Shape note singing is one of America's oldest musical traditions, and it is having a bit of a revival now because of an updated songbook. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SIMON: Laura Atkinson and Justin Hicks, ...
The Sacred Harp, a book of religious tunes first printed in 1844 is getting an upgrade. And shape note singers who use it are very excited. People who perform a traditional style of American music ...
PITTSBURGH – Alexa Kay is a Quaker, a denomination which has embraced simplicity and shunned more extravagant forms of worship, even singing. Nevertheless, Kay likes to sing, and that’s what led her ...
Isaac Green, 34, flips through his personal copy of "The Sacred Harp," a shape-note hymnal linked to a more than 180-year-old American folk singing tradition, at Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church ...
Surrounded by other singers arranged in a square, Judy Hauff rocks her feet heel to toe, rhythmically slashes the air with her arm and sings “Fa la sol la sol.” This is “shape note” music, an a ...
BREMEN, Ga. — Singers at Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church in West Georgia treat their red hymnals like extensions of themselves, never straying far from their copies of “The Sacred Harp” and its ...