¨Ananias Davisson's the Kentucky Harmony is one of the most important and influential collections of American folk hymnody ever compiled, and despite its once great popularity, it has become a great rarity. Few have ever been privileged to examine one of the tiny number of extant copies.¨

Irving Lowens: Introduction to The Kentucky Harmony: Facsimile Edition. January 1976

¨An analysis of the 1854 edition of The Sacred Harp shows that it utilized 58 tunes chosen by Davisson. The 1860 edition of The Sacred Harp used 44.¨

Irving Lowens: Introduction to The Kentucky Harmony: Facsimile Edition. January 1976

¨The Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony (1820) is an entirely distinct tune book compiled so ´that his Methodist friends may be furnished with a suitable and proper Arrangement of such pieces as may seem best to animate the zealous Christian in his acts of devotion.´. . . his [Davisson´s] very plan of providing two independent the mutually complementary tune books for different sectarian groups was essentially the same as Wyeths plan, and may have been inspired by it. ¨

David Warren Steel,

John Wyatt and the Development of Southern Folk Hymnody,1988