Strong Songs of the Dead: The Pagan Rites of Sacred Harp

Sacred Harp singing is a uniquely American synthesis: religion and release, the loud sound of olden times and the joy in the ever-present now, traditional practices that hold together hundreds of raw, raucous human voices. It's sometimes asked, "Why does the Devil get all the best music?" In this case, God (or as author Th. Metzger claims - the gods) gave to America a wild gift.

Birthed before the U.S. was a nation, ebbing and swelling across the centuries, Sacred Harp singing is not just a ...