Album Notes

New Year's Eve at the Iveys' 1972 is the second CD from Squirrel Hill Recordings. Its 26 tracks are compiled from a recording made on a portable tape recorder by Marie Ivey at a singing held at the home of Marie and her husband Coy in Henagar on Sand Mountain in Alabama on New Year's Eve in 1972, consisting of songs from the 1971 edition of the Sacred Harp (all of which are in the most recent revision, the 1991 edition, as well), sung by a group that includes some legendary singers that are sadly no longer with us, such as Eulas and Helen Ivey, Andrew Ivey, and Bonard Wilks. The New Year's Eve Sacred Harp singing, which was begun in 1962 by Eloise Ivey Wootten and Brenda Wootten Carroll, has since outgrown private homes and is now held every year at Antioch Baptist Church in Ider, AL.

While the quality of the recording is not that of a professional studio product, the singing is strong, moving and well worth the occasional noise (including a ringing phone!) that may crop up.

$3 from the sale of each copy of New Year's Eve at the Iveys' 1972 will be donated to the Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization the purpose of which is the preservation and perpetuation of Sacred Harp singing and its traditions.