A curve in the road about 25 miles from the Canadian Border, in the hills of Vermont’s famed Northeast Kingdom, marks the hamlet of East Craftsbury. The dairy farms produce fine, rich milk, and the sap of the sugar maples renders syrup sweet, smooth and clear. But the community’s most famous product cannot be bottled.There sings not just a choir, but a whole congregation, averaging some 60 voices, joined in harmonies rich, sweet, smooth and clear.

Many of the singers are kinfolk, seemingly heirs to some genetic gift for perfect pitch. They have been raised in a singing tradition traceable to the 1830s when some of their forebears emigrated from Scotland. As the years have passed, new voices from “away,” some musically trained, have joined in. But the core of the sound has historically come from the long-time farming families of Andersons, Calderwoods, Kinseys, Rowells, Shields, Uries and Youngs. What first distinguishes East Craftsbury congregational singing is that most members naturally pick up a hymn book and sing not the melody, but their parts. The result is a stirring harmony that seems to resonate somewhere inside a listener’s chest, radiating thrills up the backs of neck and arms.

Many senior members credit war-time Pastor Boyd Killough with teaching them part singing when they were teenagers. But the tradition clearly goes back. Eunice (Rowell) Kinsey and her late husband (former State Representative) Bob Kinsey bought their farm in the 1940s from Ora and Maude Anderson, who used to get through their chores with Maude singing alto in the kitchen and Ora singing bass from the attached barn.

Also unusual is the full measure of men’s voices. Once a month, the choir is all male. Many of those men also sing in the regular choir. Others sit in the pews and swell the sound from the congregation, giving the Sunday worship singing a balance not often heard in many churches these days.

The power and the clarity of the sound are also remarkable. The late Harry Rowell, father, grandfather and great-grandfather to at least a dozen of the voices on this recording, used to tell his children, “Well, if you know the song, sing out in church; it helps the other folks.” As the spirit of this advice has been handed down, it has produced what composer John Weaver, Director of Music Ministry,  calls the “enthusiasm of a very honest, rural congregation sound.” Says Louise (Rowell) Kinsey, “We believe what we’re singing, and we enjoy it. We make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

Many also credit acoustics. Entering the church, designed in 1909 by Frank Lyman Austin, a leading Vermont architect of his day “is like walking into the body of a cello...it has that ‘cupped-ear’ effect” says Dr. Weaver, who filled in on the church’s organ during the summer before retiring to Glover, Vermont. 

The choir’s role in this sound is large. After singing their anthem, choir members disperse to sit with their families and friends. Their voices on this recording come therefore not from the choir loft, but from the congregation. The people on this recording “have always grown up with this kind of singing and they don’t realize how special and good it is,” says Karen Miller, former choir director of the church who was the choir director when the recording was made. But when she and others began to ponder its quality, the church decided to record it. On a hot Sunday in July, the entire congregation stayed after the morning service for the fellowship luncheon in the basement. When the last of the home-baked pies had been consumed, all filed back into their pews. Karen sat down at the organ, recording engineer Peter Wilder pressed “record” and the congregation sang for over four hours, unrehearsed. None of the congregation, of course, had ever heard a recording of themselves at song. Some were wide-eyed with surprise at this one. “That’s good!” said (the late) Agnes Young, who played the organ and led the choir for nearly 30 years, and whose voice is also here.

We think you’ll agree.