Lit­tle is known of Read’s ear­ly life, but he was com­pos­ing by age 17. He moved to New Ha­ven, Con­nec­ti­cut, in 1782, where he man­aged a gen­er­al store and gave sing­ing les­sons. He wrote most of his mu­sic in the 1780’s and 1790’s. His works in­clude:

• The Amer­i­can Sing­ing Book (New Ha­ven, Con­nec­ti­cut: 1785)
• The Co­lum­bi­an Har­mo­nist (New Ha­ven, Con­nec­ti­cut: 1793-95)
• An In­tro­duct­ion to Psalm­o­dy (New Ha­ven, Con­nec­ti­cut: 1790)
• Amer­i­can Mus­ic­al Mag­a­zine (New Ha­ven, Con­nec­ti­cut: 1786-87), the first mu­sic per­i­od­i­cal in Amer­i­ca

• Brown, p. 466
• Hughes, pp. 528-9
• Jones, p. 143
• Nutter, p. 463
• Stulken, p. 397

1. Bartimaeus
2. Lisbon
3. Windham
4. Winter