Sound of the Dove is a very good book. Once you are done with it, there are a couple from the Alabama Folklife Association that I like. Both come with CD's In the spirit : Alabama's sacred music traditions / edited by Henry Willett. Montgomery, AL : Black Belt Press for the Alabama Folklife Association, c1995. Try this to see a contents note. More specific to the Primitive Baptist style is Benjamin Lloyd's Hymn Book: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition A book of essays with a CD recording documenting the history and current use of an historic hymn book.

Music of the highest class : elitism and populism in antebellum Boston / Michael Broyles. New Haven : Yale University Press, c1992. This book focuses on Boston, but is good for all of the Northeast from European settlement to the Civil War. There are several good chapters on the history of hymns in early America & explain how & why the music styles changed from the music that Billings wrote to Lowell Mason's style.

I'll do my hymnals later.