Unfortunately, lacking the dash and wrenching love story of the Jones County narrative, no one has ever ventured to buy the movie rights.  Perhaps we’re better off that way

• If you happen to be in New York this week, come hear me read some short fiction at the Southern Writers Reading series.  It’s a great reading series that has featured several exceptional and noted writers from around the South.  Hopefully its reputation will not be sullied by the presence of yours truly.  7:30, Happy Ending Lounge on the Lower East Side.

• I have naturally saved the best for last.  Brannon, the Arts Editor here at YHP, has been hard at work for several weeks contacting Southern artists and collecting their work for the soon-arriving Arts section of YHP.  By “soon,” I mean tomorrow.  Check back first thing Monday morning to see an exceptional cross section of Southern artistry represented.  All artists have their own profiles and galleries, with more being added every day.

The photo above, in keeping with the theme here, is unrelated.  It’s a Walker Evans shot of some miners’ homes in Birmingham, AL in 1935.  It appears for no other reason than that I like it.

When I was a child, my grandfather sang me odd, halting songs, seemingly atonal and operating within a structure I could scarcely remember, let alone master. Lyrically they were very simple and very much about the Crucifixion and its attendant imagery.  The lyrics were preceded by syllables more akin to shouts than notes, and though I had no idea what he was trying to teach me, I was completely fascinated by the performance.

He called it “Fa So La,” so named for the musical syllables sang before the lyrics began.  This was done so that members of the congregation could get an idea of the melody before the lyrics began on the second time through.  Later, I learned that this was called “Shape Note Singing” or, more commonly, “Sacred Harp,” so named for the song book in which the music was found (my mother has my grandfather’s tattered copy, an heirloom from the late 1880s — multiple attempts to smuggle it out of the house during holiday visits have failed).

Sacred Harp, such as it is, is a dying thing.  Even when my grandfather was a child in the 1920s, it was falling out of fashion, in favor of more structured congregational singing.  It was viewed as backward and rustic by many, even crude and unsavory by others.  What it ultimately was was an utterly unique form of music, complete with a historical pedigree dating back to the 17th century and producing a wall of wailing, shack-shaking noise that still reverberates through the piney North Alabama foothills where I was born.

Anthropological context aside, Sacred Harp, when performed correctly, is a wonder to behold.  Matt and Erica Hinton, Georgia natives and Emory grads, have produced what is easily the definitive documentary on the subject.  Awake, My Soul! is marvelous, and it makes me indescribably homesick.  The trailer is something to behold, but the music itself can’t be missed.  Once on the film’s website, the song “Idumea” will begin to play automatically, and they could hardly have chosen a better introduction to the art form.

What’s ultimately reflected in Awake, My Soul! is both defiance and deference.  At best, mainstream America (what few who are aware) will look at these singers as a curiosity; at worst, they will be painted broadly as rustics and unschooled zealots tucked away in remote corners of the South.  They are accustomed to both and are bothered by neither.  They venerate their dying art where they may, and I suspect you are welcome to join.