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Biography
A rural Alabama choir of “sacred harp” (or shape-note) singing, the Alabama Sacred Harp Performers recorded for Columbia through the later ’20s as well as the Collection of Congress in the first ’40s. The sacred harp custom, which got journeyed from Britain to the first American colonies and afterwards spread towards the southeastern USA, relied on a far more stark, Bible-based type of gospel music than traditional dark choirs. Led by Paine Denson, A. Marcus Cagle, and “Uncle Dock” Owen, the Alabama Sacred Harp Performers documented several edges for Columbia in 1928 (two had been afterwards compiled in the 1952 folksong compendium Anthology of American Folk Music). In 1942, Alan Lomax and George Pullen Jackson documented the group for the Library of Congress, some songs which were afterwards reissued on Rounder as Sacred Harp Performing. Similar recordings may also be found on amounts nine and ten within the Rounder series referred to as Southern Trip.
