I Belong to This Band: 85 Years of Sacred Harp Recordings

I Belong to This Band is a companion to the documentary film, Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp. The CD contains 30 recordings which weave three important strands of Sacred Harp's recorded history. The first strand is made up of the earliest recordings of the genre which were pressed on 78s in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Second, there are home recordings made by small groups of singers in the 1950s. Third, there are recordings of contemporary all day singings which are the native environment for this music.

Acknowledgments

"Sacred Harp singing is breath music. They're changing the sound with their emotions, not because they're hearing something." — Ornette Coleman

"If anyone really wants to hear where Louvin Brothers harmony came from, all they have to do is listen to a session of Sacred Harp singing."
— Charlie Louvin, born and raised in Henagar, Alabama, the location of the Henagar-Union Convention featured on I Belong to This Band

Excerpts from Selected Reviews

Detroit Metro Times: "I Belong to This Band is religious music, sung gospel. But what sweeps you away is the force of voice, and the very real sense that community can be our greatest bulwark against evil."

Rolling Stone: "To quote Leonard Cohen, 'God is alive, magic is afoot' in the soaring magnificence of Southern sacred-harp choirs, a robust, harmonically intricate blend of country joy and unearthly drone. It is living worship, too."