By 1944, William Walker's The Christian Harmony, 1873 Edition had been out of print for quite some time. The supply of books was so exhausted there were not enough books for an all-day singing or for a singing school. Plans were underway at this time by the Christian Harmony singers in Alabama to revise the book.
In 1954, Orin Adolphus Parris (1897-1966) edited a partial revision of The Christian Harmony in an upright format. Then Parris worked with John Henry Deason (1905-1975) to complete the revision in an oblong format in 1958. In the preface of the book, the authors state that they believe the new book will "fill a long felt need to give our singers plenty of books." They even go on to say that this book would be more useful than the original book.
One major change in the new revision is the shape-note system. Walker's editions of The Christian Harmony use Walker's shape-note system. Deason and Parris decided to use the shape-note system that was developed by Jesse B. Aikin. The Aikin shape-note system has been used in all, or mostly all, seven-syllable shape-note tune books since the late 1870s.
The revision removed 179 songs that were "very rarely if ever used." They moved 34 songs, and 37 songs were expanded to more space so they could easily be read.
The revision added 102 songs that were either new compositions or from other sources. Twenty-three of these newly composed songs were written by Parris. Parris started his own music publishing company, Parris Music Company, with his headquarters in Jasper, Alabama. Later, he worked for the Stamps Quartet Music Company and was manager of their Birmingham office. Many of his songs have a Southern Gospel feel to them.
Parris had the tedious task of typesetting the music. There are 381 pages in the book, and Parris did it by hand.
The book was revised in 1994. During this revision 10 songs were removed and 13 were added.
The book would be revised again in 2002. This revision did not make any changes to the list of songs that were in the book. This revision was to "correct as many mistakes as possible."
About 2007, talk began concerning a merger of Walker's book and the Deason-Parris revision. Supplies of both books were getting low. In 2010, The Christian Harmony, 2010 Edition was published.
The revision committee for the 2010 Edition placed songs from the Deason-Parris revision first, and compared shared songs to Walker's book and incorporated some changes. Next, all of the songs that the Deason-Parris revisions removed were added back into the book in generally the order they appeared in the Walker book. At the end of the 2010 Edition, there are a few newly composed songs. The latest printing (2016) of the 2010 Edition adds full composer and lyric attributions, and corrects errors.
This book has growing usage. Currently it is used in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Oregon, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, England, and Ireland.
Sources:
Jackson, George P. The Story of the Sacred Harp: 1844-1944. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1944).
Kimzey, Anne. "A Christian Harmony Songbook Revised and Reprinted", Alabama State Council on the Arts (October 1994), <https://arts.alabama.gov/traditional_culture/folkwaysarticles/ACHRISTIANHARMONYSONGBOOK.aspx> (1 September 2014).
Steel, David W. and Richard H. Hulan. The Makers of the Sacred Harp. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010).
Memories and Modern Songs. (Dallas: Stamps Quartet Music Company, 1955).
Walker, William. The Christian Harmony. Revised by John Deason and O. A. Parris. (Centreville, AL: Christian Harmony Publishing Company, 1958).
Walker, William. The Christian Harmony, 2010 Edition. (Bishop, GA: Christian Harmony Publishing Company, 2010).