When I was a child of 5 or 6, I loved my little record player, but other than children’s storytelling albums, I owned only two albums, both gospel."Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash from The Holy Land.

If these singers were in a sanctuary or on the church grounds, you'd think you were at an old-time revival. But these voices, distinct in tune but united in harmony, are singing shape-note music, a ...

The crowded room echoes with lilting voices raised in a simple, timeless song. There are no instruments, no audience. Just a chorus of four-part harmonies sung from a book that's as thick as a Bible.

COLUMBIA — When the Columbia Shape-Note Singers get together, no one knows exactly what they will sing. They arrange themselves in a square according to vocal range, wait for suggestions and begin.

Surrounded by other singers arranged in a square, Judy Hauff rocks her feet heel to toe, rhythmically slashes the air with her arm and sings “Fa la sol la sol.” This is “shape note” music, an a ...

DULUTH — Once a month, typically on a Sunday afternoon, the Friends Meeting House is filled with voices singing together. It's not a performance because everyone present is involved in the singing.

PITTSBURGH – Alexa Kay is a Quaker, a denomination which has embraced simplicity and shunned more extravagant forms of worship, even singing. Nevertheless, Kay likes to sing, and that’s what led her ...

Shape note singing is one of the oldest musical traditions in this country. It’s a practice that began in colonial America, and after centuries of ups and downs in ...

A unique form of shape-note singing that’s been a tradition in the Blue Ridge Mountains for more than 100 years will be performed and taught in Henderson County again this year during an annual event ...

Shape-note singing is what democracy actually sounds like. Well, maybe anarchism, says Karen Stingle, who has sung with the Eugene Sacred Harp Singers since it started in Eugene in the early 1990s.

When Diane Ober sings shape-note music, she does it not to be heard, but to be singing. “You sing at the top of your voice, with your whole being,” she said. “It’s not meant to be a performance; it’s ...