The Centreville Historic Preservation Commission

Newly released!  "Images Of America, Bibb County" 

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Welcome to Bibb County "Christian Harmony"  

The video being displayed contains photos and music from Bibb County, Alabama.   We hope you enjoy a glimpse back in time into Historic Bibb County Alabama.

Many have asked, "What is that hauntingly beautiful singing I'm hearing?"

You are listening to "Christian Harmony" and "Sacred Harp", Shaped Note singing.  It's roots in Bibb County is traced back to the first European settlers as they began to move  eastward down through the Appalachian Mountains, and into the frontier areas of Tennessee, The Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, they brought with them their beloved "Shaped Note" tune books.

What you hear is this traditional à Capella dispersed harmony style of singing.  It is from the Bibb County "Deason-Parris" revision of the seven-shaped note "Christian Harmony" song book and these singings are continued in Bibb County today.

A recent quote from the The Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, and Alabama State Council on the Arts says:  "Bibb County's Art Deason, composer and dedicated promoter of his family’s tradition of Christian Harmony singing, is the oldest of the active seven-shaped note traditions in the South." 

This Bibb County Christian Harmony songbook, originally published in 1866 by South Carolinian William Walker, is now published in Alabama (1958 and 1994 revisions) largely through the efforts of Art Deason and his family," and this music is still being practiced today in it's original form in Bibb County Alabama.

"In his devotion to his cause of promoting the music and distributing the songbook, Deason communicates with dedicated Christian Harmony singers in other states and he keeps up with their activities.  However, it is clear to him and to music scholars that Alabama is the center of energy for this important genre of Southern sacred music."

More information:  http://fasola.org/
                             http://www.arts.state.al.us/folklife/heritage.htm#Art
                             http://www.arts.state.al.us/actc/articles/harmony.htm