The Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 2 Stories about singers and singings, our music and traditions, and Sacred Harp’s present-day growth. Dec. 2016 Special Issue, Raymond C. Hamrick on The Sacred Harp Raymond C. Hamrick leading at the Mt. Zion Memorial Singing, Mt. Zion Methodist Church, Georgia, July 1973. Photograph by Bill Lightfoot. Courtesy of Pitts Theology Library. Raymond Cooper Hamrick, A Tribute Mary Brownlee | Barnesville, Georgia e knew Raymond through his apt tribute and memorial to Raymond Editor’s Note: Raymond Hamrick taught nearly lifelong association with Hamrick: Integrity was the mainspring, Mary Brownlee and her sisters Rosemund SacredW Harp, but he was known mainly and prudence the regulator of the actions Watson and Martha Harrell to sing, and in Macon as a master watch and clock of his life. He had the art of disposing for many decades Hamrick joined Brownlee repairman and jeweler. He often made of his time so well, that his hours glided and Watson to practice shape-note songs old house calls to repair clocks that could by in harmony and dignity. He ran down and new at Brownlee’s home in Barnesville. not be brought into his shop. I saw November 24, 2014, in hopes of being Brownlee read this tribute to Hamrick at him often at his workbench, working taken in hand by his Maker, thoroughly the 2015 Emmaus Primitive Baptist Church with tiny parts and tools. Precision cleaned, repaired, wound up, and set Singing, Thomaston, Georgia, and the and time marked his professional life, going in the world to come, when time Middle Georgia Singing, Union Primitive and he instructed us, and sometimes shall be no more. Baptist Church, Goggans, Georgia. admonished us, to pay attention to the time signature in our songs. Endnote I have paraphrased some words taken 1 This watch and clock maker was George Routleigh (1745–1802), who is buried at the Lydford from an epitaph of a master watch and churchyard in Dartmoor, England. The epitaph’s earliest known printing is in a 1786 issue of the clock maker who lived in the 1700s1 as an Derby Mercury, in which the fictional deceased is named “Peter Pendulum.”—Ed. 2 The Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2 Introduction to “Raymond C. Hamrick on The Sacred Harp,” Volume 5, Number 2 of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter Jesse P. Karlsberg he eleventh issue of the Sacred Harp Publishing an especially large team of volunteers and the generosity Company Newsletter features esteemed Sacred Harp of several editors and archivists. In addition to the many singer,T composer, and scholar Raymond C. Hamrick (1915– contributions of the Newsletter team of associate editor 2014), a recipient of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company’s Nathan K. Rees and layout helpers Elaena Gardner, Leigh posthumous citation. The issue includes insightful essays by Cooper, and Jason Stanford, two singers—Marie Brandis Hamrick himself, a video interview, and commentary on his of Portland, Oregon, and Justin Bowen of Nashville, many contributions to the Sacred Harp world. Tennessee—transcribed essays written by Hamrick. Debra Our issue opens with South Georgia singer Mary Madera and M. Patrick Graham of the Pitts Theology Brownlee’s tribute to Hamrick, which eloquently evokes Library of Emory University, provided access to and scans Hamrick’s courtly personality and significance to the South of essays by Hamrick, correspondence, and tunebooks in Georgia singing community. Jesse P. Karlsberg next offers the library’s Raymond Hamrick Papers. Nathan K. Rees an in-depth survey of Hamrick’s long life and wide-ranging also assisted in gathering and digitizing materials in the involvement in Sacred Harp singing. The issue next turns collection of the Sacred Harp Museum. Robert A. W. to Hamrick’s own writing, sharing groundbreaking essays Dunn digitized copies of recordings testing submissions by the singer on Sacred Harp’s history and practices, some to the 1991 Edition in a private collection. Richard Colwell, never before published. We begin with Hamrick’s two 1965 founding editor of The Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching contributions to the Harpeth Valley Sacred Harp News: a and Learning, Mary Leglar, past editor of Georgia Music report on growing appreciation of the work of composer News, and Timothy Reynolds, editor of the Harpeth Valley William Billings and an evocative survey of role of shape- Sacred Harp News graciously permitted the reprinting of notes in American music history. The issue then turns to essays first published in these periodicals. Finally, Raymond Hamrick’s previously unpublished 1972 study of tempo in C. Hamrick’s daughter Patti Hamrick Dancy combed her The Sacred Harp, the first comprehensive examination of collection of family photographs and digitized many of the the subject. Hamrick’s 1986 contributions to the National images of Hamrick with family and at singings that grace Sacred Harp Newsletter follow. The singer’s celebrated this issue’s essays. Thanks to her and to Susan Hamrick study of the methods and results of pitchers at Sacred Hatfield for permission to enrich this tribute to their father Harp singings appeared in vol. 2, no. 2 of the Sacred Harp through the inclusion of these photographs. Publishing Company Newsletter with an introduction by Ian As always, the Newsletter team welcomes your comments Quinn. We include it in the print edition of this issue. We on these articles and invites your suggestions of future article also reprint Hamrick’s convincing articulation of the value topics. Please get in touch. of shape-notes for composers. We next feature Hamrick’s 1996 return to the music of his favorite composer, William Billings, with an essay published in a special issue of the peer-reviewed music education journal, The Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning. This section of the Newsletter concludes with two additional previously unpublished contributions: an essay Hamrick wrote in the mid-1990s, offering a thorough insider’s account of the process of revising The Sacred Harp, and Alan Lomax’s brief 1982 interview with Hamrick, in which the Sacred Harp singer seems to surprise the veteran folklorist with his informed analysis of Sacred Harp practices. Our issue concludes with two more essays on Hamrick’s contributions to Sacred Harp singing. John Hollingsworth describes the story of editing and publishing The Georgian Harmony, a tunebook featuring nearly two-hundred of Hamrick’s shape-note tunes. Finally, Shaun Jex recounts Hamrick’s longstanding generosity in sharing his knowledge and experience with others. This issue of the Newsletter came together thanks to December 2016 The Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter 3 Contents Features Raymond Cooper Hamrick, a Tribute 1 Mary Brownlee Raymond C. Hamrick’s Contributions to Sacred Harp Singing and Scholarship 4 Jesse P. Karlsberg Hamrick on The Sacred Harp The Twentieth Century Looks at William Billings 13 Raymond C. Hamrick The Curious History of Shape-Notes 16 Raymond C. Hamrick The Matter of Tempo in The Sacred Harp 21 Raymond C. Hamrick The Pitcher’s Role in Sacred Harp Music 29 Raymond C. Hamrick and Ian Quinn The Composer’s Debt to Shape-Notes 34 Raymond C. Hamrick Sojourn in the South: Billings Among the Shape-Noters 36 Raymond C. Hamrick The “Ins” and “Outs” of Revision 38 Raymond C. Hamrick “My Interest Was in the Background of the Music”: Raymond C. Hamrick and Alan Lomax in Conversation 43 Raymond C. Hamrick and Alan Lomax Features The Making of The Georgian Harmony 46 John Hollingsworth Help Me to Sing: Raymond Hamrick as Composer and Teacher 51 Shaun Jex Editorial Information Visit us online Date published: December 2016 This newsletter is first published on the Editor: Jesse P. Karlsberg Sacred Harp Publishing Company website. Associate Editor: Nathan Rees The online edition includes videos, audio recordings, Design (print edition): Elaena Gardner and Jason Stanford additional images and allows readers Design (web edition): Leigh Cooper to post comments on articles. Transcription assistance: Marie Brandis and Justin Bowen originalsacredharp.com/newsletter/ Publisher: The Sacred Harp Publishing Company To comment on or suggest future subjects for the Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter, please contact the Editor at [email protected]. 4 The Sacred Harp Publishing Company Newsletter Volume 5, Number 2 Feature Raymond C. Hamrick’s Contributions to Sacred Harp Singing and Scholarship Jesse P. Karlsberg | Atlanta, Georgia aymond Cooper Hamrick (1915– 2014), of Macon, Georgia, was a well-lovedR singer, composer, and scholar whose intellectual curiosity, generosity of spirit, and kindness seemed boundless. Perhaps the greatest Sacred Harp composer of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Hamrick imparted to his music a distinctive voice that recalls the earliest American composers while embracing a fluid melodic style and expansive chordal palette all its own. He wrote hundreds of shape-note songs across a sixty-year period, contributing some of the most popular and well-loved songs to The Sacred Harp, and consenting to have some 179 of his songs published in two editions of The Georgian Harmony. Hamrick’s singing voice was renowned, an accurate bass singer with a warm and round tone. Hamrick harbored an unquenchable curiosity—he collected rare tunebooks, studied the history of the tradition’s songs and composers, and asked and answered questions about the music’s practices in the groundbreaking articles he wrote for Sacred Harp newsletters and scholarly journals. Hamrick was a gracious and generous mentor and a friend to many. He shared his knowledge of Sacred Harp’s history, his insight into composition, and his thoughtful opinions with singers young and old over decades. Hamrick was born on June 14, 1915, in Macon, to Horace Clifford Hamrick and Ida Eugenia Berry. His family attended Sacred Harp singings in the surrounding area but neither Raymond nor his older brother Horace were interested in the music in their youth.