(b Monson, ME, 20 Aug 1874; d Nashville, TN, 19 Jan 1953). American folksong scholar. He was educated at Dresden Conservatory (1897–8), Vanderbilt University, the universities of Munich and Bonn and the University of Chicago, where he took the doctorate in 1911 with a dissertation on Romantic literature. Shortly after joining the German department of Vanderbilt University in 1918 he became interested in the music of the large southern singing groups such as the Sacred Harp Singers (together with Alan Lomax he made recordings of their performances, 1942). His study of the music, as found in collections published in the early 19th century, resulted in the book White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill, NC, 1933/R), which introduced an important body of American folk music to scholarly and general readers. It was followed by two collections of the music, Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America (Locust Valley, NY, 1937/R) and Down-East Spirituals (New York, 1943/R), two further studies, White and Negro Spirituals … with 116 Songs as Sung by both Races (New York, 1943/R) and The Story of ‘The Sacred Harp’, 1844–1944 (Nashville, TN, 1944), and a final anthology, Another Sheaf of White Spirituals (Gainesville, FL, 1952/R). He also founded and directed numerous organizations, including the Nashville SO (1920) and the Tennessee State Sacred Harp Singing Association (1939).