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The Fisk Jubilee Singers.

How the Negro Spiritual Changed American Popular Music—And America Itself

In 1871, the Fisk University singers embarked on a tour that introduced white Americans to a Black sound that would reshape the nation.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen .
partner

How the American Suburbs Created Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel

The musical culture of the New York metropolitan area, combined with themes of suburban life, suffuse the legends' music.
by Jim Cullen via Made By History on October 13, 2023
Musical notation and a drawing of a barbed wire fence.

The Musical Legacy of a Mississippi Prison Farm

The new album “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning” collects gospel songs recorded inside a notorious penitentiary.
by Hanif Abdurraqib via The New Yorker on October 2, 2023
Prisoners at Parchman Farm march to work on cotton fields

‘It’s a Charged Place’: Parchman Farm, the Mississippi Prison with a Remarkable Musical History

Inmates at this bucolic but brutal prison have long been singing the blues to sustain themselves, and a new compilation of gospel songs continues the legacy.
by Sheldon Pearce via The Guardian on September 20, 2023
A portion of the author’s music collection; bootleg cassette tapes and CDs. Photo by Maya Walker.

The Pirate Preservationists

When keeping cultural archives safe means stepping outside the law.
by Jesse Walker via Reason on September 10, 2023
American blues singer and guitarist Leadbelly performs for a room full of people, 1940.

Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.
by Lynne Feeley via The Nation on July 31, 2023
Woody Guthrie

Will Rogers & Woody Guthrie, Two Great Americans

Popular culture and social critique through Rogers' writing and Guthrie's songs.
by Greg Mitchell via Between Rock and a Hard Place on June 29, 2023
Henderson Thigpen, Deanie Parker, Bobby Manuel, and Eddie Floyd, the songwriters of Stax.

The Secret Sound of Stax

The rediscovery of demos performed by the songwriters of the legendary Memphis recording studio reveals a hidden history of soul.
by Burkhard Bilger via The New Yorker on May 29, 2023
Cast of the opera "Omar" on stage, with Arabic script on the stage backdrop.

‘Tell Your Story, Omar’

A new, Pulitzer Prize–winning opera adapts the memoir of Omar ibn Said, an African Muslim who spent much of his life enslaved in North Carolina.
by Edward Ball via New York Review of Books on May 4, 2023
Production of Oklahoma! where actors in brightly colored clothing dance a square dance in front of a set of rural architecture and farmland.

Behind 'Oklahoma!' Lies the Remarkable Story of a Gay Cherokee Playwright

Lynn Riggs wrote the play that served as the basis of the hit 1943 musical.
by Jennie Rothenburg Gritz via Smithsonian on March 30, 2023
original

The Life of Song

What the surprising career of Bob McGrath teaches us about popular music.
by Kathryn Ostrofsky on December 14, 2022
Four women looking away from the camera and smiling.

Fairytale

The Pointer Sisters, the Great Migration, and the soul of country.
by Carina del Valle Schorske via Oxford American on December 13, 2022
Album cover featuring a sketch of Buck Hammer playing the piano with a cigar in his mouth.

The Discovery of Buck Hammer

A remarkable blues musician emerged from obscurity in 1959, but something about him just didn’t seem right.
by Ted Gioia via The Honest Broker on January 17, 2022
Clockwise from left: William Dawson, Marian Anderson, William Grant Still, Florence Price. Background features the score of Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2.

Classical Music and the Color Line

Despite its universalist claims, the field is reckoning with a long legacy of racial exclusion.
by Douglas Shadle via Boston Review on December 15, 2021
Portrait photo of Geronimo in European style clothing, holding a bow and arrow, 1904.

Ambushing Geronimo

An introduction to salvage anthropology.
by Samuel J. Redman via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 27, 2021
Marian Anderson looking downwards

Marian Anderson’s Bone-Chilling Rendition of “Crucifixion”

Her performances of the Black spiritual in the nineteen-thirties caused American and European audiences to fall silent in awe.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on October 19, 2021
Photo of Joni Mitchell on blue background

How Joni Mitchell Shattered Gender Barriers When Women Couldn't Even Have Their Own Credit Cards

Joni Mitchell might not have wanted to be the glamorous bard of women’s rising consciousness, but with “Blue,” she became just that.
by Jessica Hopper via Los Angeles Times on June 22, 2021
The Citizen DJ logo, a stylized stick-figure person with headphones on.

Citizen DJ 2020 Retrospective

The long history of sampling in music, and a new tool that lets artists sample without fear of copyright claims.
by Brian Foo via Citizen DJ on December 31, 2020
An image of Bob Dylan performing with a spotlight on him.

Tangled Up in Bob Stories: A Dylan Reading List

The author reflects on his own journey with Dylan, and shares some of his favorite pieces of Dylanology.
by Aaron Gilbreath via Longreads on June 24, 2020
Cartoon by Joey Perr; a man in a top hat and holding a monacle studies a sign broadcasting Ella Fitzgerald as music notes fill the air.

What’s Going On

The vexed history of "Night Life" in the New Yorker.
by Phillip Golub via The Drift on May 22, 2020

This Day in Labor History: December 1, 1868

On folk hero John Henry.
by Erik Loomis via Twitter on December 1, 2019

The Scandinavian Christian Music Industry and Transatlantic Pentecostalism

In the post-war era, a wave of American young evangelists flocked to Europe to claim the continent for Christ. And the exchanges went both ways.
by Hilde Løvdal Stephens via Anxious Bench on July 11, 2019

This Land Is Whose Land? Indian Country and the Shortcomings of Settler Protest

As a Native person, I believe “This Land Is Your Land” falls flat.
by Mali Obomsawin via Folklife on June 14, 2019

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll

From Bob Dylan to David Bowie to The Beatles, the legendary Beat writer’s influence reached beyond literature into music in surprising ways.
by Casey Rae via Longreads on June 11, 2019

Vessel of Antiquity

Influence, invention, and the legacy of Leon Redbone.
by Megan Pugh via Oxford American on March 19, 2019
Poster for minstrelsy cake walk
partner

The Faces of Racism

A history of blackface and minstrelsy in American culture.
via BackStory on February 8, 2019

The Vietnam War: A History in Song

The ‘First Television War’ was also documented in over 5,000 songs.
by Justin Brummer via History Today on September 25, 2018

Acquitting Elvis of Cultural Appropriation

His groundbreaking rock-n-roll was neither 'thievery' nor 'derivative blackness.'
by David Masciotra via The American Conservative on April 18, 2018
Charley Pride on stage.

Charley Pride’s Music Taught Listeners That Country Music Was Black Music, Too

The mythology of cowboy culture is aggressively white, but there was always a black West.
by Nina Renata Aron via Timeline on February 12, 2018

A Hardworking Man Named Bob McDill

The steady hand behind more than 30 No. 1 country hits.
by Jennifer Justus via The Bitter Southerner on February 8, 2018
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