This past weekend, John delRe and his family—including an all-grown-up Leyland—led thier annual Northern Shenandoah Valley Double-All-Day Singing. The article below, published in January 1995, carries photographs and interviews from the very first of those gatherings, back when the class sang from The Sacred Harp: 1991 Edition and the tradition was still finding its footing in the valley. Leyland appears in it as a nine-year-old, keeping time with a raised and lowered arm.
So many years later, the family still gathers the same community each June—but now they sing from two original tunebooks they themselves ushered into the world: The Shenandoah Harmony (2013) and The Valley Pocket Harmonist (2024). And the reach of that first book runs well beyond the valley. Both of the conventions listed among the singings in this very article are still going strong, and both now sing from The Shenandoah Harmony alongside The Sacred Harp: the Potomac River Convention in the Washington area, and the James River Convention in Richmond, hosted by the Richmond Shape Note Singers—who have, fittingly, been making “a joyful noise” since 1990.
Many thanks to Pat Temple who loaned us the original clipping, and to Adrienne and Molly of Richmond for playing courier.
Booker, Betty. “Joyful Noise: Sacred Harp Singers Embrace Old Tunes—and One Another.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 9, 1995, sec. E.
Northern Shenandoah Valley All-Day
- Shenandoah Harmony — NSV All-Day (history & schedule)
- Shape Note Singings — Northern Shenandoah Valley Double All-Day
Potomac River Convention
James River Convention
Sacred Harp singers embrace old tunes — and one another
BY BETTY BOOKER TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
To the uninitiated, the prospect of driving hundreds of miles to sing for two solid days, only to face the return drive and Monday morning, may seem like extreme commitment overload.
But the trips and the surrender of weekends are worth the reward, say Sacred Harp singers, a community of friends whose singing creates a strange and unifying spirit that anyone can experience.
“All you have to do is show up and sing,” said Stephen McMaster, an insurance agent and musicologist.
McMaster is a member of Richmond’s Sacred Harp. The haunting singing style grew out of the Deep South’s Old, or Primitive, Baptist tradition of unaccompanied singing of hymns, some of which are rooted in Anglican and Irish spirituals and folk songs stemming from the Middle Ages. Harp is an old word for hymnal.
Sacred Harp is spreading quickly across the country, aided by enthusiasts’ word-of-mouth endorsements and an Internet computer program for dedicated Sacred Harp singers.
Many participants are drawn to it at midlife or when they’re older, perhaps because they long to form meaningful relationships, to establish a solid social and spiritual community, and to relax while doing something they find satisfying, said Dr. Keith Willard, a Minneapolis pathologist who is a leader in the Sacred Harp movement.
Willard wrote the “Fasola” computer program so singers on the Internet information superhighway could exchange details about the music and dates of “singings” nationwide.
The Sacred Harp movement has crossed all denominational lines, embracing Protestants, Catholics, Jews, agnostics and atheists, “who’ll sing for five hours about Jesus and it doesn’t faze them in the slightest,” McMaster said.
“The bottom line is that Sacred Harp isn’t just a matter of singing; it’s a matter of worship for me, but one that transcends dogma and doctrine so that no one is offended,” McMaster said.
Musical ability isn’t necessary, though it’s appreciated.
“In Sacred Harp, if you have a big voice and you’re accurate, they love you,” said Blake Morris, a trained professional singer and computer analyst programmer.
“If you don’t have a big voice and you’re not accurate, it doesn’t make much difference. If there are 80 people and you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, who’s going to know? So the experience is open to everybody. It’s a very forgiving thing.”
Everyone takes a turn choosing
Unlike formal choirs, where someone selects and directs the music toward perfection for performance, “in Sacred Harp, if you don’t like what they’re singing, in two minutes it’ll be something else, and everybody gets a chance to choose,” Morris said.
As for many participants, “the sound of the music was the initial draw” for Willard and his wife, Jennifer. “From the moment we turned the corner on the building and heard the sounds coming out, we knew this music was something we really wanted to get involved in.
“But that was only the start. The music is wonderful, but the community of people is what provides the staying power.”
“It’s the condensed essence” of what church and neighborhoods should be, and often aren’t, Willard said in a telephone interview.
Indeed, in some places, Sacred Harp takes the place of church instead of its historic function as an after-worship social occasion when people would show off culinary talents at a potluck lunch on the church grounds followed by afternoon singing.
“There’s almost a primitive harmony and sound, which many people find satisfying” — the same thing that’s making country music and Gregorian chant popular, said Mary Hulbert, a retired psychotherapist and musician.
“It’s more than a longing for a return to roots; it’s a kind of direct connection to the spirit through the music. The people who sing Sacred Harp are connected. When you get these large groups, there is a warm and intoxicating spirit that is present. People are longing for connection, and this speaks to that condition.”
Richmond gathering
When the Richmond group was host for the James River Convention in the fall, Frederick Rasenberger, a Long Island interior landscape designer, wasn’t stopped from attending by hurricane rains.
He got up at 2:30 a.m. and “I struck out in the darkness. But I knew at the end of a seven-hour drive there was going to be food and hugs and great singing. And I knew, as tired as I was going to be, that was going to keep me going all weekend and I would feel good the whole next week.”
Strong friendships grow through this shared activity, said John delRe, a former counselor who left Richmond eight years ago to become a Clarke County sheep farmer and bricklayer.
“We have friends all over the country,” delRe said, formed during treks through the Midwest and along the Eastern seaboard or during out-of-state singers’ visits to their home near Winchester. It’s a Sacred Harp tradition that singers are housed and fed when they come to sing.
DelRe and his wife, Kelly Macklin, organize singings in the Northern Shenandoah Valley, where mountain singers and resonant church halls lend a special quality to the music, McMaster said.
Their eldest child, Leyland delRe, 9, often leads a song, keeping time by raising and lowering her arm as she stands in the middle of the four-sided “square” of singers, with basses, altos, tenors and trebles one to each side.
The intergenerational aspect of Sacred Harp also extends upward: The older singers are and the longer they’ve been singing, the more they’re admired, Willard said.
Some singers are so familiar with the music that they sing “shut book,” recognizing hymns and even verses from memory by the title, page number or position on the page.
The music is written in “shape notes” — squares, triangles, ovals and diamonds — a music education format designed to teach the rural nonmusical how to sing four-part harmony in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Ida Mae Leatherman, a professional storyteller, has been singing shape note music “since I was too little to remember.”
“For 50 years or more, I was a chorister, or song leader, and my grandfather was a chorister before me” in the Mennonite church.
While her church didn’t use “The Sacred Harp,” the 1844 hymnal revised in 1991, the singing style is familiar. When she recently pointed out an erroneous note in the 1991 edition, other singers corrected their books.
“This is the way people of experience were admired 100 years ago,” Willard said. “This is an opportunity where we can mix intergenerationally, and we mix on a field where they occupy a valued position — and they do right up to the day they die. It’s never taken away from them.”
The patriarch
Hugh McGraw, secretary-treasurer of The Sacred Harp Publishing Co., is “the patriarch of Sacred Harp,” McMaster said, and is likely to continue being its prime mover.
McGraw is credited with taking the once-dying singing style out of the South to urban areas where it caught fire, spreading from Boston to San Diego and returning to the South, where younger singers are learning a heritage they’d abandoned after World War II.
“It’s all over America. They sing in every state in the United States,” McGraw said. “I go from San Francisco to Bangor, Maine, lecturing on it, teaching it and singing it.
“The fellowship is so strong, they make an idiot feel at home when he walks in. They feed you and put you up in lodging. They’re glad you’ve learned to sing their music and want to sing it. They take each newcomer under their wing.
“If you don’t like it, you better stay away from it, because it’ll get ahold of you and you can’t get away.”
JOIN IN
■ SINGING
Richmond — 2-5 p.m. third Saturday, Friends Meeting House, 4500 Kensington Ave. Singing followed by potluck snacks or supper. Call Dr. Susan Hanson, president, 355-5539, or Stephen McMaster, 288-1503.
James River Sacred Harp Convention — Nov. 18-19, Dorey Park. Call Dr. Susan Hanson, 355-5539.
Shenandoah Valley — 4-8 p.m. first Saturday, various locations near Winchester. Potluck supper at 6 p.m. Call John delRe, (703) 955-2660.
Washington suburbs — 4-8:30 p.m. fourth Sunday, various locations in Virginia, Maryland and Washington. Singing school at 3 p.m.; potluck supper at 6 p.m. Call hot line, (202) 546-2228, press 42 for details.
Northern Virginia — 4-8 p.m. every other month on Saturday or Sunday in singers’ homes. Potluck supper at 6 p.m. Call Ella Wilcox or Bob Hall, (703) 204-1532 before 9 p.m.
Potomac River Sacred Harp Convention — March 31-April 2, various Washington area locations. Call (202) 546-2228, press 56 for details.
■ READING
“Sacred Harp & Related Shape-Note Music: Resources.” Write Steven L. Sabol, 5504 Lincoln St., Bethesda, Md. 20817. Cost: $2 postpaid.
“The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music,” by Buell W. Cobb Jr.
“Schedule of Singings,” list of contacts and singings nationwide. Write Hugh McGraw, Sacred Harp Publishing Co., 101 Waddell St., Bremen, Ga. 30110. Cost: $2.75 postpaid.
“The Sacred Harp,” 1991 edition hymnal, Sacred Harp Publishing Co., 101 Waddell St., Bremen, Ga. 30110. Cost: $13.
■ LISTENING
“Rivers of Delight: American Folk Hymn From the Sacred Harp Tradition,” the Word of Mouth Chorus, compact disc and cassette.
“New Britain: the Roots of American Folksong,” the Boston Camarata, CD.
“White Spirituals From the Sacred Harp,” the Alabama Sacred Harp Convention.
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