Stored away in their village library is a collection of 10,000 Shaker songs. "We believe that everything we have is a gift, a gift from God," says Brother Arnold Hadd. In his late 50s, Hadd is the ...

After 150 years, “Simple Gifts” isn’t so simple anymore. The song composed in 1848 by Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett as an easy-to-learn tune for Shaker worship — extolling the virtues of a ...

Robert C. and Viola E. Woodruff Opdahl have worked more than a decade to complete the paperback of more than 129 Shaker songs presented in 10 sections introduced by text and illustrations.

There’s an emcee who introduces the songs, a DJ manning a turntable and ... it’s all the same to these women. Shaker musicality is as unvarnished as Shaker carpentry. What could be the points ...

But consider the words to the well-known Shaker song, "Simple Gifts": "'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ...

“She had a death with dignity and love,” Hadd said Tuesday. “She was surrounded by love, tears and a lot of Shaker songs.” Their community at Sabbathday Lake was settled in 1783 and was ...

The religious terminology is hardly accidental. “Early Shaker Spirituals” presents 20 songs, two monologues and even the liner notes from a 1976 documentary recording of Sister R. Mildred ...

The visitors reverently make their way up the Meeting House steps and settle onto wood benches where they listen spellbound to a costumed interpreter sing the famous Shaker dance song "Simple ...

“O Brethren Ain’t Ye Happy?” is an old Shaker song and one of the few “motion songs” still in the Shakers’ repertoire. But only two people in the packed chapel were actual Shaker ...

Brother Arnold Hadd, one of those who survive her, reported that Sister Frances died “surrounded in love, tears and Shaker songs.” A Shaker since the age of 10, Sister Frances converted to the faith ...

‘‘She was surrounded by love, tears, and a lot of Shaker songs.’’ Their community at Sabbathday Lake was settled in 1783, one of more than a dozen such communities created in the New World ...