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Car songs are fascinating. They are thematically diverse. They appear among various musical genres. And they reflect a multitude of opinions about vehicles, love, life, and travel. Mobility and tec...

Before she became a single-named sonic sensation in 2003, Beyonce Knowles was a member of the highly successful R&B group Destiny’s Child. Similarly, before he launched his remarkable solo career i...

Imagine being asked to assemble 30 vintage romantic recordings for a new Valentine’s Day CD. Which song titles and artists immediately come to mind? Clearly, “My Funny Valentine” (1957) by Ella Fit...

Born in London in 1939 to a music-loving, middle-class Irish family, Mary O’Brien was destined to become a professional vocalist. Her parents adored American music. They played songs crafted by Duk...

Since the turn of the century, American soldiers have fought and died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. US military forces are well trained, well armed, and technologically savvy. They de...

Many British listeners were entertained by American popular recordings during World War II. This commercial audio invasion from abroad continued and expanded during the postwar years. Beginning in ...

Year after year, Christmas music returns to the airwaves. Regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or religious preference, Americans are bombarded with holiday tunes each December. For many listeners...

Most American holidays are designated by date. Valentine’s Day is always on February 14th. Independence Day is always on July 4th. However, a few holidays occur on changing dates. Thanksgiving, Mot...

Utilizing a literary metaphor, one notes that the record-related descriptor “One-Hit Wonder” is less a Red Badge of Courage and more of a Scarlet Letter. No, this single hit artist designation does...

Composers dream of crafting memorable, top-selling tunes. Hit songs reap immediate financial rewards upon initial release – and then generate additional royalties when they are re-recorded by other...

Rock-and-roll kingmaker Sam Phillips couldn’t get it done. He was unable to generate recording stardom for the multi-talented Roy Orbison. Granted, the singer/songwriter/guitarist from Vernon, Texa...

Little Richard was infuriated. Why would Pat Boone try to steal his new fans by issuing lame cover recordings of “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally”? But Dolly Parton was flattered. It was both fi...

Art Rupe celebrated his 102nd birthday on 5 September 2019. He probably took a few minutes to thumb through Billy Vera’s new book – Rip It Up: The Specialty Records Story – before opening his gifts...

Dr. John’s singles chart history was surprisingly humble. He had only five Billboard pop hits between 1970 and 1974. He achieved even fewer R&B hits. Over his lengthy career, he was variously chara...

Was it Sun Records impresario Sam Phillips or the Memphis cat Elvis Presley who transformed R&B music into rock and roll during the 1950s? Or was it the perceptive songwriting team of Jerry Leiber ...

Elvis Presley has been dead since 1977. Yet he continues to attract the attention of biographers, film critics, music journalists, celebrity tabloid writers, and die-hard Elvis fans. Auburn Univers...

The development of contemporary American music is clearly reflected in the integration of black composers, performers, and their songs into mainstream popular record charts. Between 1953 and 1978 a fascinating role reversal occurred. During that quarter century black artists shifted from creators to revivalists. The same role reversal did not apply to white artists, who tended to evolve along a more consistent audience-acceptance continuum. How can this 25-year cycle of social change best be illustrated? What particular elements of black music dramatically entered the pop spectrum during the fifties, and later gained dominance by the end of the sixties? Why did black artists become more and more conservative during the late seventies? A careful examination of audio repetition – cover recordings and song revivals – offers a great deal of revealing information about changes in social, economic and artistic life in America after 1953.

Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Perry Como, and Nat King Cole dominated the world of Christmas recordings from the 1940s into the early 1950s. During the rock era, Elvis Presley, Kathy Mattea, Brian Setze...

America’s car culture is legendary. Since the early twentieth century, recording artists have echoed the public’s admiration for various makes and models of automobiles. They have also frequently c...

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were a perfectly imperfect pair. They portrayed The Odd Couple in the 1968 motion picture version of Neil Simon’s hit Broadway play. To many fans of rock and roll mus...

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns assembled 16 hours of personal interviews, celebrity photographs, stage performance shots, and cuts from sound recordings to create his enthralling PBS special Count...

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., understood the role of music as an important crowd motivator. Raised in the black church, he experienced jubilee songs and gospel hymns within congregational s...

In 2013 Anchor Entertainment released a music-focused documentary titled 20 Feet from Stardom. Director Morgan Neville’s song-filled film highlighted the important roles of background singers Merry...

Rockabilly music emerged, thrived, and declined in the US between 1951 and 1960. Its history is bookended by Bill Haley’s cover recording of Jackie Brenston’s rollicking “Rocket 88” and the tragic ...

This 4-CD, 100-song compilation was assembled by Paul Watts to memorialize an unforgettable day in the American pop music scene: 3 February 1959. Its contemporary function is to commemorate the 60t...

Biographical profiles of popular musicians are often fabricated and invariably flexible. They exist not as an accurate, permanent historical record, but as malleable promotional material. Pop bios ...

The 2018 Christmas season witnessed a moralistic skirmish over the lyrical content of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” This brouhaha even made front-page news in The New York Times (Fortin). Championing ...

Discretionary dollars helped to fuel the rock-and-roll revolution. Teenage money secured many rockin’ 45 rpm discs released by Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis. These funds were accumu...

During the 19th century, the American West featured ranching and farming expansion, communication via telegraph, mail delivery by the Pony Express, railroad expansion and community development, cat...

Seventy-five-year-old Eric Burns thoughtfully melds personal experiences, historical interpretations, and popular culture imagery within the 290 pages of 1957: The Year That Launched the American F...