The Sacred Harp, 1991 Edition

The 1991 Edition (the successor to the Denson Revision) is the more widely used of two major editions of The Sacred Harp in use today, particularly in the north and central regions of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, and among the many Sacred Harp singers outside the South. In the lineage of Sacred Harp editions, it is a descendent of the 1844 tunebook The Sacred Harp by B.F. White and E. J. King and the 1911 revision called Original Sacred Harp compiled by Joseph S. James. More immediately it is a revision of, and successor to, the Original Sacred Harp: Denson Revision (1936). To compile the 1991 Edition, a music committee of prominent Sacred Harp singers chaired by Hugh McGraw added 62 songs and deleted 46 rarely sung older songs and anthems. The added songs include late 18th- and early 19th-century classics of New England and Southern origin and new songs by living composers from the South, Northeast, and Midwest.

This edition/revision is still frequently termed the "Denson book" by many Sacred Harpers, but this is incorrect in a strict sense, because the music committee for this major revision did not include members of the Denson family, and the ownership of the publishing company was (and is) no longer concentrated in the Denson family. The 1991 Edition was realized through the leadership of Hugh McGraw, the dynamic Executive Secretary of the publishing company from 1958 to 2002.