Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp. Matt and Erica Hinton, directors. 2007. Awake productions / Digital maps Two-Disc Special Edition DVD (75 minutes, plus bonus features; NTSC all regions).


Its subtitle would seem to claim that Awake, My Soul is primarily about a tunebook; but The Sacred Harp is much more than a book, and its story requires a balancing act on the part of any storyteller. Some may emphasize a musical style, focusing on Sacred Harp music's capacity as a written tradition. others conceive of Sacred Harp as a musical culture, well into its second century and geographically concentrated in the American south; here the emphasis on oral tradition would speak to a style of singing more than a style of composition. And then there is the tunebook itself—a canon enveloping a lengthy publication history beginning with four successively larger editions by B. F. White between 1844 and 1869, proceeding to the 1911 James revision, and continuing on as the "Denson book" following paine Denson's 1936 revision. in the 1991 Denson revision, used today and in this film, 179 of 560 songs were included the 1844 Sacred Harp. It is really that original book that constitutes the Sacred Harp of Awake, My Soul—a tunebook that preserved a singing tradition, a compositional style, and also a religious practice. Matt and Erica Hinton's film documents a contemporary musical practice against a historical backdrop: it describes the prehistory of the original tunebook and the contemporary culture of Sacred Harp singing in georgia and Alabama. The film yields mixed results as a history, but as a documentary about singers and singings—especially in its two-disc special edition—it sets a high standard.