Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans.

* Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans, by William T. Dargan. University of California Press (2120 Berkley Way, Berkley, CA 94704), 2006. 320 pp. $45.

Lining Out the Word is a scholarly treatise citing the adaptation, adoption and assimilation of Dr. Isaac Watts's hymns by African slaves during the slave masters church services and how this impacted the black Baptist services and African American music genres in the United States.

The author presents an in-depth study that begins with his own background experiences as a child in a rural country church and is augmented with interviews, tapings, travels and observations.

What makes this compilation of events so exciting is that the expertise of professional historians, linguists, musicians, ethnomusicologists, ministers, poets, writers, hymnists and composers is constantly referenced.

The study covers the time period from slavery to the present and beyond. It is mainly focused on the Southeastern area of the United States, including the states of South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Florida. The congregations were mostly black Baptist with a few AME (African Methodist Episcopal) and CME (Christian Methodist Episcopal) included.

The book is dedicated to the author's grandfather, father, mother and mentor who "fired" his interest in the subject of lining out the words.

The work is quite abstract, scholarly and requires some knowledge of church ritual, more helpfully black Baptist/Pentecostal. It would spark the interest of an ethnomusicologist, Baptist or Methodist minister, church organist/choir director interested in using lining out as part of his or her rehearsal technique, a college scholar, college professor or doctoral student of church music or the ministry.

The research is organized into two sections following the list of illustrations, preface, acknowledgements and introduction. They are Part I: "The Proverbial Trees--Patterns of Change in African American Music Making" (six chapters), and Part II: "The Proverbial Forest--The Proverbial Forest Webs of Significance in African American Music Making" (thee chapters, plus conclusion). Notes on the chapters, bibliography and discography complete the dissertation.

The text focuses on the effect and affect of Dr. Watts's hymns and lining out in black Baptist rituals impacted upon the African American musical genres from slavery to today. The area studied was in the Southeastern United States, which sparks interest for expansion of this investigation in the Northeastern, Western and Midwestern United States, Canada, South America and the Caribbean. Quite a Challenge!--Reviewed by Jacqueline Beach Faulcon, Hockessin, Delaware

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