What kind of music do you think about when you think about the Southern U.S.? Your answer might include country music, bluegrass, the blues, or southern rock–but you probably didn’t think of Mexican music! The U.S. South has a growing Latinx community that has brought [...]
In 1887, Thomas Edison wrote about a new machine: the phonograph. He described how the machine worked and what this new technology might be good for. On a list of 13 potential uses, he placed “Music” fifth, after “Letter-writing,” “Dictation,” “Books,” and “Educational Purposes.” The future of the phonograph, he speculated, was [...]
Shardé Thomas began learning to play the fife at the knee of her grandfather, the great Otha Turner. Turner was a mid-century musical elder of the North Mississippi hill country. He was one of a handful of rural artists who cut, cured, and blew fifes [...]
Listening to the band Lakeside’s #1 R&B hit “Fantastic Voyage” in 1980, one can hear lead singer Mark Wood chant that he was taking you “To the land of funk!” At the time, many of us fans figured it was a figurative allusion to the metaworld that [...]
James E. Billie (Seminole Tribune) Legends of the Seminole Tribe of Florida have been passed down orally from one person to the next. Sometimes these stories include songs. Seminole legends have traditionally been retold in two languages, i:laponki (Mikasuki) and Muscogee (Creek). They usually have [...]
Img. 1: The Pace Jubilee Singers, ca. 1930, with Charles H. Pace in the back row on the far left. Gospel music became a hit after the Second World War. Mahalia Jackson, the Soul Stirrers, and the Staple Singers made Black church singing known to [...]
Rhiannon Giddens. (Credit John Peets) Blending traditional folk music with Black musical traditions, Grammy-award winning Rhiannon Giddens has made Black history more audible to diverse audiences. As a co-founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens contributed her knowledge of banjo, fiddle, viola, and traditional [...]
Omar Ibn Said, 1850s. (Public Domain) On May 27, 2022, Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels debuted a new opera called Omar. The opera had its first performance during the renowned Spoleto festival in Charleston, South Carolina. The festival helps Charleston by bringing fans of European-style [...]
Count Basie at the piano in 1955. (James J. Kriegsman, CC) The city of Kansas City, Missouri, is known around the world for its barbecue, its beautiful parks and fountains, and its legacy of jazz. Located between the Midwest and the Southwest, Kansas City was [...]
