Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #135 (April/May 2008).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Shaking Out the Sheets

Dirty Linen Classics

by Susan Hartman

Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp

Awake Productions AP-001 (2006), DVD

Matt and Erica Hinton are sacred harp singers from Atlanta, Georgia, who want the whole world to know the joy and the history of this uniquely American form of musical expression.

This 75-minute DVD, inspired by Erica Hinton's enrollment in a documentary film class at Georgia State University, traces the history of sacred harp singing and brings the viewer into the fold as it is currently practiced, giving an outstanding overview of past and current practice. One is invited to step inside Shoal Creek Church in the Talladega National Forest [Alabama] to participate in the Henagar-Union Convention (Henagar, Alabama), and be a fly on the wall at Camp Fasola near Anniston, Alabama, to experience this still-living tradition. Interviews with participants reveal how important sacred harp singing is in their lives as they participate in daylong gatherings that feature hour after hour of enthusiastic singing and a lunchtime picnic that shows food and fellowship to be important parts of the experience. It is a social network, a worship opportunity, and an artistic expression all rolled into one. Many of the interviewees have been singing all their lives, since the heyday of rural sacred harp conventions; others have been more recently converted.

Shape-note singing is full-throated, enthusiastic, and participatory. It is not performance-based, but experiential. Singers sit in rows, making four sides of a square, with each vocal section sitting together. The leading of hymns is not so much conducting as setting and maintaining tempo. One person (or occasionally two people) enters the "hollow square" at the center of the singers and calls out the number and title of the hymn. A few people in the front rows hum a pitch for everyone to start on, the leader "chops" a beat in the air, and away they go: Voices start in a four-part, full-throttle attack. Several people on the DVD attest to the awe-inspiring experience of standing in that special spot in the hollow square and feeling the music lift them to another place. The description makes it seem no less powerful -- though certainly less dangerous -- than standing alongside the railroad tracks as a freight train rumbles by. And it's not just a select few people who are chosen to have this transcendent experience; it is completely democratic. It doesn't matter if the singer is six years old or 100; everyone is given the opportunity.

[cover #135]