Here is the Asbury Park Press: The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth University in West Long Branch has issued a call for papers and panel abstracts for an academic conference devoted to the ālife, work […]
music history
The Author’s Corner with Samantha Ege
Samantha Ege is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. This interview is based on her new book, South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene (University of Illinois Press, 2024). JF: What led you […]
Listen to the earliest known country music recording
Here is Geoff Edgers at The Washington Post: John Levin had no idea what heād stumbled upon at first. About 10 years ago, the collector paid about $100 for a box of wax cylinders at an auction in Pennsylvania coal […]
Rutgers University Press teams with the Bruce Springsteen Archives for a new book series
Here is Publishers Weekly: Rutgers University Press has inked a publishing partnership with the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music (BSACAM) to launch a new series. BSACAM is located at Monmouth University, not too far from Rutgers and […]
The Author’s Corner with Michael T. Bertrand
Michael T. Bertrand is Professor of History at Tennessee State University. This interview is based on his new book, Southern History Remixed: On Rock ānā Roll and the Dilemma of Race (University Press of Florida, 2024). JF: What led you […]
Smithsonian releases 590 reels of blues music
Here is NPR:
“Sing a Song!” Bob McGrath and American music
I lost myself last night following every link in historian Kathryn Ostrofsky‘s essay on the late Sesame Street actor Bob McGrath. (It was a wonderful distraction from grading blue books!) Ostrofsky shows how McGrath brought “old music” to a new […]
The Author’s Corner with Catherine V. Bateson
Catherine V. Bateson is Associate Lecturer of American History and American Studies Chief Examiner at the University of Kent. This interview is based on her new book, Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood (LSU Press, 2022). JF: […]
The FBI on the trail of Aretha Franklin
Nina Corcoran and Jazz Monroe explain at Pitchfork: The FBI has declassified its file on the lateĀ Aretha Franklin. TheĀ document, which spans 270 pages and includes reports from more than a dozen states, shows that the FBI extensively tracked Franklinās civil […]
A preview of the Bob Dylan Museum
Here is Douglas Brinkley at Vanity Fair: When news brokeĀ in 2016 that Bob Dylan had given his vast archive of recordings and artifacts to the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, people were taken aback. Why was this cultural trove […]
It is finally okay to teach and play jazz in New Orleans public schools
Here is Juliette Arcodia at NBC News: New Orleans has long been known as the birthplace of jazz music, but for exactly a century that genre has been technically forbidden in the entire public school system. The rule was added […]