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A "High Water" sign mirrored in front of a black and white portrait of two Black men standing in front of a boat on the water

Songs for a South Underwater

After the 1927 Great Flood, Black musicians from the Delta produced an outpour of songs testifying to the destruction. The same is true today.
by Sergio Lopez via Scalawag on February 11, 2022
Frank Sinatra singing into a microphone.

The Christmas Carol Canon That Could Have Been

Pheasants? 'Dickory dock'? Toyland? Here's how a narrow slice of American history changed the holidays forever.
by Addison Del Mastro via The Spectator on December 21, 2021
Image of a 1970's band invoking the imagery of the Lost Cause and the Confederacy.

Whistlin' D ----.

Why songs of the southland are really northern.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on December 15, 2021
Leonard Bernstein in the 1960s, at his desk piled with music scores, reading one, pen in hand.

Conservatives Say Liberals Want West Side Story to Be “Woke Side Story”

The beloved musical’s creator struggled to find a place between left and center.
by Daniel Wortel-London via Slate on December 13, 2021
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
A photo of Fontella Bass repeated as if it's a frame in a filmstrip.

Can't You See That I'm Lonely?

“Rescue Me,” on repeat.
by David Ramsey via Oxford American on December 7, 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
Album cover for "We Insist!", which features African American men sitting at a lunch counter

The Sounds of Struggle

Sixty years ago, a pathbreaking jazz album fused politics and art in the fight for Black liberation. Black artists are taking similar strides today.
by Michael Beyea Reagan via Boston Review on June 24, 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
A black and white photograph of a person playing the guitar.

My Father, Cultural Appropriator

The daughter of Buddy Holly's bandmate reflects on the defensiveness some white people have about the roots of rock 'n' roll.
by Sarah Curtis via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 5, 2021

What's Going On? 50 Years Ago, The Answer Was Bigger Than Marvin Gaye

In 1971, a wave of Black artists released explosive new work that put its politics front and center.
by Mark Anthony Neal via NPR on May 21, 2021
Johnny Cash visiting his childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas.

Down in Dyess

Johnny Cash's life in a collectivist colony during the Great Depression.
by Ben Nadler via Contingent on May 19, 2021

No Opening Day Without Von Tilzer!

The Jewish Tin Pan Alley composer who wrote ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ had never been to a ballgame.
by Robert Rockaway via Tablet on April 1, 2021
A graffiti mural in Los Angeles

The Emergence Of Gangsta Rap

A review of "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America."
by Katherine Rye Jewell via The Metropole on March 30, 2021
A shoe stepping on money.

Islands in the Stream

Musicians are in peril, at the mercy of giant monopolies that profit off their work.
by David Dayen via The American Prospect on March 22, 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
Frank Zappa.

How Weird Was Frank Zappa?

Alex Winter’s new documentary about the musician fails to capture his deeply conventional streak.
by John Semley via The New Republic on November 26, 2020
Painting of the rocky mountains

How ‘America the Beautiful’ was Born

The United States’ unofficial anthem, a hymn of love of country.
by Jill Lepore via National Geographic on November 3, 2020
Photo of Dolly Parton smiling.

The United States of Dolly Parton

A voice for working-class women and an icon for all kinds of women, Parton has maintained her star power throughout life phases and political cycles.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker on October 8, 2020
Vanilla Ice in front of an American flag

The Rise and Fall of Vanilla Ice, As Told by Vanilla Ice

Thirty years after "Ice Ice Baby," Robert Van Winkle is ready to talk about it all—his rise, his fall, and that infamous night on the balcony.
by Jeff Weiss via The Ringer on October 6, 2020
Guthrie Guitar Kills Fascists
partner

Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land"

Was he or wasn't he a member of the Communist Party USA?
by Aaron J. Leonard via HNN on September 20, 2020

Why the Black National Anthem Is Lifting Every Voice to Sing

Scholars agree the song, endowed with its deep history of Black pride, speaks to the universal human condition.
by Janelle Harris Dixon via Smithsonian on August 10, 2020

Dylan, Unencumbered

"How long can it go on?"
by Katrina Forrester via n+1 on August 3, 2020
Photo of KRS-One superimposed on photo of NY subway station in the Bronx

How KRS-One’s ‘Sound of Da Police’ Went From Anti-Cop Anthem to Theme Song and Back Again

The 1993 song reinvigorated the rap legend’s career — and against all odds became a Hollywood (and police) favorite
by Eric Ducker via Medium on July 25, 2020
Photograph of Sun Ra by Ming Smith

Sun Ra: ‘I’m Everything and Nothing’

Sun Ra, a seminal artist of afrofuturism, embraced a unique vision of blackness.
by Namwali Serpell via New York Review of Books on July 12, 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
Demonstrators against police brutality.
partner

The Explicit Anthem of Anti-Racist Protest

Rap group N.W.A. understood vulgarity and controversy were necessary to draw attention to police brutality.
by Felicia Angeja Viator via Made By History on June 22, 2020
Dr. Dre.

The Complicated Truths of Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’

No rap album has quite the mythology attached to it—as a game changer, a king maker, a genre expander. But legends aren’t exactly fact.
by Justin Sayles via The Ringer on April 20, 2020
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Coronavirus Has a Playlist. Songs About Disease Go Way Back.

Coronavirus songwriting has gone as global as the pandemic itself, creating a new genre called pandemic pop. It’s a tradition with a long history.
by Anthony DeCurtis via Retro Report on April 17, 2020

The Unquiet Hymnbook in the Early United States

This post is a part of our “Faith in Revolution” series, which explores the ways that religious ideologies and communities shaped the revolutionary era.
by Christopher N. Phillips via Age of Revolutions on March 2, 2020
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