Description
Note: delivery to USA only.
The word “antigodlin,” which the author learned from traditional people in Alabama, means “at a slanting angle.” This book, by John Lawrence Brasher, celebrates the people who sang Sacred Harp songs in the Deep South in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and brings to light their vanished worlds. The stories all lead to singing, but they angle through the lives, politics, and personalities of the singers. Rich in lively anecdotes and period photographs, the narrative, through treasured heirloom stories, guides our gaze to Alabama abolitionists, forgotten ballads, drone singing, shoutin’ happy singers, swept yards, red-eye gravy, and Baptist biscuits. And the author delights in telling his own early journeys sixty years ago into Sacred Harp singing.
Buell Cobb writes:
Larry Brasher’s book is a fascinating account of the lives of north Alabama Sacred Harp singers and teachers through the Civil War up to the end of the twentieth century. It draws on prolific family stories spanning 200 years and focuses on the 129-year history of the Warrior River Sacred Harp Convention. We’ve never before had this level of detail about the singers’ personalities, musical tastes, and convictions—and all told, in the singers’ voices, with both great humor and poignancy. It’s a monumental achievement—and a must-have for every fan of Sacred Harp! I can’t recommend it highly enough!
John Lawrence Brasher is Denson N. Franklin Professor Emeritus of Religious and Environmental Studies, Birmingham-Southern College.
- Hardcover, 279 pages.
- ISBN: 978-1-088-06260-9
