During the hundred years of racial segregation that followed the Civil War, African Americans built a strong network of entertainment spaces to support the [...]
The Tennessee music box, or box dulcimer, is one of the most enigmatic musical instruments ever discovered. Little is known about its origins, but [...]
What did it mean for Confederates to sing patriotic music during the American Civil War? This talk draws on evidence of sixty cases of [...]
From its roots in West Africa and early American militia drumming to its prominence in African American communities during the time of Reconstruction, fife [...]
Murder ballads, a subset of the ballad tradition, are narrative songs that depict homicides. Many American murder ballads are based loosely on real-life events. [...]
Nashville dance bandleader Francis Craig (1900–1966) cultivated a regional and national audience from the 1920s through the 1940s via broadcasts on WSM radio, a [...]
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have made indelible, but underappreciated, contributions to the Tennessee musical landscape for over one hundred years. In this [...]
Starday Records was the largest independent country music record label throughout the 1950s and ’60s, serving as a springboard for future stars (George Jones, [...]
Country and soul emerged from the same songwriters, musicians, and producers in the recording studios of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. [...]
String band and country blues musician Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong’s life spanned most of the 20th century. Armstrong’s career took him from his boyhood [...]
