and accepted an offer to become his musical director.
Writing and delivering his weekly sermons proved more problematic, and the Boy Preacher, as he was known locally, resigned to devote his creative energies to the world of music.
Returning to Kansas, he married vocalist and musician Zora Layman on May 8, 1920, and the couple eventually relocated to New York City.
They toured the British Isles, where Luther met the future Queen of the United Kingdom and did a set accompanied on the drums by the Prince of Wales.
In 1928, with his singing only gradually returning to top form, Luther met and became acquainted with fellow Kansan Carson Robison, who had teamed with tenor Vernon Dalhart to make many dozens of top-selling recordings of rural American favorites, shortly to be known in the trade as hillbilly music.
When Robison formed his own cowboy singing group for a British tour in 1932, Luther assembled a new trio with his wife and baritone Leonard Stokes.
Created and written by folklorist/writer/performer Ethel Park Richardson, the network series dramatized old Appalachian ballads as well as newer country music narrative songs.
Well-known radio actors played the dramatic roles, with the musical bridges between scenes furnished by the Frank Luther Trio.
Richardson, whom Luther would refer to forty years later as a "wonderful woman", introduced him to many mountain songs and influenced his repertoire.
While on her show, Zora Layman became the first country female singer to have a major hit record with Bob Miller's "Seven Years With the Wrong Man".
From 1928 until the outbreak of World War II, he recorded hundreds of vocal choruses with popular dance bands of the day.
The High Hatters, Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, Leo Reisman, Russell Wooding's Red Caps, Joe Venuti, and many other recording bands featured Luther's jazzy tenor vocals.
"Mother Goose Songs" and "Nursery Rhymes", the first two albums, featured Luther's tenor voice in brief interpretations of traditional children's tunes, tied together with gentle and pleasant narration.
At one point in the Decca set, Luther introduced a lullaby by calmly saying, "Mother tucks you in, kisses you, and leaves you in the nice, friendly darkness.
While his recordings for children remained his chief claim to fame, Luther made a number of successful 78rpm album sets for Decca in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Performed with a sensitivity and sentimentality stylistically consistent with the famous American composer's approach, Luther's renditions were active in the Decca catalogue for some fifteen years.
May the Red Rose Live Alway", "The Hour For Thee and Me", "Beautiful Dreamer", "Sweetly She Sleeps, My Alice Fair", "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Comrades, Fill No Glass For Me" were acclaimed by music critics of the day.