Journal issue: Vol. 3, No. 1
Introducing Vol. 3, No. 1 of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter
The sixth issue of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter features stories about key figures and events from Sacred Harp’s history and celebrates the Sacred Harp Museum’s rich collection of songbooks, papers, and recordings. Our issue begins with company executive secretary Karen Rollins’s and vice president Jesse P. Karlsberg’s tributes to 2014 posthumous citation award…
Honoring Jeff and Shelbie Sheppard: 2014 Citation Awards
On April 12, 2014, at the annual State Line Singing, the Sacred Harp Publishing Company presented Pam Nunn and Rene Greene with citation awards recognizing the contributions of their parents, Jeff and Shelbie Sheppard, to Sacred Harp singing. Jeff and Shelbie became the eighty-fifth and eighty-sixth recipients of the citations, given since 1969 to “honor and…
Minnesota State Convention, September 28, 2002: “To the Puzzlement and Delight of All,” a “Surprise Wedding”
I was bound and determined after my split-up with a non-singer that my next partner was going to be a singer, so there were a lot of third dates at Sacred Harp singings. Lara liked the first one she went to, and her second singing was the 2001 Minnesota Cooper Book singing, held conveniently four…
A Happy Life: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing by Barrett Ashley
On Sunday, July 4, 1993, after the end of the second day of the Henagar-Union Sacred Harp Singing Convention in Henagar, Alabama, Chicago Sacred Harp singer Jerry Enright sat down with Barrett Ashley, a singer from Collinsville, Alabama, and one of the key members and supporters of the Lookout Mountain Sacred Harp singing community. Jerry…
Our Debt to George Pullen Jackson
Introduction At the 1965 session of the United Sacred Harp Musical Association, held in Nashville, music educator Irving Wolfe delivered a speech on George Pullen Jackson’s contributions to Sacred Harp. Jackson, whose series of books and articles published between 1926 and 1952 had inaugurated the scholarly study of Sacred Harp singing, had died in 1953. Wolfe’s…
In the Footsteps of Lee Andrew McGraw
It was a warm, sunny afternoon in early summer 2009. Sitting in the garden with my brand new copy of The Sacred Harp I was following the advice in the rudiments to open the book at random and say the shapes to practice the rhythm. My book fell open at page 562, Tom McGraw’s “Infinite…
Making the Sacred Harp Museum Accessible: A Newly Donated and Digitized 1909 White Book
The Sacred Harp Museum is thrilled to announce a new addition to the collection which will help us further our goal of preserving Sacred Harp heritage while making it as accessible as possible to the singing public. We express sincere thanks to Charles Whitmer of Conroe, Texas, for his generosity in donating a 1909 Sacred…