Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard is a collection of music from 1923 to 1936 that includes "songs of labor and occupation, hardship and loss; dance tunes, comic numbers, and novelties that provided distraction and fun; and the hymns and sacred pieces that reached beyond the raw material of daily existence for something enduring." John Jeremiah Sullivan considers his own secular appreciation of gospel music:
I felt the peculiar mixed admiration that non-believers get in the presence of great religious music, equal parts awe and alienation. You’re transported by the song, but you observe it from the outside—picturing the singers, their faces full of impenetrable faith. That congregation wasn’t singing to me, except insofar as they hoped to save me, to save passing motorists who might dial in their program. Yet there was a feeling, on my end at least, of overlap. For two or three minutes we shared the sensation of reverence itself, of bowing before something magnificent. For me, the thing was the music alone.
In a positive review Pitchfork touched on the fortuitous discovery of the music:
The bulk of the sides on Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard were salvaged by guitarist and nascent archivist Nathan Salsburg. Nearly three years ago, a friend of Salsburg's called to say that he'd stumbled upon a trove of old and abused records in the home of a Kentucky man who died a week earlier. That night, Salsburg dug through boxes of ketchup bottles and old 78-rpm records in a dumpster outside of the late man's home, steadily realizing that he'd found more than the standard collection of grandparent vinyl. Despite his early skepticism, Salsburg knew that the records amassed by Don Wahle– an enigma with an almost entirely unknown backstory, aside from the dilapidated boxes of music and record catalogue receipts Salsburg rescued– transmitted tales of folk and country music in America that were either previously obscure or altogether untold. … When [Wahle] died, they almost passed along with him.
Sample more of the songs here.
(Above: Easter Day by The Dixon Brothers, which is among the songs featured on Work Hard, Play Hard, Pray Hard)
The Dish 