I think the link will change, so here's the text, from the Latest News at Musical Traditions:

Reading the Line

A booklet has just been published which sheds new light on the English-language equivalent of Gaelic psalm-singing in Scotland.

Reading the Line: an English-language Lining-out tradition in Presbyterian Scotland looks at the practice of 'giving out the line'. Gaelic psalmody has preserved this singing style, but it was once standard practice in the Scottish Lowlands and actually came into Scotland due to English influence.

The book traces the rise and decline of 'reading the line' in English throughout Scotland as well as its re-emergence in that language in one denomination, the Free Presbyterian Church, in the twentieth-century. The booklet also includes a brief survey of the North American versions of the lining-out tradition and the distribution of Gaelic services in the Free Church of Scotland and other groups in the islands and throughout Scotland in the present day. Painstaking research in libraries and in discussion with older people in the Highland mainland is reflected in the detailed and carefully-referenced chapters.

The author, Stornoway-based Norman Campbell, states in the opening page that he wishes to 'add to the discussion' initiated by the claims of Prof Willie Ruff of Yale University that US Gospel music was influenced by the Gaelic-language lining-out worship tradition, brought to North Carolina by Highland settlers. The booklet is aimed at anyone interested in church and social history, bilingualism and cultural change, as well as areas such as the Islands, Ross-shire, Caithness and Sutherland.

All profits from the sale of the 32-page booklet, which costs �4.99, will go to the Bethesda Hospice and Care Home in Stornoway. The booklet is available for �5:75 (inc post and package) from Norman Campbell, 2 Garden Rd, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, Scotland, HS1 2QJ.

dated 5.12.05

~ Becky in Tucson