Another Lomax recording, this one from the 1959 United Sacred Harp Convention.
Ye golden lamps of heav’n, farewell, / With all your feeble light, / Farewell, thou ever changing moon, / Pale empress of the night. And thou, refulgent orb of day, / In brighter flames arrayed, / My soul which springs beyond thy sphere, / No more demands thy aid.
This is the one Springsteen based the melody ofWrecking Ball’s “Death to My Hometown” on, which is one of the more unsubtle tunes from a very unsubtle album. As you can see in this live video, featuring Tom Morello:
The best of Alan Lomax’s recordings of the Alabama Sacred Harp Convention, available on the excellent “Sounds of the South” compilation. Something about the combination of joy and dread in this track is utterly captivating.
I know that my Redeemer lives, / Glory, Hallelujah! / What comfort this sweet sentence gives, / Glory, Hallelujah!
Shout on, pray on, we’re gaining ground, / Glory Hallelujah! / The dead’s alive, and the lost is found, / Glory Hallelujah!
He lives to crush the fiends of hell; / Glory Hallelujah! / He lives and doth within me dwell; / Glory Hallelujah!
[Tim] Eriksen was originally brought in to provide the singing voice of the “Cold Mountain” character Stobrod, played by burly Irish actor Brendan Gleeson.
When asked to gather some singers for a studio session, he coaxed [T. Bone] Burnett and [Anthony] Minghella into documenting the real deal at Alabama’s Liberty Baptist Church. “I’ve learned that in order to record a Sacred Harp singing,” Eriksen says, “you have to have a Sacred Harp singing. That includes everything – dinner on the grounds, letting go of control over the songs, letting the craft sort itself out.”
Eriksen’s contributions to “Cold Mountain” didn’t stop there. He also played a bit part as the choirmaster; recorded a number of period songs, some solo, some with other Sacred Harp singers, some with folk artists Riley Baugus and Tim O’Brien; and accompanied the cast to rain-soaked Romania, where, through an interpreter, he taught 50 Romanian extras how to sing that type of music.
