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Hugh McGraw

Feb. 20, 1931

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Hugh McGraw has dedicated much of his life to the preservation of Sacred Harp music, religious songs written in the shape-note system of musical notation. He 
grew up with the music but didn't really get involved until 1952, when “I began studying and teaching, composing and singing this music all over the country.” Photograph by Aimée Schmidt, courtesy Georgia Council for the Arts
Hugh McGraw, courtesy National Endowment for the Arts
Hugh McGraw at Sacred Harp Publishing Company, Bremen, Georgia, 1989, Photograph by Annie Archbold, courtesy Georgia State Council on the Arts
Hugh McGraw leads Sacred Harp singing at Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery, where B.F. White, co-author of *The Sacred Harp* is buried, Photograph by Aimée Schmidt,courtesy Georgia Council on the Arts

Hugh McGraw's parents introduced him to shape-note singing while he was growing up in Georgia. "The McGraw family has been involved in Sacred Harp music for well over a hundred years," he said, "but I didn't get involved until I was 25 years old. I'd go to a singing with my mother and father, but I thought it was more important to stay outside and play in the spring and run around the house than it was to learn this tradition."

In 1952, McGraw changed his mind. "I walked into a singing — after I was done married and had a family. And I heard this music, and something just petrified me. Says you got to do your thing. So I began studying and teaching, composing and singing this music all over the country."

The Sacred Harp shape-note songbook, compiled by B. F. White and E. J. King and first published in 1844, is a collection of American choral religious music that emphasizes settings of tunes transcribed from oral tradition. Some of the melodies originated in the Old World, and others stemmed from eighteenth-century American composers. It employs a system of symbols for notes that is simpler than conventional musical notation. The book began as a text for rural singing schools and, by the 1850s, gained an additional function as the focus of periodic singing conventions. This tradition continues today in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

Several generations of McGraw's family have taken part in the Sacred Harp tradition, but none with more enthusiasm and skill than Hugh. He taught many singing schools and organized singers to revive the tradition in their own communities. In addition, he helped groups of Sacred Harp singers travel to national festivals.

To support his family, McGraw worked as the manager of a Bremen, Georgia, clothing manufacturing plant, but in his free time he served as executive secretary and treasurer of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company. Over several decades he was respected as a charismatic leader of a diverse group of singers, and in 1991 he was the inspiration for the revision of the Sacred Harp songbook. For the revision, he convened a committee of Alabama and Georgia singers and coordinated the addition of a number of songs; some were recently composed; others were selected from older books. Many of these songs were already being sung from photocopies. The committee solicited and reviewed this material, then chose sixty songs, thirty-seven of which were written by authors who were then alive. Nearly half of the songs use the poetry of Isaac Watts (1674-1748), and many were from Colonial American composers already familiar to singers, including William Billings (1746-1800) of Boston, Daniel Read (1757-1836) of New Haven, and Timothy Swan (1758-1842) of Northfield, Massachusetts.

For McGraw, the preservation of music and community is integral to his life. "A lot of people don't sing this old music because it's 'old fogey.' You know 'old fogey' means a caretaker. A caretaker preserving something that's worth preserving. And that's what we're trying to do in preserving this music, our national heritage."

Bibliography
Boyd, Joe Dan. "The Sacred Harpers and Their Singing." In Festival of American Folklife. Program. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1970.
Dodge, Timothy. "From Spirituals to Gospel Rap: Gospel Music Periodicals." Serials Review (winter 1994) 20, 4: 67.

Discography
McGraw, Hugh. How to Sing Sacred Harp. Bremen, Georgia: Sacred Harp Publishing Company.

Watch

Masters of Traditional Arts kiosk video, produced by Documentary Arts

Listen

Hugh McGraw, Audio biography, produced and recorded by Alan Govenar, edited and narrated by Nancy Lamb

Hugh McGraw, Sacred Harp Singing at Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church, Bremen Georgia. Radio feature produced by Maggie Holtzberg for WUGA, February 3, 1993, courtesy Georgia Council on the Arts

Hugh McGraw, Bremen, Georgia, 1991, recorded by Alan Govenar

Hugh McGraw, Bremen, Georgia, 1991, Recorded by Alan Govenar

Hugh McGraw, Bremen, Georgia, 1991, recorded by Alan Govenar

Hug McGraw and his group of Sacred Harp singers perform 'Your Joys On Earth Will Soon Be Gone,' Recorded live at the 1982 Festival of American Folklife in a program honoring the National Heritage Fellows, Washington, D.C., courtesy National Endowment for the Arts

Hug McGraw and his group of Sacred Harp singers perform 'By The Trumpets Sound,' Recorded live at the 1982 Festival of American Folklife in a program honoring the National Heritage Fellows, Washington, D.C., Courtesy National Endowment for the Arts

Hug McGraw and his group of Sacred Harp singers perform 'What Wondrous Love Is This,' Recorded live at the 1982 Festival of American Folklife in a program honoring the National Heritage Fellows, Washington, D.C., courtesy National Endowment for the Arts

Southern Traditional Singers, 'Singing School,' The Social Harp Early American Shape-Note Songs, 1994 Rounder Records Corp, Rounder CD 0094

Southern Traditional Singers, 'Good-Bye,' The Social Harp Early American Shape-Note Songs, 1994 Rounder Records Corp, Rounder CD 0094