Tuesday, November 20, 2007
“Awake, My Soul”: New Documentary on Sacred Harp
Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp
In Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp, filmmakers Matt and Erica Hinton put a camera where no camera has gone before: in the old fashioned rural churches of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi where young and old gather to sing Sacred Harp, an a cappella hymn-singing tradition with roots in post-Puritan New England. Sacred Harp was, the filmmakers contend, America’s first music, and though it all but disappeared with the changing trends in American music over the last century and a half, it was ultimately preserved—not by the academies and institutions, “but instead by unschooled rural southerners who sang it not for an audience, but for one another and for God.” Combining history, archival images, interviews, and candid recordings, Awake, My Soul chronicles the intriguing story behind this much-loved musical tradition.
In the opening scene of the documentary, singers arrive like pilgrims for the annual all-day singing held at Shoal Creek Church in Talladega National Forest, Alabama. They park their cars among the pine trees, wear nametag stickers, and, before long, fill the church with their unaccompanied, unrestrained voices. When they talk about Sacred Harp, the singers sound almost like evangelists sharing a testimony. They tell the stories of how they discovered the music, which vary from the man who stumbled upon a singing by accident, thinking he was going to a concert, to the one whose grandmother carried him to his first singing when he was six months old. With varying degrees of articulateness, they all say essentially the same thing: “it gets in your blood.” And watching one of the top-of-the-lungs singing sessions, it’s easy to imagine why. Although this music doesn’t sound like the familiar gospel-influenced hymns many of us grew up singing, it has an undeniable pull. The songs employ a structured rhythm and nontraditional harmonies that, to a first-time listener, sound both haunting and strangely beautiful, especially when paired with lyrics such as these, from “Idumea” (also known to Sacred Harp singers as #47b in the songbook): “And am I born to die? / To lay this body down! / And must my trembling spirit fly / Into a world unknown?” Full of raw passion, searing lyrics, and simple melodies (made up of only four notes: Fa, So, La, and Mi), Sacred Harp is a mixture of reverence and revelry that survives to this day in churches around the country. It is a remarkable part American music history, and Awake, My Soul is a loving and thoughtful introduction.
To watch the trailer or order the DVD, click here.
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