Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymnbook, and: The Pleasant Hill Singers Songs of the Shaker West (Music Review)

Benjamin Lloyd's Hymnbook (The Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, 1999)

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Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymnbook, and: The Pleasant Hill Singers Songs of the Shaker West (Music Review)

by Gavin James Campbell
Southern Cultures, Vol. 6, No. 2: Summer 2000

The Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, 1999

In 1841 a backwoods Alabama Baptist preacher named Benjamin Lloyd published a words-only hymnal adapted, as he wrote, “to singing on all occasions.” As was customary in Lloyd’s dayand in true Baptist fashionthe tunes to accompany the texts were left up to individual congregations. Over 150 years later the book stands as an unchanging bulwark in an age of frequently revised denominational hymnals, and it continues to command a loyal following among both southern white and black Primitive Baptists.

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