Earlier this week, I found myself in Mineral Wells, Texas, partly as a detour around Dallas gridlock, but mostly on the trail of a singer—this one:
Nearly two decades ago, this photograph, taken in 1930, helped drive a revival of the musical tradition known as Sacred Harp singing. Sacred Harp is one of the oldest forms of American music. For those who know it, it’s much more than history: it’s a means for expression, meditation, restoration, even exhilaration. For me, it’s also an addiction—spanning 12 years, a vast community, and wide swaths of America—that led me on this not-insignificant deviation off of I-35 to look for traces of the girl in this image.
I got home just in time to focus on last-minute preparations for Tulsa’s (Hopefully) First Annual All Day Sacred Harp Singing, which I’m leading on Saturday at The Parish Church of St. Jerome.
Spoiler alert: there is no harp. More on that later. Let’s start with the girl.
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