Ireland’s Fire Draw Near podcast’s latest episode, Episode LXIII: Shape Note Singing in the United States, offers a richly textured exploration of Sacred Harp and related traditions, grounded in two recent interviews with practitioners Howe Pearson and Sasha Hsuczyk. It traces the evolution of shape-note singing—its roots in 18th- and 19th-century America, its migration from New England into the American South, and how its aesthetic, notation, and communal practice have shifted over time. The playlist alone is a fascinating snapshot: recordings from NOLA Sacred Harp Singers, the Ortonville Cork and Lee and Wootten families, Buonaparte, the Florida-Alabama Progressive Seven Shape Note Singing Convention, and re-works of the “Lone Pilgrim” and other staples. For anyone steeped in Sacred Harp, there are familiar motifs—“The Last Judgement,” “Amazing Grace,” stark harmonies, hollering bass, the hollow square—but interwoven too are less familiar voices and interpretations, giving a sense of how shape-note singing remains both anchored in its tradition and alive in variation.
If you haven’t yet listened to Fire Draw Near, this episode is a strong introduction: host Ian Lynch treats shape-note singing not as a museum piece, but as a living, breathing tradition full of tensions, communities, and transformations. He engages with questions of how style, geography, and identity shape who sings and how; how sacred texts and social contexts inform repertoire; and how modern listeners and singers negotiate the resistance, ecstasy, and stillness embedded in this music. Fans of Sacred Harp will appreciate hearing familiar sounds in new settings, discovering less-heard singers, and being prompted to reflect on the tradition’s scope—what it might mean to sustain it, adapt it, pass it on. Whether you know every line of Idumea or are just beginning to navigate shape-note singing, this episode offers both depth and delight.
Tracklist:
NOLA Sacred Harp Singers – I Walked Abroad
Wootten Family – Ortonville
Cork Sacred Harp Singers – Tribulation
Lee Family – While Sorrows Encompass Me Round (Tune Skeleton of Idumea)
Doc Watson And Gaither Carlton – And Am I Born To Die?
Shenandoah Harmony Singers – Buonaparte
Frank Harte – The Isle of Saint Helena
The Doc Watson Family – The Lone Pilgrim
Sacred Harp Singers – The Lone Pilgrim
Martha Woodard – Murillo’s Lesson
The Florida-Alabama Progressive Seven Shape Note Singing Convention Singers – Amazing Grace
Landless – Doomsday
NOLA Sacred Harp Singers – The Last Judgement
Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers – My Mothers Gone
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