Tag: sacred harp publishing company newsletter

The new second issue of The Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter features Chloe Webb’s fascinating account of the life of Lorraine Miles McFarland, the girl depicted on the cover of Awake, My Soul as well as a preview of the forthcoming shape note songbook the Shenandoah Harmony. A special section of this issue is a selection of reports on each of the five all-day singings and conventions held on the fifth Sunday this past April (and the Saturday before).

Vol. 1, No. 2 Contents:

• “Sacred Harp’s ‘Yodeling Schoolgirl’: The Story of ‘Little Lorraine’,” by Chloe Webb (Fort Worth, Texas)

• “The Southwest Texas Convention,” by Matt Hinton (Atlanta, Georgia)
• “The 27th Midwest Convention,” by Ted Mercer (Chicago, Illinois)
• “Fish Fry and Fasola: The Harrods Creek/Bob Meek Memorial Convention,” by Michele Cull (Louisville, Kentucky)
• “Fifth Sunday Singing in Old Chicora, Florida,” by Mary Ellen Schrock (Sarasota, Florida)
• “Small in Number Yet Full of Spirit: The Mt. Pisgah Singing in Sylvester, Georgia,” by Trent Peachey (Albany, Georgia)

• “A Preview of The Shenandoah Harmony,” by Rachel Wells Hall (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
• “‘Lost Singers’: Help Needed,” by Michael Hinton (San Antonio, Texas)
• Coming soon: “National Newsletter: Vol. 1, Nos. 4, 5, and 6,” digitized copies of issues of the National Sacred Harp Newsletter (September–November, 1985)

Late last month the Sacred Harp Publishing Company launched Volume 1, Number 1 of the new Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter—a quarterly online publication featuring singing reports, biographical pieces about Sacred Harp singers, reprints of articles from the National Sacred Harp Newsletter (1985–93), and other news items. The first issue, which I edited, included reports on singing schools held last fall in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Würzberg and Frankfurt, Germany; a reflection on recently deceased singer Lonnie L. Rogers from his daughter, Karen Rollins; a reprint of a 1985 report on the dedication of a historical monument to Sacred Harp compiler B. F. White in Hamilton, Georgia; and more. I contributed a short piece, co-written by John Plunkett, on the use of a sample of a 1959 recording of a Sacred Harp song in a recent Bruce Springsteen song.

You can read the Newsletter, and my introduction, on the Sacred Harp Publishing Company web site. We plan to publish the second issue in the summer.