Historic Bibliographies and Reference Aids

Shape-Note Singing: A List of References

Compiled by: Robin A. McGalliard and Arlene Rodenbeck
Publication Date: June 17, 1977

Abernethy, Franci E. "Singing All Day & Dinner on the Grounds." In Abernethy, F.E., ed., Observations & Reflections on Texas Folklore, Austin: Encino Press, 1972 (Publication of the Texas Folklore Society, number 37), pp. 131-140.

Baldwin, Jim. "Singing with So-Fa Syllables." Bittersweet, volume 2, number 1, Fall 1974, pp. 4-16

Boswell, George W. "Verse and Music in the Sacred Harp." Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume 34, number 1, March 1970, pp. 53-61.

Boyd, Joe Dan. "Judge Jackson: Black Giant of White Spirituals." Journal of American Folklore, volume 83, number 330, October-December 1970, pp. 446-451.

"Negro Sacred Harp Songsters in Mississippi." Mississippi Folklore Register, volume 5, number 3, Fall 1971, pp. 60-83.

Buchanan, Annabel M. Folk Hymns of America. New York: J. Fischer & Bro., 1938.

Chase, Gilbert. America's Music. New York: McGraw Hill, 1955; revised second edition, 1966. Chapter 10, "The fasola folk."

Cheek, Curtis L. "The Singing School in America: Backgrounds." The Hymn, volume 13, number 1, January 1962, pp. 5-11.

Cobb, Buell. The Sacred Harp of the South: A Study of Origins, Practices, and Present Implications." Louisiana Studies, volume 7, number 2, summer 1968, pp. 107-121.

Cowell, Sidney Robertson. "The 'Shaped-Note Singers' and Their Music." The Score (London), volume 12, June 1955, pp. 9-14.

"White Spirituals." Modern Music, volume 21, number 1, November-December 1943, pp. 10-15.

Davis, Josephine R. "Early American Singing Schools." Music Journal, volume 20, number 3, March 1962, pp. 46, 94-95.

Eskew, Harry "Wm. Walker, 1809-1875: Popular Southern Hymnist." The Hymn, volume 15, number 1, January 1964, pp. 3-13.

Gilson, F. The History of Shaped or Character Notes, with Specimens. Boston: F. H. Gilson, 1889.

Green, Archie. "Hear Those Beautiful Sacred Selections." 1970 Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council, volume 2, number 2, 1971, pp. 28-50.

Griffith, Kay. "Sacred Harp." Loblolly, volume 2, number 2, Fall 1974, pp. 11-16.

Hall, Paul M. "The Shape-Note Hymnals and Tune Books of Ruebush-Kieffer Company." The Hymn, volume 22, number 3, July 1971, pp. 69-76.

Hamm, Charles. "The Chapins and Sacred Music in the South and West." Journal of Research in Musical Education, volume 8, number 2, Fall 1960, pp. 91-98.

"Folk Hymns of the Shenandoah Valley." Virginia Cavalcade, volume 6, Autumn 1956, pp. 14-19.

Hinton, Sam. "The Shape-Note Hymns: An American Choral Tradition." The Choral Journal, volume 13, number 5, January 1973, pp. 7-11.

Holditch, Kenneth. "The Sacred Harp: A Southern Folk Hymnody." Louisiana Folklore Miscellany, volume 3, number 1, April 1970, pp. 5-15

Horn, Dorothy D. Sing to Me of Heaven: A Study of Folk and Early American Materials in Three Old Harp Books. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1970.

Howard, John Tasker and George Kent Bellows. A Short History of Music in America. New York: Thomas Y Crowell Co., 1967. Chapter 4, "The Years of the Revolution."

Hulan, Richard. "Folk Hymns: The Cane Ridge Legacy." In 1973 Festival of American Folklife (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1973), pp. 18-20.

Jackson, George Pullen. Another Sheaf of White Spirituals. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1952.

Down-East Spirituals and Others. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1943. 2nd Edition, 1953. Reprint edition, New York: Da Capo Press, 1975.

Spiritual Folk Songs of Early America. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1943. Reprint edition, New York: Dover Publications, 1964.

The Story of the Sacred Harp, 1844-1944. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1944.

White and Negro Spirituals: Their Lifespan and Kinship. New York: J.J. Augustin, 1943. Reprint Edition, New York: Do Capo Press, 1975.

White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933. Reprint Editions, Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates, 1964; New York: Dover Publications, 1965.

James, Joseph S. A Brief History of the Sacred Harp and its Author, B.F. White, Sr., and Contributors. Douglasville, Georgia: New South Book and Job Print, 1904.

Lowens, Irving. Music and Musicians in Early America. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1964. Chapter 6, "The Easy Instructor (1798-1831): A History and Bibliography of the first Shape-Note Tune Book." Chapter 7, "John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music Part Second (1813): A Northern Precursor of Southern Folk Hymnody."

McDowell, L.L. Songs of the old Camp Ground. Ann Arbor: Edwards Bros., 1937.

Moser, Mabel Y. "Christian Harmony Singing at Etowah." Appalachian Journal, volume 1, number 4, Spring 1974, pp. 263-270.

Patterson, Daniel W. "Hunting for the American White Spiritual: A Survey of Scholarship, with Discography." Association for Recorded Sound Collections Journal, volume 3, number 1, Winter 1970-71, pp. 7-18.

Perrin, Phil D. "Systems of Scale Notation in Nineteenth Century American Tune Books." Journal of Research in Musical Education, volume 18, number 3, Fall 1970, pp. 257-264.

Robinson, Mark and Greg Humber. "Singing Schools." Loblolly, volume 2, number 3, Winter 1974, pp. 24-29.

Scholton, J.W. "Amzi Chapin: Frontier Singing Master and Folk Hymn Collector." Journal for Research in Musical Education, volume 23, number 2, Summer 1975, pp. 109-119.

Seeger, Charles. "Contrapuntal Style in the Three-Voice Shape-Note Hymns." Musical Quarterly, volume 26, number 4, October 1940, pp. 483-493.

Simms, L. Moody, Jr. "Aldine S. Kieffer and the Musical Million." Journal of Popular Culture, volume 3, number 2, Fall 1969, pp. 281-286.

Wolf, John Quincy. "The Sacred Harp in Mississippi." Journal of American Folklore, volume 81, number 322, October-December 1968, pp. 337-341.