A staggering array of human hands across continents and generations created the tradition of sacred song in the American South. Songs and hymns featured in nineteenth-century revival and church services—some of which are still familiar—were made by ancient Hebrew poets, enslaved African Americans, Jacobean translators, medieval monks, eighteenth-century English Nonconformists, shape-note transcribers, preachers, laypeople, composers, and musicians in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and North America. These poems and tunes were memorized, recited, sung, hummed, and whistled by people—literate and illiterate... Read more