The Welsh love of song, and hymns in particular, is legendary – perhaps no other nation has sung them with such fervour. This is a comprehensive history of hymn writing and singing in Wales and amongst the Welsh diaspora in North America, from the days of the Protestant Revivals to the multitude of Welsh Male Voice Choirs across the globe today. It considers the influence of key figures such as William Williams Pantycelyn and Ira Sankey and also looks at Welsh preaching, the mesmerising, musical style of which can be heard in the voices of famous speakers from Dylan Thomas to Martin Luther King Jr.
Painstakingly researched in libraries and archives in both Wales and America, including information from emigrant letters and diaries and local newspapers of the period, this is the definitive history of the Welsh love of hymn-singing, and of how hymns and the religious movements and revivals of which they were part fired the imagination and spread via Welsh emigrants to the religious communities of the USA.
