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John Henry swinging a hammer, with the steam drill behind him.

John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.
by Jake Maynard via Current Affairs on July 6, 2021
Woody Guthrie playing his guitar

This Anthem Was Made For You and Me?

A breakdown of how Woody Guthrie's hit song "This Land" has evolved over time.
by Abigail Shelton via Clio and the Contemporary on July 2, 2021
Bob Dylan singing

Bob Dylan, Historian

In the six decades of his career, Bob Dylan has mined America’s past for images, characters, and events that speak to the nation’s turbulent present.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on June 19, 2021
A black and white picture of Bob Dylan

How Bob Dylan Wrote the Second Great American Songbook

The sale of the singer-songwriter’s catalogue is a reminder of his massive cultural legacy.
by Jeet Heer via The Nation on December 11, 2020
Woody Guthrie

How Woody Guthrie’s Mother Shaped His Music of the Downtrodden

Gustavus Stadler on Nora Belle Guthrie's battle with Huntington's Disease.
by Gustavus Stadler via Literary Hub on November 16, 2020

A Lifetime Of Labor: Maybelle Carter At Work

Maybelle Carter witnessed the dawn of the recording era and helped create country music as one of the genre's biggest acts.
by Jessica Wilkerson via NPR on August 14, 2019

Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand

Odetta’s artistry was a weapon in the Civil Rights struggle, and was crucial to the era’s politics.
by Matthew Frye Jacobson via Longreads on May 22, 2019

Her Ancestors Fled to Mexico to Escape Slavery 170 Years Ago. She Still Sings in English.

The oldest living member of the Mascogos still sings songs in a language she doesn't understand.
by Kevin Sieff via Washington Post on April 12, 2019
partner

How a Folk Singer’s Murder Forced Chile to Confront Its Past

Víctor Jara was a legendary Chilean folk singer and political activist whose murder during a U.S.-backed military coup in 1973 went unsolved for decades.
via Retro Report on November 18, 2018

Reliving Johnny Cash's 'At Folsom Prison' at 50: An Oral History

Eyewitnesses to the Man in Black's legendary 1968 concerts at the California prison recall Cash's shining moment.
by Michael Streissguth via Rolling Stone on May 7, 2018

The Music I Love Is a Racial Minefield

How I learned to fiddle my way through America's deeply troubling history.
by Michael Mechanic via Mother Jones on December 21, 2017

The Powerful Tune That Drives ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’

A melody can carry an undeniable purpose even before it gets paired with a lyric.
by Jon Batiste via The Atlantic on November 7, 2017

Joni Mitchell: Fear of a Female Genius

One of the greatest living artists in popular music still isn’t properly recognized.
by Lindsay Zoladz via The Ringer on October 16, 2017

How Folk Rock Helped Crack the Iron Curtain

Fifty years ago, 160 young Americans defied State Department orders and partied on the streets of Moscow. The Cold War would never be the same.
by Emily Ludolph via Narratively on October 4, 2017
Illustration of the folk hero, John Henry, face down with a hammer in his hand.

A History of American Protest Music: This Is the Hammer That Killed John Henry

How a folk hero inspired one of the most covered songs in American history.
by Tom Maxwell via Longreads on October 4, 2017

Chronicling “America’s African Instrument”

The banjo's history and its symbolism of community, slavery, resistance, and ultimately America itself.
by Laurent Dubois, Stephanie Kingsley via Perspectives on History on June 19, 2017

How "This Land Is Your Land" Went From Protest Song to Singalong

Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” has lost a bit of its protest oomph—in part because of a decades-long denial of its later verses.
by Mark Allan Jackson, Erin Blakemore via JSTOR Daily on June 15, 2017

How April 14th Came to Be ‘Ruination Day’

April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some, it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious.
by Gillian Welch, Julia Wick via Longreads on April 14, 2015

So You Think You Know the Banjo?

If you think that the banjo can teach us nothing about American history, Southern culture and modern race relations, then you certainly don't know the banjo.
by Jenna Strucko via The Bitter Southerner on January 20, 2015
Woody Guthrie.

This Land Is Our Land

The Popular Front and American culture.
by Michael Kazin via Humanities on May 1, 2011
Bob Dylan.

Legacy of a Lonesome Death

Had Bob Dylan not written a song about it, the 1963 killing of a black servant by a white socialite’s cane might have been long forgotten.
by Ian Frazier via Mother Jones on May 8, 2010
Pete Seeger.

American Dreamers

Pete Seeger, William F. Buckley, Jr., and public history.
by William Hogeland via Boston Review on May 1, 2008
A bronze statue of Willie Nelson.

Willie Nelson at 70

"The Essential Willie Nelson" compilation demonstrates the continuity of Nelson's style across a variety of musical genres.
by Gene Santoro via The Nation on October 30, 2003
Circus Sideshow, by Georges Seurat, 1887–88.

Unforgettable

W.E.B. Du Bois on the beauty of sorrow songs.
via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 1, 1903
Illustration of Ives seen as an American counterpart to Mahler.

Charles Ives, Connoisseur of Chaos

Celebrating the composer’s 150th birthday, at a festival in Bloomington, Indiana.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on November 4, 2024
View of mountains on the horizon

Who Owns the Mountains?

Hurricane Helene has revived urgent questions about the politics of land — and tourism — in Appalachia.
by Olivia Paschal via New York Review of Books on November 3, 2024
Gustav Mahler; Charles Ives.

Anchoring Shards of Memory

We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both composers mined the past to root themselves in an unstable present.
by Joseph Horowitz via The American Scholar on September 9, 2024
summer campers around a fire
partner

Around the Campfire with Paul Robeson

The history of Camp Wo-Chi-Ca tells a largely overlooked story about left-wing politics and Black culture.
by Nina Silber via HNN on August 6, 2024
partner

Should a Colombian Buy a Banjo?

How preparation for a big purchase turned into an adventure through history.
by Santiago Flórez via HNN on April 16, 2024
Harry Smith pointing finger upward

Outsider’s Outsider

At once famous and obscure, marginal and central, Harry Smith anticipated and even invented several important elements of Sixties counterculture.
by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on February 28, 2024
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