Hugh Mc Graw - Life

Life

He was born to John McGraw, a railroad worker, and Lillie Ashley, who worked as a seamstress at the Sewell Manufacturing Company. When he was about three months old, his family moved to Villa Rica, Georgia, where he lived to the age of 12. At that time the family moved to Bremen, Georgia. In adulthood he pursued a career in business in Bremen, managing a clothing manufacturing plant.

While he grew up, he was not a Sacred Harp singer, but was acquainted with the tradition. In an interview conducted in connection with his award of a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship (1982), he remarked:

The McGraw family has been involved in Sacred Harp music for well over a hundred years, but I didn't get involved until I was 25 years old. I'd go to a singing with my mother and father, but I thought it was more important to stay outside and play in the spring and run around the house than it was to learn this tradition.

His involvement with Sacred Harp singing began when he attended a singing as a young adult in about 1953, developed an instant strong enthusiasm, and persuaded a second cousin (his "Uncle Bud" McGraw, a singing school teacher) to teach him about Sacred Harp music. McGraw then became a Sacred Harp composer, several of whose songs appear in the 1960 and subsequent editions of The Sacred Harp.