The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers

A rural Alabama choir of "sacred harp" (or shape-note) singing, the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers recorded for Columbia during the late '20s and the Library of Congress in the early '40s. The sacred harp tradition, which had journeyed from Britain to the early American colonies and later spread to the southeastern United States, relied on a starker, Bible-based form of gospel music than traditional Black choirs. The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers recorded several sides for Columbia in 1928, and in 1942, Alan Lomax and George Pullen Jackson recorded the group for the Library of Congress; a series of songs later reissued on Rounder as Sacred Harp Singing.