This is the original Bay Psalm Book. It was the first book printed in the original thirteen colonies. It was published in 1640 and contains rough translations of several imported Psalters.

This, original copy, is kept at Harvard. I am taking my foreign students on a tour of MIT and Harvard next month as part of my American History course.

Before the Bay Psalm Book, American music was purely an oral tradition, passed from generation to generation, in Native American cultures.

I am having a hard time finding circa 17c. Native American recordings...more later