popular music

Some historical context on the Jason Aldean controversy

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Here is historian Nicole Hemmer at CNN: It was mid-November 1927 when, at a Tennessee courthouse wrapped in patriotic decor to celebrate Armistice Day, a White mob seized a Black teenager named Henry Choate and hanged him from the building’s balcony. The […]

The Senate loves Taylor Swift

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During today’s the bipartisan Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Ticketmaster, several United Senate senators quoted Taylor Swift lyrics: Watch:

Jim Cullen on Bruce Springsteen’s first album

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Columbia Records released Greetings from Asbury Park on January 5, 1973. Jim Cullen, the dean of Springsteen scholars, reflects at The Washington Post: Fifty years ago this week, a scruffy young artist from New Jersey released his first album. In […]

“Sing a Song!” Bob McGrath and American music

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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 […]

Episode 106: “Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Long Walk Home'”

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In this episode we chat with historian Jonathan D. Cohen about his edited collection Long Walk Home: Reflections on Bruce Springsteen and the current state of “Springsteen Studies.” We also ask Cohen if there is any connection between his current book, For a Dollar […]

On the value of music in the history classroom

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Twenty-two years ago, when I regularly taught the second half of the United States history survey (I’ve never taught it at Messiah University), I used a lot of music in class. I still have a small CD collection from those […]