new books

Not only was I lucky enough to have a work conference in Nashville last week adjoin the Lookout Mountain convention on one side, and the Young People's, Lacy Memorial, and Shoal Creek singings on the other, but due a singing room being required for an election on Tuesday night, Fort Payne, Alabama's regular monthly singing was moved to Friday evening, allowing me (and Jessica) to catch a fourth singing in as many days.

Among the many interesting aspects of this singing (by the way, Darlene Dalton, formerly of Las Vegas and frequent Golden Gate and All-Cal attendee, sends her love our way), I particularly want to draw attention to the fact that in this singing we sung not from the normal 1991 Denson revision, but the White book - which has, unsurprisingly, a white cover, but which gained it's name from its compiler, J. L. White. Originally published in 1911, it has several gospel tunes, but on the whole it is the most traditional of the turn of the century revisions (Cooper, White, and James); for example, well over half the tunes - many familiar to us from the 1991 Denson revision, have only three parts.

The book has recently been beautifully retypeset, and republished last year. I was given one as a gift, and will bring it to upcoming singings; I'm curious to see if/ how the harmonies compare between that book and our Densons. I'll also bring a James book (also from 1911), which as I understand is between White and Cooper with respect to gospel-ization. (Will, please correct me if I'm wrong.) And while I'm on it, I seem to have compiled a surprisingly large tunebook collection; if anyone is ever interested in borrowing a Colored Sacred Harp or Southern or Missouri Harmony, or... let me know; I'm more than happy to lend them out.

Don't worry; the Denson book isn't going out of style; in fact we just bought 3 new boxes of loaners, since we're selling so many, and in anticipation of the upcoming All-Cal.

Portland Convention

Hey all, let's start a dialog for going to the Portland convention. Here are some things I know so far:

- My original post to UCB FaSoLa was wrong; the convention is not 10/25-26, but 10/18-19.

- Carolyn is looking, perhaps, to ride up with someone, then make her own way back

- There's a good chance I'll be looking for a ride back, after getting up there myself.

- Chris, Caroline, and Hal have all expressed interest in attending. (I'll guess Hal and Chris are planning to fly)

ASTHMATIC KITTY ARTISTS APPEAR ON SACRED HARP COMPILATION ...

The much awaited news is here. But stop hyperventilating - Sufjan Stevens does not appear to be involved as we were led to hope. I know. But it looks cool anyway.

Field Trip to Poway

Carolyn, Inder, Betty and I headed to Poway last weekend for the 12th Annual Marilou and Don Jolly Memorial Singing. It was a relatively small singing, but the sound was great and there was adequate coverage on all the parts. We all took extensive turns on the front row, so I don't have many pics, but here are a few:
 the awesome treble bench

"What are those people DOING!?!

Carla leading (taken over Carolyn's shoulder)

 Betty leading

Jerry and the chaplain, whose name is escaping me

It was a lovely singing, totally worth braving Comicon madness to attend. Oh, and above all: the food was to die for!

The trials of Hal Eisen

Hal -- in a tie!

I want to shout out to Hal, who was kind enough to come to the Kalamazoo annual Sacred Harp singing -- our 10th anniversary, and it was nice to have ten states and provinces represented. It was too bad that 'mechanical problems' forced Hal to spend Friday night in Salt Lake City rather than Kalamazoo, which meant he missed the Michiana singing in Goshen on Saturday. 

I am glad to say that we led "Few Happy Matches" (96) together. 

Singing Sacred Harp? Thank a Quaker!

Paul L. from Minneapolis and I were interviewed at the Friends General Conference Gathering about Sacred Harp singing by Matthew Streib (scroll down to the July 5th podcast to hear it). Matthew is taking a few months to bicycle around the United States for his American Pilgrimage project, in which he visits unusual and uniquely American religious communities and experiences. Matthew used my favorite parts from our interview, but I will say that we must have inadvertently led him a little astray... He credits the revival of Sacred Harp singing to Quakers. While there are many social movements that evidence God's grace in the world for which Quakers could rightly claim leadership despite very small numbers (e. g., abolition of slavery and women's suffrage), I really don't think we can count the Sacred Harp revival as one of them. Still, it's a fun little interview that includes a clip of us singing 40 Lenox.

Wailin' Jennys at the Freight and Salvage

This is only very tangentially related to Sacred Harp singing, as I once heard The Wailin' Jennys sing White on Prairie Home Companion. Though there is no guarantee they will sing any Sacred Harp tunes at all on July 20, anyone want to hear the late show at the Freight? Doors open at 7:30, show at 8.