Now sister Az, you know as well as I that this was a "geft" directly lifted from the poor black churches in the American south. It is well documented in North Carolina and Mississippi. Harper Lee notes it in her To Kill a Mocking Bird when the Fitch children attend a "negro" church.

Also called "lining," "linging-out," "surge singing," and the texts sometimes "Dr. Watts."

1. Baily, Ben, E., "The Lined-Hymn Tradion in Black Mississippi Churches," The Black Perspective in Music, Published by the Foundation for Research in the Afro-American Creative Arts, 1-15 pp., Vol. 6, No. 1, Spring, 1978. (retrived through h/www jstor.org/pss/1214299)

.

2. Campbell, Gavin James, "The Development of Sacred Singing," Tar Heel Junior Historian, North Carolina Museum of History 37, no. 2. (Spring 1998). (retrived through h/www learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-newnation/4453).

3. Mouw, Richard J., Mouw (editor), Noll, Mark A., (editor), "Wonderful Words of Life: Hymns in American Protestant History and Theology," Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies Series William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004-03, p 36. ( ISBN: 978-0-8028-2160-7).

4. Smith, Therese, "Lining, Testifying, and 'Blackenizing': the musical expression of Black American families." Irish Journal of American Studies, vol 7: 55-78.

Sincerely,
Brother Gargoyle

The quote by Campbell, "they sounded like 'a parcel of frantic creatures.'” seems appropriate.