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Two elderly Black women.

How the Memory of a Song Reunited Two Women Separated by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

In 1990, scholars found a Sierra Leonean woman who remembered a nearly identical version of a tune passed down by a Georgia woman’s enslaved ancestors
by Joshua Kagavi via Smithsonian on February 29, 2024
An painting depicting a murder ballad, with the murder happening in the background and a band playing music in the foreground.

Blood Harmony

The far-flung tale of a murder song.
by David Ramsey via Oxford American on December 5, 2023
Illustration of Guitar, a Gun and Roses by Eric Hanson

The Bully in the Ballad

Was Mississippi John Hurt really the first person to sing the tragic tale of Louis Collins?
by Eric McHenry via The American Scholar on December 15, 2022
Black and white photo of Woody Guthrie holding a guitar labeled "this machine kills fascists"

I've Got Those Old Talking-Blues Blues Again

The Folkies and WWII, Part Two.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on October 13, 2022
The Almanac Singers playing various instruments, including guitars, a banjo, and an accordion.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on October 3, 2022
Odetta sitting on a park bench playing a guitar.

How Odetta Revolutionized Folk Music

She animated the horror and emotional intensity in American labor songs by projecting them like a European opera singer.
by Sasha Frere-Jones via The New Yorker on February 24, 2022
Johnny Cash in front of a microphone.

Johnny Cash Is a Hero to Americans on the Left and Right. But His Music Took a Side.

Listen to Blood, Sweat and Tears again.
by Michael Stewart Foley via Slate on December 7, 2021
Phil Wiggins performs at the Blair Mountain Centennial. | Rafael Barker, collection of the WV Mine Wars Museum.

The Singing Left

At a recent commemoration of the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, songs of struggle took center stage.
by Kim Kelly via The Baffler on September 21, 2021
An illustration of an accordion being played.

The "Good Old Rebel" at the Heart of the Radical Right

How a satirical song mocking uneducated Confederates came to be embraced as an anthem of white Southern pride.
by Joseph M. Thompson via Southern Cultures on January 21, 2021
A series of photographs of Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell’s Youthful Artistry

A new release records the musician’s early metamorphosis—unmoored, broke, living for a time in an attic—when her lodestar was her big, strange, unwieldy talent.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on November 29, 2020

Somebody Died, Babe: A Musical Cover-Up of Racism, Violence, and Greed

Beneath the popular folk song, “Swannanoa Tunnel” and the railroad tracks that run through Western North Carolina is a story of blood, greed, and obfuscation.
by Kevin Kehrberg, Jeffrey A. Keith via The Bitter Southerner on August 4, 2020
A violinist and a guitarist play at a square dance in Mcintosh County, Oklahoma.

Government Song Women

The Resettlement Administration was one of the New Deal’s most radical, far-reaching, and highly criticized programs, and it lasted just two years.
by Sheryl Kaskowitz via Humanities on May 1, 2020

Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means

The roots musician is inspired by the evolving legacy of the black string band.
by John Jeremiah Sullivan via The New Yorker on May 13, 2019
Billy McComiskey (right) performing Irish music at the Library of Congress with his sons Mikey McComiskey (left) and Patrick McComiskey (center) in 2016. Library of Congress photo by Shawn Miller.

A Few Examples of Dads’ Traditions

Stephanie Hall provides examples of folklore and storytelling within a fathers' relationship to music.
by Stephanie Hall via Library of Congress on June 16, 2017
Blackfoot Chief, Mountain Chief making phonographic record at Smithsonian, February 9, 1916.

Eavesdropping on History

By all accounts, young Bill Owens was a natural song-catcher, trawling across Texas in the 1930s, the golden era of American field recording.
by Cynthia Shearer via Oxford American on April 5, 2016
Painting of Woody Guthrie smoking a cigarette while playing a guitar.

Woody Guthrie: Folk Hero

Guthrie challenged the commercial aesthetic of the pre-rock era through a performance style that was almost combatively anti-musical.
by David Hajdu via The New Yorker on March 21, 2004
Bob Dylan performing on stage.

The Lines, They Are A-Changin’

Getting lost and found in the Bob Dylan archives.
by Justin Taylor via Bookforum on October 29, 2024
Joni Mitchell being interviewed in 1972 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Seeing Ourselves in Joni Mitchell

Ann Powers’s deeply personal biography of Joni Mitchell looks at how a generation of listeners came to identify with the folk singer’s intimate songs.
by David Hajdu via The Nation on June 11, 2024
Sailors singing a sea shanty.

There’s No Such Thing as “Just a Song”

What we can learn from the history of maritime folk music.
by Katy Kelleher, Stephen Sanfilippo via Nautilus on May 29, 2024
Sheet music for "Massa's in de Cold Ground" as sung by Christy's Minstrels.

Christy’s Minstrels Go to Great Britain

Minstrel shows were an American invention, but they also found success in the United Kingdom, where audiences were negotiating their relationships with empire.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on March 27, 2024
"A Grain of Sand" record

Charting the Music of a Movement

Galvanized by an act of racial violence, the band A Grain of Sand brought a new version of Asian American activism and identity to the folk music scene.
by Oliver Wang, H. M. A. Leow via JSTOR Daily on March 11, 2024
Harry Smith.

‘Cosmic Scholar’ Review: Harry Smith’s Strange Frequencies

Smith collected rare books, paper airplanes, Pennsylvania Dutch tools—and harvested the folk music recordings that changed a generation.
by Timothy Farrington via The Wall Street Journal on August 11, 2023
Mural depicting bluesman John Dee Holeman and friends playing on the front porch of a house.

The Living Legacy of the Piedmont Blues

The music that grew out of Durham's tobacco manufacturing plants influenced some of the most widely recorded musicians of the last 65 years—and still does.
by Marc Farinella via The Assembly on July 14, 2023
The Ferguson Unit Rhythmeer Band plays at the Jim Ferguson Unit in Madison County, Texas.

The Blues Behind Bars: How Southern Prisons Shaped American Music

Incarcerated musicians have crafted some of the most iconic songs in American music history while prisons reap the profits.
by Zeb Larson via Scalawag on June 8, 2023
Connie Converse playing a guitar

The Lost Music of Connie Converse

A writer of haunting, uncategorizable songs, she once seemed poised for runaway fame. But only decades after she disappeared has her music found an audience.
by Jeremy Lybarger via The New Republic on April 24, 2023
Bar chart of different musical genres on a timeline of when they were popular.

A Timeline of African American Music: 1600 to the Present

An interactive visualization of the remarkable diversity of African American music, with essays on the characteristics of each genre and style.
by Portia K. Maultsby via Carnegie Hall on May 25, 2022
Various photos of Dylan.

One Fan’s Search for Seeds of Greatness in Bob Dylan’s Hometown

The iconic songwriter has transcended time and place for 60 years. What should that mean for the rest of us?
by T. M. Shine via Washington Post Magazine on April 18, 2022
Sheet music cover for Civil War marching song "The Bonnie Blue Flag," featuring two flags used by Confederate states.

We Are a Band of Brothers

Why are so many songs of the Confederacy indelibly inscribed in my Yankee memory?
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on April 9, 2022
Portraits of Dean Dixon, William Grant Still, and Margaret Bonds, three African American classical musicians.

A Prophecy Unfulfilled?

What a new book and six companion videos have to say about the fate of Black classical music in America.
by Mark N. Grant via The American Scholar on April 2, 2022
Picture of country singer Charley Pride performing with guitar and microphone.

Charley Pride: How the US Country Star Became an Unlikely Hero During the Troubles

Tammy Wynette and Johnny Cash cancelled gigs in Belfast during the violent 1970s, but Pride played on.
by Walker Mimms via The Guardian on December 8, 2021
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