• Hailing from Appalachian North Carolina, the Red Fox Chasers were made up of four neighbors. A.P. “Fonzie” Thompson and Bob Cranford grew up making music together in the early 1900’s, and learned the basics of harmony from shape note singing, also known as Fa So La or Sacred Harp. Guy Brooks grew up in a nearby county with Paul Miles, who learned to play the banjo at the age of 5 on a homemade instrument crafted from a meal sifter and a groundhog hide. “I’m Going Down to North Carolina – The Complete Recordings of the Red Fox Chasers [1928 - 1931]” will be released on August 18, by Tompkins Square Records. You can get a preview of it here.

• The Mississippi Museum of Art’s new exhibition entitled “Name Change: One Artist – Twelve Personas – Thirty-Five Years” displays the work of Hattiesburg-born artist Ed McGowin.  McGowin notably believed that his work did not fit neatly into the orderly pages of art history, which demand that an artist produce a coherent and linear body of work. To demonstrate his point, McGowin has legally changed his name twelve different times over the past thirty-five years, and has produced varying bodies of work under each name, before changing his name back to the one he was born with – William Edward McGowin.

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.