Album Notes

Shape note quartets were not uncommon in the era of 78's, but Northampton Harmony is about it, so far, for the 21st century. The group grew out of friendship and a desire to spread the word about the joy and intensity of singing shape note music, as well as a desire to find more folks to sing with. The name is derived from the 18th century singing book (actually in round notes) by Elias Mann from Northampton Massachusetts. The material on "The Hookes' Regular Sing" is a mixture of songs from existing shape-note traditions (the Sacred Harp etc.) and songs from Pioneer Valley books that are no longer used. Many of these were included in a shape note collection, The New Northampton Harmony, the group compiled in 1991 and used in singing schools throughout the Northeast and in England. Group members are Tim Eriksen, Cath Oss (both of the band Cordelia's Dad) Kelly House and Jeff Colby. Although primarily interested in community singing, while they were living in western Massachusetts the group made several recordings and performed on a fairly regular basis, including folk festivals like Newport and Winnipeg, churches, schools and, strangely enough, rock clubs. They have recorded with Tony Trischka and Dwight Diller, among others, and for several years did an annual holiday tour with Tony called "Glory Shone Around."