Various Sacred Harp & Shape Note Singing 1922-1950 (4-CD Box Set)

(JSP Records) 81 tracks, digipack

The Sacred Harp singing style is unique to America, treasured today both for it's hauntingly attractive harmonies and it's links to a seemingly lost rural past. Evolving from church singing-school organizations of the 18th century, it was and remains a community movement, with all-day singing conventions as much a social as a musical gathering, these days concentrated mainly in the Deep South. The main source for material is still B. F. White & E. J. King's 'The Sacred Harp' - first published in 1844.

The term 'shape note' comes from the book's system of musical notation - symbols being used rather than the more familiar 'staff' method. Here, from it's heartlands of Georgia and Alabama - but also from locations as far-flung as New York and Indiana, is a singular music for too long thrust to the sidelines.