Religious songs written by and for African Americans in the style of the venerable shape note book, The Sacred Harp. Born in 1883, Jackson took a keen interest in fa-sol-la singing as a teenager. Such singing derives originally from colonial New England singing schools designed to teach musical note-reading in order to improve congregational singing. It took root in the South as its popularity declined elsewhere and was well-established in the Wiregrass region of southeast Alabama in both black and white communities when Jackson discovered it. Around 1930, Jackson determined to compile...