American Popular Music, 1865–1965 (MUL 226)

A century of American music, from the Civil War to the 1960s: spirituals, band music, and Tin Pan Alley; blues, jazz, gospel, and country; Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and the Harlem Renaissance; Broadway and film; and folk, R&B, soul, and rock and roll. We start by asking what "America" means, and keep asking how race, region, and politics shaped what people heard.

Students compare how recording and listening technologies shape two songs made decades apart, and trace the roots of two recent songs back through the music we studied.