article:
Monterey Pops! An International Pop Festival
Reporting for Newsweek took me to Monterey. I'd gone to work for Newsweekright out of college in 1965 – I was a reporter in the London bureau whenRubber Soul came out, Carnaby Street was jumping, and the Who were at the Marquee. In January '67, just as the '60s musical-social ball was bouncing westward, Newsweek moved me to San Francisco. I arrived in time for the Human Be-In and soon was hanging out at the Avalon and Fillmore, interviewing Jerry and Janis, and covering student demonstrations in Berkeley. In May I began to hear rumours of a huge hippie festival: all the best new bands...
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How Dr. King’s Birthday Became A National Holiday
How did Dr. King’s Birthday become a national holiday?
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Dick Clark: The Beat Goes On
THE MOST AMAZING thing about Dick Clark is not that "America's Oldest Living Teenager" still fits that role at age 61. It's not that he's one of the most successful (and wealthiest) people in show business. It's not even the fact that nearly all the great (and plenty of not-so-great) artists in the history of rock 'n' roll have appeared on his American Bandstand. The most amazing thing about Dick Clark is that he can't dance. He's admitted it. Dick Clark has two left feet. Beginning August 5, 1957, the Monday afternoon when he took over as host of the longest-running variety...
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How a Bill Becomes a Law: Legislating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
How does a bill become a law in the United States of America?
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The Act You’ve Known For All These Years: The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper
ALL ENTERTAINMENT HAS AN EXISTENTIAL dimension: all successful performances imply a life-style and a sense of values, a sub-structure of assumptions upon which the performer plays his part. The Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night, successfully crystallised the personalities that had made them the biggest successes in the history of show business: their surreal sense of humour, their sophisticated naïveté, and their four way plug-in personality – clever John, cuddly man in the street Ringo, sardonic George, and precocious cherubic Paul. The Beatles' personalities worked well in the movie since their rather repressed alienation from the feverish glamour of the...
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Pat Boone: Boone In The USA
LET'S PLAY the numbers game. According to Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1986, Pat Boone is the fifth highest-ranking artist in the history of theBillboard singles charts. Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, James Brown and Stevie Wonder were more successful (based on the number of singles charting and their positions). In the '50s, only Elvis was more popular, chart-wise, than Boone. Pat Boone reached the singles charts 60 times, putting him at #8 on that list. Six of those chart singles reached #1, spending a total of 21 weeks in that position, putting Boone in two more Top 10 lists. So much for...
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Murray the K’s Entitled!
If anybody is... WHFS IS A 5000-watt FM station with call letters that were meant to stand for High Fidelty Stereo. It was the first station to broadcast mutiplex in the D.C. area, transmitting from a 150-foot antenna atop the Triangle Towers, a fifteen-story apartment house at 4853 Cordell Avenue, right across the street from the Psyche Delli and the Bank of Bethesda in Bethesda, Maryland. You can always tell you're in Bethesda by the way they always keep the white lines white. Bethesda has one of the highest per capita incomes of all the municipalities in America. The WHFS studios...
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Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters — A Portrait from 1966
IT IS NOW ABOUT A DOZEN YEARS since the pop music revolution – since Alan Freed began to play, instead of soupy white imitations, straight rhythm and blues in New York and called it rock'n'roll; since Wild Bill Haley and his Comets roared to the top of the Top Ten with 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'; since the advent of the 45 rpm record and the post-war prosperity stretched that Top Ten into the Top 40, and even the Top 100. Despite adult accusations of the sameness of all the bleating sounds, pop has changed many times in those years. Those...
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The Carter Family: Into The Valley
FIRST KILL YOUR HOG. SKIN IT, singe off the hairs and leave the hide to soften. Tug it over a round frame, whittle out a neck, "and there's your banjo", says Roni Stoneman. "The five-string banjo is the only American instrument. The black people brought the four-string banjo, but the five-stringer and the clawhammer style came from the mountains." Roni, elderly Southern belle and professional banjo player, is one of the 15 of Ernest 'Pops' Stoneman's 23 children who made it to adulthood. "A lot of people made their own instruments. There wasn't much money around, but there was plenty...
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The Sun King: Sam Phillips
BACK IN THE MID-'50s, the Sun Records studio at 706 Union Avenue was the epicenter of a sudden, wrenching shift in world consciousness. Tremors had been felt for several years, and then, one afternoon in early 1954, Sam Phillips was busy with routine work in the tiny studio when Destiny walked in. Actually, Destiny, in the person of a handsome, painfully shy but flashily dressed young man with longish hair and greasy sideburns, paced up and down the sidewalk outside for some time before summoning the courage to actually walk in the door. Phillips, a thirty-one-year-old radio engineer from Florence,...
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Everyday Heroes: Beyoncé and United Nations World Humanitarian Day
How might Beyoncé's song “I Was Here” inspire people to serve their community and make a positive impact on the world?
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Singer-Songwriters and the Environmental Movement
How did the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s address the concerns of the environmental movement?
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Jimmy Page: The Trouser Press Interview
Dave Schulps, senior editor of Trouser Press, spent more than six hours with Page, one of the longest interviews Page ever did. The interview was scheduled to happen on the East Coast after the band's 1977 MSG gigs, but Page was too tired to talk. So Swan Song put Schulps on their chartered jet with the and flew him to California. Schulps ended up snagging the guitarist on three separate occasions a few days later in Beverly Hills. The interviews took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, on June 16 and 17, 1977, while the band had a brief...
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Singer-Songwriters and the Environmental Movement (Elementary Version)
How did the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s address the concerns of the environmental movement?
article:
Hank Williams
He couldn't read. He couldn't write. He couldn't stop screwing up. Yet Hank Williams is a giant of popular music without whom rock'n'roll might never have happened. "I thought about Hank when I walked out on that Opry stage for the first time. all I could think of was, This is the same stage that Hank Williams was on and now I'm here." – Elvis Presley IN JAILHOUSE ROCK, VINCE EVERETT, PLAYED BY Elvis Presley, has a photograph on his cell wall. Unsurprisingly, it's of Hank Williams. Both singers were influenced by black music early in life, both won talent shows and learnt...
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Alan Freed: Mr Rock’n’Roll
ALAN FREED, the man responsible for giving rock'n'roll its name, was many things to many people. To some, he was the original Mr Clean, an innocent 'good guy', who opened up hitherto-segregated airwaves and made an unparalleled contribution to the advancement of black popular music. This was the sympathetic impression conveyed by the Floyd Mutrux 1978 bio-pic, American Hot Wax. 'He brought us rock'n'roll,' said Mutrux. 'I didn't want to say bad things about a guy who started all that.' To others like Alexander Walker, the London Evening Standard film critic who met the volatile disc jockey during his heyday, Freed was a pathetic...
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Ahmet Ertegun And The History Of Atlantic Records
"WHEN I FIRST started Atlantic Records," reflects the label founder, Ahmet Ertegun, "I intended to make good blues and jazz music, as well as some pop music. My main interest was in jazz and blues." In the nearly 45 years since Ertegun and his original partner Herb Abramson first got together with this idea (and $10,000 from Ertegun's dentist), Atlantic has become one of the most consistently successful companies in music. So much the paradigm of the post WWII growth of the music business, Charlie Gillett used them for his model in his chronicle, Making Tracks. "The late 50s were a time...
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Led Zep in L.A.
"I DON'T EVEN like Led Zeppelin," the girl in the black velvet jacket and hotpants said petulantly as she bummed a cigarette off an acquaintance in the lobby of the Continental Hyatt House Hotel in L.A. "I'm only staying here because my friends have a room. I think Zep are really tacky." Methought the lady did protest too much. Why would three well-known L.A. groupies book a room at Zep's hotel if they didn't dig the band? Why would they spend most of their spare time either hanging out in the lobby or else trying to gatecrash the security on the ninth...
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The Soul Stirrer: Sam Cooke
FEW ENTERTAINERS have fallen quite so far from grace as Sam Cooke did when he died, 30 years ago, at the Hacienda Motel in south-central Los Angeles. Whatever the doubts and suspicions surrounding the shooting – and there are still many – it is hard to see it as a martyr's death. Yet think of Sam Cooke and you think: Grecian good looks, irresistible charm and style, and a voice that rings out like a glorious, golden peal, cooing ‘You Send Me’ down the corridors of eternity. For the best part of 15 years, Cooke was an archangel, a black American...
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Aguinaldos: Venezuelan Songs for the Holiday Season
What are Aguinaldos, and how do children in Venezuela celebrate the winter holiday season known as La Navidad?
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Jan and Dean: You Don’t Come Back from Dead Man’s Curve
OKAY, ALL you, out there. How many of you remember Jan and Dean? If they weren't the great innovators of surf music, they were at least the second in line... the only people who ever shut them down were the Beach Boys. Of course, there were other surfing bands, the Ripcords, Ronnie and the Daytonas, the Surfaris, the Rivingtons and even the Trashmen. But these were no competition. If they weren't an amalgam of Jan, Dean or members of the Beach Boys, they were invariably recording either a Beach Boys or a Jan and Dean tune. Jan and Dean had a...
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The Rolling Stones: How It Happened
By 1963, The Rollin' Stones lacked only a "g" and a manager. Enter Andrew Loog Oldham, 19-year-old music publicist and soon-to-be Stones Svengali... Andrew Loog Oldham: "In early 1963 I was doing public relations on a freelance basis for The Beatles and some other Brian Epstein acts. Contrary to popular opinion, I wasn't looking for anything else to do. I was a very happy man. One day, I went to see Peter Jones ofRecord Mirror, trying to sell him something, probably an Epstein act, but he wasn't interested, He kept talking about this other group, they were still called The Rollin'...
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How The Other Half Lives: The Best of Girl Group Rock
GIRL GROUP ROCK flourished between 1958 and 1965, and though, with the passing of the Brill Building and the coming of the sophistication of the soul beat, the tradition thinned out, it’s still around. I don’t mean Shirley Alston puffing her way through greatest hits medleys on late-nite TV, the Three Degrees flashing pubic hair inside their latest offering, or even an authentic throwback like Spring – I mean the songs are still in the air, and sometimes even on the air: they’re at the heart of the Dolls, all over any John Lennon vocal, and of course there’s Bette...
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New York: Plug in to the Nerve-ends of the Naked City
In downtown Manhattan the rock 'n' roll war rages on as potential crown princes of Punkdom battle for recognition.. NICK KENT interprets the action IN MANHATTAN you're either uptown or down town and there's really no halfway house to dissolve into while in transit. You case your bearings purely on instinct as the yellow cab careers awkwardly down, down, down from the uptown three-star 51st and 3rd Mafioso hotel (ageing Hawaiian bellboys/the overbearing aroma of styrofoam in the Coffee Shop/the tight-lipped Italianate retired hit-man of a receptionist who always makes you wait for the key, nodding suspiciously to the grease-ball house...
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The Bees Gees: From Down Under To Disco
SINCE ENTERING POP MUSIC in the Fifties, the Bees Gees have had three careers on three continents, each more successful than its predecessor. The first was in Australia as child prodigies. In 1967, they came to Britain as suitable opposition to the Beatles. Finally in the mid-Seventies they found themselves setting the pace for the disco boom and emerging as songwriters of note on the adult-oriented rock scene. The career of the three Gibb brothers began inauspiciously enough in December 1956 at the Gaumont cinema in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, where they volunteered for the regular mime spot preceding the Saturday morning...
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Part 3: Asbury Park from the 1970s to Today
What social issues continue to confront Asbury Park today, and how are activists tackling them?
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David Bowie: Freak Out In A Moonage Daydream
AYLESBURY, ENGLAND. He is, as he had planned, magnificent. The stage appears impeccably struck, lights arranged to catch the finer angles of his face, making him seem at times wonderfully ape-like and primitive, at others supremely regal, capable of the grand gesture now and again. The band stands behind him in a shock of silver reflections, each part steadily notching its integral role – lead guitar flashy, but always a foil; bass hung back just a stride or two to let you hint the presence; drums anonymous, but precise, punctuating, emphatic. There is never any question of whether they will...
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Chess Records: The Original Blues Brothers
"WOW, YOU guys are really getting it on!" exclaimed Chuck Berry, observing the Rolling Stones cut 'Down The Road Apiece', a track he'd recorded himself just a few years earlier. It was June, 1964, and this youthful British beat band were happily messing around at the Chess studio in Chicago as their older black musical idols watched on, intrigued. In the background Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson argued loudly about a woman from Kentucky. Muddy Waters, whose song 'Rollin' Stone', had supplied the English band with its moniker, even helped them bring in their equipment. Later on, they chatted...
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With a Little Help from His Friends: George Harrison and the Concert for Bangla-Desh
STEVE VAN ZANDT, May 2011, Lillehammer, Norway: "The anti-apartheid Sun City project (single, album, video, documentary, book, teaching guide) was a high point and a rare clear cut victory from the ten years I spent immersed in the dark, murky, frustrating labyrinth of international liberation politics. It came in the middle of my five politically themed solo albums and had its roots – like all the charity and consciousness raising multi-artist events that would follow – in the Concert for Bangladesh." August 1st marks the 40th anniversary of two landmark benefit concerts that nearly 40,000 attended at Madison Square Garden...
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Punk Rock: Its Day Will Come
IF YOU thought Jefferson Airplane was a weird name, let some of these drop off your tongue. Talking Heads. Tuff Darts. Ramones. Planets. Heartbreakers. Shirts. Television. Day Old Bread. Manster. They are names of some of the better known of hundreds of New York area bands, often categorized under the catch-all "punk rock" or "punk bands," that are attracting rock fans to lower Manhattan clubs like CBGB, Mothers and Max's Kansas City. That definition is misleading, because the punkiest thing about most of the bands is their names. They represent a variety of musical styles and competence levels. Some, like Television...
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The Four Seasons: Ten Years And Still Hanging On
IN AUGUST LAST YEAR Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons celebrated ten years as one of the most successful recording groups America has ever produced. Their total world record sales now stand somewhere between 80 and 90 millions. Well below the Beatles, but higher than many more consistent artists like The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Creedence Clearwater. But in the rush to document everybody who trod a recording studio floor from 1950 onwards the Four Seasons seemed noticeable by their lack of attention. Maybe as Nik Cohn points out in his definitive book Wopbopaloobop alopbamboom (Paladin) they were such a...
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The White Stripes: Detroit’s Rock Heroes Remembered
THERE WAS AN outpouring of grief this week when the White Stripes announced they were to split. Stevie Chick explains their magic while photographer Ewen Spencer talks about working with them Whether you're a fan or not, the massive outpouring of grief this week in response to the news that minimalist rock band the White Stripes were to split up might seem puzzling. In their exit statement on Thursday, the Detroit duo said they hoped the news would not be "met with sorrow by [our] fans", emphasising that the split was not due to health issues or artistic differences. Prolific singer/guitarist/songwriter Jack White...
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Billie Holiday
(1915 – 1959) Hard times were a steady theme in the life of Jazz singer Billie Holiday, and that was true from the time she was born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, Pa., to a teenage mother. Raised without a father in Baltimore, Md., she was taken in by relatives while her mother scratched out a meager living working menial service jobs on the passenger rail lines. Holiday dropped out of school by age 11, moving with her mother to New York City shortly thereafter. A devotee of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, Holiday began singing in Harlem nightclubs in her late teens. Her spare, haunting vocal style eventually attracted the attention of legendary record man...
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Buddy Holly: The Rocker Next Door with the Mail-Order Axe
IN A frame of reference where you might think of Elvis Presley as an idol and Little Richard as a hero. Buddy Holly has to be considered as an influence. Buddy Holly, the first rocker to actually go on stage wearing hornrimmed spectacles, who died in an air crash on February 3rd, 1959, and who thereby created rock's very first tragic legend, was much more than simply another fifties rock 'n' roll front man who got thrown into unnatural notoriety by his premature death. In any final analysis of the contribution of the stars of the fifties to the general steam...
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Hip Hop: A Guide
IN 1979 A record called 'Rapper's Delight' by the Sugarhill Gang introduced us to rapping. Similar stuff soon followed — Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and the like. Even from white artists like Blondie, Tom Tom Club and Wham!. The next thing, Grandmaster Flash's 'Adventures On The Wheels Of Steel' hit us with the notion of "scratching" — creating new dance records by cutting together bits of old ones. Once again the "new wavers" followed — Malcolm McLaren came up with 'Buffalo Gals'. His video showed some incredible acrobatic dancers called Breakers. Meanwhile, a version of Eddy Grant's 'Walking On Sunshine' by...
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Counterculture in the 1960s
How did the counterculture movement of the late 1960s challenge traditional American behaviors and values, and how did the Grateful Dead reflect these changing views of life and society?
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Confronting the Climate Crisis
How can society lower the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere?
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Louis Jordan
The King of Jive Who Made The Good Times Roll IF BILL HALEY AND ELVIS PRESLEY have to be dubbed the father and king of rock’n’roll, then Louis Jordan must be considered its godfather. Practically all of the black American rhythm and blues, rock’n’roll and early soul stars who upset the Fifties have cited Jordan as the main man of their youth and several of the white rock’n’rollers have acknowledged his influence or recorded his songs. Certain elements of rock’n’roll were developing even before Jordan appeared on the scene and others cropped up after his heyday. But most were completely...
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Today and Yesterday Newsreel
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Kurt Cobain: I’m Not Gonna Crack!
Poisoned by the chalice of instant success, bedridden with road-rash after a ton of amp-smashingly intense gigs – what's happened to Nirvana's tortured singer and distillery of teen spirit, Kurt Cobain? "All I need is a break," he says... FOR NOW, Kurt Cobain and his new wife, Courtney Love, live in an apartment in Los Angeles' modest Fairfax district. The living room holds little besides a Fender Twin Reverb amplifier, a stringless guitar, a makeshift Buddhist shrine and, on the mantel, the couple's collection of naked plastic dolls. Scores of CDs and tapes are strewn around the stereo – obscurities such...
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Villains and Heroes: In Defense of the Beach Boys
BRIAN WILSON AND COMPANY are currently at the center of an intense contemporary rock controversy, involving the academic "rock as art" critic-intellectuals, the AM-tuned teenies, and all the rest of us in between. As the California sextet is simultaneously hailed as genius incarnate and derided as the archetypical pop music copouts, one clear-cut and legitimate query is seen at the base of all the turmoil: how seriously can the 1968 rock audience consider the work of a group of artists who, just four years earlier, represented the epitome of the whole commercial-plastic "teenage music industry?"... The answer is a simple...
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Leiber And Stoller : The Blues (1950-1953) & The Rock ‘n’ Roll Years
JERRY LEIBER AND MIKE STOLLER. They rank alongside Berry as rock ‘n’ roll’s wittiest composers and their influence as record producers has been immeasurable. As writers they were the first to bring satire and a social conscience to rock; as producers they ushered out the simplicity of an era in which groups were pulled off the streets to "doo-wop" and "doo-wah" into a microphone for three minutes. From these primitive beginnings to monaural overdubbing, the very first eight-track studios and on into the realms of the technological future-shock, Leiber and Stoller have directed all the phases of post-war record production....
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Long Live Rock: The Who
ARGUABLY THE MOST famous line The Who's Pete Townshend ever wrote was "Hope I die before I get old" on 1965's angry young anthem 'My Generation'. Today, at the ripely Beatle-esque age of 64, Townshend will – in his own words – "carry the flag for the boomer generation" during the half-time show at Super Bowl XLIV in Miami. The entertainment spotlight doesn't burn much brighter. It may even remind the world just how great the Who once were. The group have long had to settle for third place in the pantheon of '60s rock giants behind the Beatles and...
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Birth of the American Teenager
How did teenagers become a distinct demographic group in the 1950s?
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Beatlemania
What were the factors that contributed to the rise of Beatlemania?
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The Kinks: Face to Face
IF YOU ARE not a Kinks fan, you are either a) uninformed, or b) not a Kinks fan. If it's the latter, there's nothing you can do about it. The Kinks, rather like Johnny Hart's B.C. or the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, are absolutely indefensible (and unassailable). I can't tell you why they're great: there are no standards by which the Kinks can be judged. Ray Davies' music has nothing to do with almost anything else. It's in a category unto itself, and if you don't like it, well, there you are. I would like to say that Face to Face is...
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The Rise of Disco
How did Disco relate to the sentiments and social movements of the 1970s?
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The Police: May The Force Be With You
When The Police played New York's Shea Stadium it looked like something from outer space. 67,000 people were in the audience. One of them was Neil Tennant. APPROACHING it from New York in a big black car, Shea Stadium looks like the spaceship that lands at the end of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. It's almost round and completely bathed in light: a warm halo glowing against the night sky. Driving closer, an atmosphere of intense excitement and activity is evident. 67,000 people have bought tickets to see The Police play here tonight. Thousands more have been disappointed. "Don't show up...
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The Kids Are Not Necessarily Alright
Or how the '70s has seen a limp-wristed sell-out of the ideals of the 60s. MICK FARREN discusses the way the Uncle Toms of Teendom have taken Rock off the streets and into the penthouse. WHEN YOU spend a great deal of your waking time hard up against the outpourings of the rock and roll industry, it gets difficult to believe that the music we've all grown up with is actually drifting away from the mainstream of everyday life. Unfortunately, if you do step far enough back to get modern rock trends into perspective with the general movements in society at...
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Long John meets John Lee Hooker
THEY COULD hardly have been a bigger contrast in background and appearance: the young, very tall, bright white Englishman Long John Baldry, and the mature, short, dark brown American John Lee Hooker. But they had the blues in common and when I brought Baldry and Hooker together recently they got along like old friends. John Lee was amazed that Long John, who is a mere 23, has been listening to blues records for 11 years "Yes, the first disc I bought was Muddy Water singing 'Honey Bee' on French Vogue. Then I got another French Vogue, Big Bill Broonzy's 'Blues...
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Dion: The King of the Noo Yawk Streets Comes Home
WHEN DION DiMucci made his major comeback at New York's Radio City Music Hall two years ago, he was joined onstage by an all-star quartet of backing singers: Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Paul Simon, and Billy Joel. It said a lot for the 48-year-old singer that he could bring together four such different examples of the New York street troubadour, each of them in their own way having come under the spell of the man who sang those swaggering classics of the early '60s 'The Wanderer' and 'Runaround Sue'. "When we were rehearsing that show," says Dion two years later, "I...
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The Young Rascals: Five Years of The Rascals
I KNOW THIS may sound a little overboard, but there once was a time when the Young Rascals were the greatest rock & roll band in the world. I say this without flinching, and in full realization that such combinations as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were in the process of turning out their finest work. I say it in spite of the fact that there are those who would much rather see the Remains,Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Daily Flash, or some other heart-felt favorite stand in the top spot. And I say it knowing far...
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Cleaning up the Plastic Beach (Middle School/High School Version)
How is plastic made, how does it affect our marine environments, and how can plastic waste be eliminated?
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Third Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1990s
What was Third Wave Feminism, why did it occur, and how did musicians address some of the movement’s demands?
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Mining and Union Songs in the Early 20th Century
How do Nimrod Workman’s songs and stories about his life as a coal miner illustrate the struggles of working class people during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era?
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Doo-wop: At The Hop
White vocal groups of the Fifties embraced a variety of styles and sounds, ranging from adult pop groups (the Ames Brothers, the Four Aces, the Hilltoppers), through shameless pop-rockers who covered the R&B hits of the day (the Crewcuts, the McGuire Sisters, the Diamonds) to a vast army of teenage singing groups who naturally absorbed black vocal mannerisms. Some, like the Skyliners and the Belmonts, rivaled the best black harmony groups but, before the emergence of such quartets, white doo-wop was synonymous with plagiarism and what might be termed 'sham-rock'. The king of sham-rock was Bill Randle, a Cleveland disc jockey...
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The Sex Pistols are four months old…
THE SEX PISTOLS are four months old, so tuned in to the present that it's hard to find a place to play. Yet they already have a large, fanatical following. So their manager, who runs a rubber and leather shop called Sex, hired a strip club where the two sides could meet. The small, sleazoid El Paradise Club in Soho is not one of the more obvious places for English rock to finally get to grips with the '70s, but when you're trying to create the atmosphere of anarchy, rebellion and exclusiveness that's necessary as a breeding ground, what better...
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The Blues and the Great Migration
How did the Great Migration spread Southern culture, helping to give the Blues a central place in American popular music?
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Singing Democracy During the Second Great Awakening
What was the Second Great Awakening, how did it change American society, and how does Sacred Harp singing exemplify its ideals?
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The Beatles: Four Smiling, Tired Guys Talk About Their Music
THEY'RE REAL. The Beatles, that is. I had never seen them in the flesh before, so I expected some kind of supermen to step out of the plane at Metropolitan Airport last Saturday morning. After all, aren't they the group who changed the whole face of pop music over the past four years? They showed people that pop music can have meaning and its creators can be intelligent, talented artists. Then there they were, coming down the plane's ramp, four smiling, slightly tired looking guys. John topped his casual outfit with yellow steel-rimmed sunglasses. Paul wore black slacks and a wild strawberry...
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Chuck Berry: Rock Lives!
...especially it seems, at the Saville. Chuck Berry talks to RM's Norman Jopling for this in-depth interview CHUCK BERRY has become a musical institution in the eleven years that he has been making hit records. Since his first American hit single 'Maybellene' in 1955 (before Elvis Presley scored HIS first American hit), Chuck has endeared himself to the hearts of all types of pop music admirers – from never-say-die side-burned drape-jacketed rockers, to trendy mini-skirted young ladies. Just how much has Chuck himself changed in that considerable amount of time, musically? (to go back to Presley, think how much HE has changed!) "Then...
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The Beatles, a New Kind of Star
How did The Beatles establish a new paradigm for the image of "the star," and how did that image support their global success?
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From the Stage to the Studio
What caused The Beatles to cease touring in 1966 and how did the innovative music they then created during their subsequent immersion in the recording studio both reflect and influence the world at that time?
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The Beatles and Teen Culture
How did the Beatles’ image as a “rock band” affect young people in America?
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Grateful Dead – How the hell do ya play them five-hour sets without slinkin’ off for a leak?
Yes, it's an interesting one isn't it? I mean, five hours...that's a long time, and well...camels are different of course, so really it must be a problem. However, Smilin' Jerry Garcia doesn't let The Grateful Dead's music get bogged down with details like that. Read his answers in NME – the one that dares ask the big questions. IT'S DA Dead, mayun! Everybody's bloody grinning. The roadies who're running around Alexandra Palace launching frisbees into the stratosphere, the ones who're plugging things in and carrying things about, the Old Ladies'n Wives trucking around with their kids... Everybody is grinning. Jerry Garcia is grinning as...
video:
Saturday Night Fever Trailer
video:
Yesterday
article:
I Confronted Metallica On Their Own Terms!
METALLICA. YOU KNOW the story. Those that don't are doomed to have me repeat it. Early '80s, a metal brat and a friend not ashamed to look like Frank Marina come crashing out of the Ulrich family garage in tree-lined Norwalk, California, and into the L.A. metal scene proper, only to be kicked in the corner by a batallion of stilettos. Not that there's anything wrong with stilettos, nor make-up nor spandex nor hairspray for that matter; all have been a better friend to me than any dog I've known. What was wrong, in the metal sense, was the behavior of...
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Yesterday
video:
A Day in the Life
video:
“Day Of Infamy” Speech
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A Hard Day’s Night
video:
I’ll Be Back Someday
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Indigenous Music from Wounded Knee to the Billboard Charts
In what ways did the music of Native Americans mark them as outsiders from the developing narratives of “American-ness” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and how did the federal government attempt to use music as a tool to force assimilation?
article:
Phil Spector
ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED MOMENTS IN late-Sixties rock comes at the beginning of 'To Be Alone With You' on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album. As the guitars begin to strum, Dylan drawls, "Is it rolling, Bob?" "Bob" is Bob Johnston, Dylan’s producer. With that single question Dylan brings to our attention Johnston’s role in the singer’s recording career. The producer is here acknowledged as a crucial part of the whole undertaking — as necessary as the tape machines, microphones, and instruments...almost as important as the singer himself. By the end of the Sixties, most rock fans could give you the names of...
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Celebrating Community with Art and Poetry (High School Version)
What different types of communities exist, and how do the people in our communities impact us?
video:
Asbury Park Today
video:
Campaign for a MLK Holiday
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Ciranda: The Brazilian Music and Dance that Creates Community
What is Ciranda, and how can group singing and dancing help us feel like a part of a community?
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Dolores Huerta and The United Farm Workers Movement
Who is Dolores Huerta, what role did she play in the United Farm Workers movement, and how is she recognized today?
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“Glory” and the Continuing Civil Rights Movement
How does Common and John Legend's “Glory” signal Civil Rights movements of the past and the present?
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The Musical Roots of the Surf Sound (Elementary Version)
How does the “Surf Sound” in Rock and Roll reflect early surf culture, and what are the roots of this genre of music?
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Celebrating Community with Art and Poetry (Elementary School Version)
What different types of communities exist, and how do the people in our communities impact us?
video:
Happy Birthday
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Image 3, “Those Hoover Days”
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Dayna Orlak at SXSWedu
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Deadheads and Reagan’s America in the 1980s
Who are the Deadheads and how did their lifestyle contrast with the conservative values promoted by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s?
video:
Stormy Monday
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MLK Holiday Timeline
video:
A Day in The Life
video:
A Hard Day’s Night Trailer
video:
Garage Days
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“Y’all Better Quiet Down”: Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ Pioneers
How did Black and Latinx people in the LGBTQ+ community take initiative in the Stonewall Inn rebellions, Gay Liberation Movement, and in the preservation of LGBTQ+ history?
video:
A Day in America
video:
Greenwich Village Sunday
video:
School Days
image:
MLK Day of Service
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Almost Emancipated: Reconstruction
What is the significance of Reconstruction and what does it reveal about the freedom that the post-Civil War constitutional amendments secured for African Americans?
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Part 1: Segregation and the Founding of Asbury Park
What does the founding and early history of Asbury Park reveal about practices of segregation in the Northern United States?
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Billie Holiday, 1949
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Seventies Soul: The Soundtrack of Turbulent Times
How did changes in the Soul music of the early 1970s reflect broader shifts in American society during that time?
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Image 5, “Baby’s Busy Day”
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The Beatles Work Towards Success
How did The Beatles' rigorous work schedule during the years 1960-63 build their strengths as performers, as musicians, and as a band?
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How to Study Rock and Roll
How can teachers help students analyze and understand Rock and Roll?
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“Alright” and the History of Black Protest Songs
How have Black artists throughout the 20th century used music to speak about racial injustice in America?
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The Guitar: A Musical Transducer
How can the guitar help us understand the scientific principle of transduction?
article:
Black Flag
LET'S FACE IT – much of what passes for music in our country is, in fact, nothing more than product, the worthless, soulless result of greed and stupidity. The sights are set low, and the history of rock and roll is awash with things that just don't matter. They don't come from the heart and they don't touch any hearts. They glitter for a minute and are gone. Black Flag is another story. Perhaps the most vilified, hated and harassed band in recent memory, Black Flag's entire career, virtually, has been circumscribed by how the police and media portray them. Not even...
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“Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall”: The Stonewall Riots in the Fight for Equality
What were the Stonewall Riots, and what role did they play in ongoing struggles for LGBTQ+ equality in the United States?
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The Impact of 1960s Antiwar Music
How did antiwar protest music provide a voice for those opposed to the Vietnam War?
article:
James Brown: Mister Messiah
JAMES BROWN will die on the stage one night, on the moving staircase of his own feet in front of a thirty-piece band; and then who knows what may be unloosed between black Americans and white? In Baltimore or Washington or Detroit, cities where the very peace between them has a quality of angry breathing, merely the presence of Brown has been reckoned to equal 100 policemen. Harlem, on the sweltering night after an atrocity, he can cool by one word. At the end of each performance he sings the chorus "Soul Power" over and over again with bass guitar...
article:
Roxy Music: The Sound Of Surprise
PAUL THOMPSON's tom-toms ground slowly to a shuddering halt as Eno's synthesiser simulated the sound of Firestone Wide Ovals being pushed past their limit around a fast curve. The short final chord was almost obscured by the cheers and clapping. This was last Sunday night at the Greyhound in Croydon, South London's answer to Manhattan and Spaghetti Junction rolled into one. But it could have been several places over the past few weeks, because almost everywhere they've been, Roxy Music have been greeted with the kind of warmth that all new bands crave, but few ever achieve. To those who've...
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The United Farm Workers Movement through Music and Poetry
Who is Dolores Huerta, what role did she play in the United Farm Workers movement, and how is she recognized today?
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Art, Music, and the AIDS Epidemic
How did the LGTBQ+ community creatively respond to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, and protest government inaction in addressing the epidemic?
article:
The Life And Times Of Jay-Z: An Interview
REMIND SHAWN CARTER, aka Jay-Z, that his last long player, Vol.2...Hard Knock Life, which spawned the Annie-sampling single of the same name, sold 5 million copies (250,000 of those in four days) and his only reply is a broad smile and one word, "Yeah". The one-time Brooklyn drug dealer, who is now a captain of industry with his own Roc-A-Fella Records, may pull your regular "Pissed-Off-Rapper" pose for album sleeves and posters, but right now, as he sits in his palatial London hotel, slumped on a sofa, feet on an ornate coffee table, thumbing through the sports pages of a stack of...
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Second Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1960s
What was second-wave feminism, and how did music contribute to the movement?
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The Cassette Tape Offers New Possibilities
How did the cassette tape change the audience’s experience by allowing the listener to record, compile and disseminate music?
article:
Fats Domino: The Man Who Sang Rock Before Haley
HIS first million-seller was named after himself. Until last year he had more million-sellers than Elvis, who finally caught up with him after a hard struggle. He had more Gold discs before his biggest hit – in 1956 – than after. That hit was 'Blueberry Hill', the first disc was 'The Fat Man' and the man himself is Antoine "Fats" Domino. When Fats first came on the scene back in 1948 the big trend in pop music was jazz, and watery pops. There was no "vital" music for the kids except some obscure Blues that wasn't commercial enough anyway. Fats made 'The...
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The Original “Going Viral”
Could a musical group “go viral” before the internet?
article:
Bruce Blew My Cover: Pete Seeger
ON THE FIRST Friday of the month, in fine weather and sometimes foul, you will find Pete Seeger, the folk-singing legend and pioneering environmentalist, in a small wooden clubhouse by the Hudson river, 70 miles north of Manhattan. At 87, and only slightly stooped by age, he looks much as he did 40 years ago, when he was the voice of the left, and an inspiration to young folk singers like Bob Dylan. Here at his beloved Beacon Sloop Club, in jeans and with shirt sleeves rolled up, he is still the driving force for a weekly dinner that draws...
article:
Joni Mitchell: Clouds
JONI MITCHELL has written songs for Tom Rush, and the Fairport Convention have used her songs on both their albums. In each case, I'd had the idea of an intricate delicacy; but tiny intonations in both interpretations indicated that the singers didn't own the songs they'd chosen. Rush is one of those singers whose songs lose tautness through musing; and Judy Dyble, the original Fairport singer, although she feels her songs, fails to charge them. An English girl singing "All alone in Carolina, and talking to you," for example, loses a crucial sense of place. Fairport Convention, however, are a...
article:
Folk, Rock & Other Four-Letter Words
THERE HAS BEEN a great increase recently in the number of popular artists whose songs are influenced by or taken from American folk music–both traditional and modern. The paranoiac need of modern man for a label for anything that comes near him resulted, in this case, in the term "folk-rock" to signify pop music with strong folk influences. Originally "folk-rock" meant pop music that used actual folk material; later, anything folk-influenced that retained a heavy beat, and still later, anything having anything to do with folk that happened to sell in the pop market. The term "folk-rock" is a silly...
article:
Jimi Hendrix 1968
"Will he burn it tonight?" asked a neat blonde of her boyfriend, squashed in beside her on the packed floor of the Fillmore auditorium. "He did at Monterey," the boyfriend said, recalling the Pop Festival at which the guitarist, in a moment of elation, actually put a match to his guitar. The blonde and her boyfriend went on watching the stage, crammed with huge silver-fronted Fender amps, a double drum set, and whispering stage hands. Mitch Mitchell, the drummer, came on first, sat down, smiled, and adjusted his cymbals. Then came bassist Noel Redding, gold glasses glinting on his...
article:
Frankie Lymon: Why Do Fools Fall In Love?
Black vocal groups once sang for enjoyment on street-corners throughout ghettos in each of the big American cities. Late into the night they harmonised together, sublimating a frustration which exploded by day. Zip-gun safely stored in the cistern, a Harlem teenager could leave his decaying tenement and join others for an acapella session in a dingy pool-hall or on a deserted subway platform. Street-corner talent-spotting became the normal way for a group to obtain a record contract. An audition from the guy who crossed the road to listen might mean gifts for all the folks and a shiny Cadillac. As groups proliferated...
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Quitiplás: Deep Listening and Rhythm Building with Afro-Venezuelan Bamboo Drums From Barlovento
What is Quitiplás, how does it incorporate the natural world, and how is it an example of polyrhythm?
article:
Genesis: Short on Hair, Long on Gimmicks
LOS ANGELES – Peter Gabriel's five o'clock shadow tints not only cheeks and chin but the shaved patch of flesh which cuts up from the top of his forehead into the center of his hair, as if a tiny lawnmower had gone to work. Will the style catch on? "There are one or two people in England who waddle about with it," he admits. "Very good for my ego. But I think it's too violent a step. I mean I'm not sure how many people would consider it an asset to their sex appeal. I think if I can link...
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Radio Before Rock and Roll
How did radio influence American life in the years before the birth of Rock and Roll?
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1950s American Society and Conformity
How did the presence of Latin American artists challenge the image of 1950s American society seen in popular media?
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The Who’s Generation
How did the Who represent “My Generation” in mid-1960s England?
people:
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
(1915 – 1973) Both a Gospel superstar and a popular Rhythm and Blues singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe achieved widespread popularity in the 30s and 40s, with a high-energy performing style that marks her as a pioneering early influence on Rock and Roll. A powerful singer, a distinctive songwriter and an expansive, effervescent personality, Tharpe made exuberant music that drew heavy inspiration from the Blues, often combining spiritual lyrics with raucous, earthy music, while exhibiting a level of showmanship and charisma that was uncommon in the Gospel field at the time. Tharpe was also an influential early exponent of the electric...
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Debating the Apollo 11 Moon Landing
What was NASA’s Apollo program and why was it controversial?
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Cleaning up the Plastic Beach (Elementary School Version)
What is plastic, how is it harmful for the environment, and how can it be used more responsibly?
people:
Carole King
(b. 1942) Perhaps the most successful female songwriter of the Rock era, Carole King did much to shape the sound of 60s and 70s Pop music, first as a prolific writer of hits for others and then as a hugely successful solo artist. The writer or co-writer of well over 100 songs that have made the Billboard singles chart, she also recorded one of the best-selling records in history, 1971’s Tapestry, considered one of the most important and influential albums connected to the Singer-Songwriter movement of the early 1970s. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, King demonstrated her musical ability at...
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Beat Culture and the Grateful Dead
How did beat writers like Jack Kerouac influence the Grateful Dead’s music?
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Learning Rhythm through Gospel
How can Gospel music help students identify the musical concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation?
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Student Activism and Music During the Civil Rights Movement
How did activism by Black students challenge Jim Crow segregation during the Civil Rights Movement, and what unique role did music play as an organizing tool?
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What is a Mӧbius Strip?
What is a Mӧbius strip, how do you create one, and what can it represent?
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Musical Ratios
What role do ratios play in the Western musical concepts of rhythm and harmony?
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The Birth of Hippie Culture in the 1960s
How did the Grateful Dead reflect new ideas about life and society in the 1960’s?
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Colombian Cumbia: African, Indigenous, and Spanish Roots of Rhythm
What is Cumbia, and how do you play its traditional rhythms?
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The Rise of the Electric Guitar
What factors led to the rise of the electric guitar as the dominant symbol of Rock and Roll?
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Blues, Poetry, and the Harlem Renaissance
How does Langston Hughes’ Blues-inspired poetry exemplify the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance?
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Kanye and Katrina: Environmental Racism in New Orleans
What was Hurricane Katrina, and how did Black Americans articulate the frustrations they felt in its aftermath?
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DAMN.: The Art and Importance of Storytelling
How do Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. and the work of photojournalist Gordon Parks tell stories that bring attention to social issues?
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Protest as Event
Since the 1960s, how have artists used musical events to promote change?
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Greta Thunberg, Music, and the Climate Crisis
How have musicians helped spread climate activist Greta Thunberg’s message?
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The Roots of Country Rock
How did Country Music influence Rock and Roll and the musicians who made it?
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Bo Diddley: The Grandfather of Hip Hop?
How were Bo Diddley’s recordings an anomaly in relation to 1950s Pop music, and how is his rhythm-driven sound and self-presentation a precursor to Hip Hop style?
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Women’s Perspectives in Country and Tejano Music
How did female Country and Tejano artists approach the issues of feminism and Women’s Rights in the 20th and 21st century?
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“Twist and Shout” and Post-War Britain
What role did cover songs like “Twist and Shout” play early in the Beatles's career, and how did their experiences growing up in post-WWII Liverpool and performing in Hamburg nightclubs help them to develop as a professional musical ensemble?
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“Blowin’ in the Wind” as a Rallying Cry
How does the song “Blowin’ in the Wind” use poetic devices to communicate an open-ended yet powerful message about the human condition, without ever losing its historical specificity?
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The Evolution of Sound Recording
How did multitrack recording technologies enable musicians to create a form of music that could only be realized in the studio?
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Rhythm as a Representation of People and Place
How does “the beat” of popular music reflect the histories of multiethnic populations and places?
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Making Music Videos with a Homemade Projector
How can one reproduce the effects seen in the music video for Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey’s song “The Middle” using a homemade projector?
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The Many Roles of a Music Producer
What does a music producer do and in what ways does one hear the sound of a producer’s work in recordings?
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“Here”: Managing Peer Pressure and Anxiety
In what ways does Alessia Cara’s “Here” defy popular music conventions, and what does the song say about peer pressure in youth culture?
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Black Radio and the Civil Rights Movement
How did Black radio empower Black Americans, aid the Civil Rights Movement, and influence U.S. society?
people:
Ice Cube
(b. 1969) Born O’Shea Jackson in South Central Los Angeles, Ice Cube is a founding member of N.W.A., and is considered one of the most vivid and inventive lyricists in the Gangsta Rap genre. He’s known for his angrily furrowed brow, his strong, stentorian voice, and for courting controversy in N.W.A. and on his early solo albums, with what critics called violent and misogynist imagery. Cube was a key presence on N.W.A.’s explosive debut, Straight Outta Compton, but after a bitter dispute with the group’s manager, he left to launch a solo career. His 1990 debut, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, was co-produced by the...
people:
David Bowie
(b. 1947 – 2016) One of Rock’s most enduring auteurs, David Bowie was notable for his influence, his eclecticism, and the knack for self reinvention he repeatedly displayed over a long and prolific career that saw him working in Glam Rock, Soul, Dance Pop, Electronica, Folk, and other genres. Born David Robert Jones in London, Bowie showed his musical restlessness from the beginning. By the time be became a star in the early 70s, he’d already been kicking around the British music scene for several years, with stints as a mod Rock and Roller, a twee music-hall Popster, and a hippie troubadour. He had...
people:
The Beatles
The Beatles are universally regarded as one of the most important bands in the history of Rock and Roll. Over the course of an active career that spanned just 10 years, the band released some of the most enduring popular music of the 20th century – a catalog whose influence would be hard to overstate. To give but one measure of the band’s stature, when Rolling Stone ranked the “500 Greatest Albums Of All Time,” four Beatles records made the top ten: Revolver, Rubber Soul, The Beatles (a.k.a. the “White Album”) and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which...
people:
The Kinks
In their first two decades, the Kinks went from playing raw, R&B-influenced Rock and Roll to recording nuanced, experimental concept albums to becoming arena rockers, along the way wracking up numerous hit singles and cementing their status as one the most influential bands to emerge from the British Rock scene of the 1960s. The Kinks formed in the suburbs of London as brothers Ray Davies (lead vocals/guitar) and Dave Davies (lead guitar) moved from family sing-alongs to playing Rock and Roll and Skiffle at school dances and eventually gigs in local pubs. After various name changes and short-lived lineups (including...
people:
Hunter Hancock
(1916 – 2004) Generally recognized as the first West Coast disc jockey to play Rhythm and Blues on the radio, as well as one of the first to spin Rock and Roll, Hunter Hancock was an early white hipster whose affinity for the music and impish sense of humor captured Los Angeles-area listeners from 1947 until 1966. Hancock got his first radio experience in his home state of Texas, but held numerous other jobs early in life, including a stint touring as a singer in a vaudeville troupe. He settled in Los Angeles in the early 40s, landing a part-time job...
article:
The King and I: A Visit to Graceland
KREATURE COMFORTS – "the Lowlife Guide to Memphis" – claims that Memphis can offer visitors "the best or worst of vacations: you could hit a jamming Keith Richards show on Beale Street or end up in line with 8,000 Elvis Zombies waiting to smell Elvis's bicycle seat at Graceland. The choice is yours." I'll take Graceland, thanks. Only inverted snobs contest the notion that the biggest musical phenomenon in Memphis – "Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll" – was Elvis Presley. For the last 20 years of his life, he lived at Graceland. When he died, in 1977,...
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“Hound Dog” and 1950 Race Relations
How does the story of “Hound Dog” demonstrate music culture’s racial mixing as it differed from mainstream American life in the 1950s?
people:
Black Sabbath
The pioneering Heavy Metal band Black Sabbath was formed in the industrial city of Birmingham, England, in 1968, by four teenage friends: bassist Geezer Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi, singer Ozzy Osbourne, and drummer Bill Ward. At first the quartet, called Earth at the time, played straightforward Blues Rock in the vein of popular bands like Cream. But the band quickly found their own sound: their lyrics took on darker themes, often focusing on occultism and drugs, and the music became thicker, louder and more riff-based. It also became more dissonant, making use of the tritone, or so-called “devil’s chord,”...
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Swing Down: Afrofuturism & Flight in the Black Imagination
What is Afrofuturism and what are some of the cultural traditions and historical events that inspired and reinforced it?
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Mountaintop Removal Mining in Appalachia
What is mountaintop removal, how does it affect the environment and people’s health?
people:
Alice Cooper
(b. 1948) As the first performer to introduce horror-movie imagery to Hard Rock, pioneering Shock Rocker Alice Cooper mined social outrage and parental disapproval into transgressive stardom in his 1970s heyday. If his flamboyantly theatrical approach lacked the dangerous edge of his Michigan contemporaries the MC5 and the Stooges, Cooper's macabre imagery and catchy teen-rebellion anthems — not to mention elaborate concerts incorporating guillotines, boa constrictors, decapitated baby dolls, and gallons of stage blood — held considerably more appeal to middle American teens. A minister’s son born Vincent Damon Furnier, Cooper was a Detroit native who moved with his family to...
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Liverpool: The Birthplace of the Beatles
How did growing up in post-WWII Liverpool influence the Beatles?
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Sound Waves, Analog Synthesis and Popular Culture
How did synthesizers allow musicians to create new sounds and how did those sounds reflect American culture throughout the 20th century?
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Fame and Judgement in “Funny”
How might Tori Kelly’s song “Funny” speak to the potential pitfalls of “superstardom,” and how does it relate to past songs written about the subject?
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The Music and Poetry Behind the Red Power Movement
What was the Red Power movement, and what role did Folk and Country music play within it?
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Debating Dylan’s Nobel Prize
What are the arguments for and against Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature?
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“See You Again”: How We Mourn with Music
How does music help us remember people we are close to, or those we have lost?
article:
Kiss: Los Angeles Forum, LA
'LOS ANGELES Police Department reminds you the use of fire works is illegal,' warned the notice outside the Los Angeles Forum. With all the bravado of rock'n'roll rebels, Kiss set up the whole stage with firecrackers, furnaces, Roman candles and what can only be described as exploding waste-paper bins. What Kiss lack in musical subtlety, they more than make up for in special effects. Gone are the days when a band would go on tour with one transit van, a few instruments, a roadie and a groupie or two. The Kiss set-up boasted five truck-sized trailers, necessary when you're lugging...
people:
The Rolling Stones
From their early days as Blues-obsessed Londoners at the forefront of the British Invasion to their current status as living legends and a top draw on the arena circuit, the Rolling Stones – a.k.a. “The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band – have proved one of the most influential and enduring bands in Rock. The Stones began their recording career in 1963 as just one of a legion of young British bands enamored with American Blues and R&B. Although they possessed a charismatic frontman in Mick Jagger, a punchy guitar tandem in Keith Richards and Brian Jones, and a solid,...
people:
Sly Stone
(b. 1943) A multi-racial, mixed-gender band that melded Soul, Funk, Rock, and Psychedelia, Sly Stone and his group the Family Stone had their heyday in the late 1960s and early 70s, with a streak of hits combining positive messages, sing-along choruses and infectious dance grooves. Born Sylvester Stewart, Stone was raised in the San Francisco Bay area, where he got an early start in the music business, forming a Gospel group with three of his siblings. Dubbed the Stewart Four, they performed at local churches and released a 78 rpm single. A prodigious talent, he could play keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums...
article:
Bob Marley: In The Studio With The Wailers
THE ROLLING STONES are upstairs in Studio 1, where they've been for the past five weeks. Jagger strolls around the foyer, looking for something to do, all neat in white blouson jacket and fawn velvet jeans. But that, you may be surprised to hear, is not where the real action is at this night in Island Studios, Notting Hill. Not, at any rate, if you're a Wailers fan. On this occasion, even the Stones' long-delayed newie comes second to Bob Marley and his brothers from the shanty-towns of Kingston, Jamaica. The Wailers have been in Britain for some weeks now, playing various kinds...
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Recording and Producing the Voice
How have singers responded as advances in studio recording techniques have enabled increased technological “perfection”?
people:
The Supremes
Made up of three young women from Detroit's Brewster-Douglass housing project, the Supremes went on to become the most commercially successful act of Motown Records' 1960s heyday — and by many measures the most successful American recording act of that decade. As such, they exemplified Motown founder Berry Gordy’s crossover-minded melding of R&B and Pop. The three Supremes — Diana Ross, Florence Ballard, and Mary Wilson — were still teenagers when they won a deal with Motown, but they released half a dozen unsuccessful singles with the label before 1963's "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes" finally put...
people:
The Temptations
The most successful male group of Motown Records' 1960s heyday, the Temptations personified the label's R&B-pop crossover ideal. With powerful vocal harmonies, snappy attire, and slick dance moves — not to mention access to Motown's best songwriters, producers, and studio musicians — the quintet made music that was immaculately crafted yet punchy and gritty, appealing to black and white listeners alike. The Temptations were a consistent chart presence from the mid-60s through the early 70s, with their evolving sound reflecting the era's volatile mood. The five Detroit singers who comprised the Temptations' classic lineup — David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Paul...
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The Banjo, Slavery, and the Abolition Debate
What is the relationship between the banjo and slavery, and how did music making by enslaved people influence the abolition debate during the 18th and early 19th century?
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The Teamwork Behind the Beatles
How did the input of manager Brian Epstein and record producer George Martin help The Beatles develop and refine skills that aided the band in presenting their music and personalities to a mass audience?
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The History of Music Videos
How has the relation between sound and image shifted through the history of recorded music, and how did the rise of MTV bring that relationship to a culmination of sorts?
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The Beat as an Object of Celebration and Concern in Segregation-Era America
How has “the beat” been an object of both celebration and concern in the history of popular music?
people:
Howlin’ Wolf
(1910 – 1976) A towering, larger than life performer with a distinctive, raspy growl, Howlin’ Wolf was among the most influential Blues musicians of the postwar years. A Mississippi native who relocated to Chicago and recorded for that city’s Chess Records, Wolf was at the forefront of transforming the acoustic Blues of the rural South to the electric, urban Blues of Chicago, and he was a particular favorite of many early Blues-influenced Rock musicians, including the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix. Howlin’ Wolf was born Chester Arthur Burnett in the small town of White Station, Mississippi. After his parents spilt up...
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World War II and the Shrinking of the Ensemble
How did wartime restrictions and other factors cause popular music ensembles to shrink in size during the 1940s, helping to set the stage for the small “combos” of Rock and Roll?
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The Musical Roots of Doo Wop
How did Doo Wop develop as a musical genre?
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The American Blues in Britain
In what ways did American Blues affect English musicians in the early 1960s?
people:
Queen
A one-of-a-kind foursome that combined Hard-Rock bombast, singsongy music hall Pop and campy Glam theatricality, Queen rode its unlikely mix of elements to massive worldwide success, reigning as one of the world's most popular bands throughout most of a 20-year career. Queen formed in London in 1971, when singer Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar) teamed with guitarist Brian May, bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor. The band's self-titled debut LP arrived two years later, followed by a string of '70s albums — Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races,...
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Music and the Berlin Wall during the Cold War
What was the Berlin Wall and how did music respond to what it symbolized?
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Designing Album Covers with Color Theory
What is the science behind color theory, and how is it used in fashion and album cover design?
people:
Elton John
(b. 1947) In a career spanning five decades, Sir Elton John has notched more than 50 Top 40 hits and sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most popular and successful singer-songwriter-performers of all time. He remains best known for his output during the 1970s, a decade he started as a sincere, somewhat somber piano-playing singer-songwriter and ended as an arena-packing Pop star, and during which he had a phenomenally prolific streak of No. 1 albums and hit songs. Elton was born Reginald Dwight in Middlesex, England. He was picking out songs on the piano at age three;...
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Chicana Punk and the Chicano Movement
What is Chicana Punk, how does it relate to the Chicano Movement, and how did it transform the Punk music scene?
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Westward Expansion and Country Music’s Hispanic Influence
What was Westward Expansion, and what effect did it have on American Popular music?
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The Black Origins of Punk
How did the bands X-Ray Spex, Bad Brains, and Death define Punk on their own terms?
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The Crossroads as a Literary Symbol
How have writers, storytellers, and musicians explored the crossroads as a symbol in their work?
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Using Data to Analyze an Artist’s Success
How can data be analyzed and interpreted to better understand a band's success?
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Part 2: Riot or Rebellion? Asbury Park in the Summer of 1970
What factors led up to the Asbury Park "Riots" in New Jersey in the summer of 1970?
lesson:
The Myth of the American Cowboy
How did Westward Expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny inform the image of the cowboy in American culture?
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A Veteran’s Soundtrack to the Vietnam War
How did popular music amplify the voices and experiences of Americans serving in the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War?
people:
Dick Clark
(1929 – 2012) Dick Clark was a 26-year-old Philadelphia radio disc jockey when he took over the local television dance show Bandstand in 1956. He convinced the ABC network to take the show – which featured teens dancing to the hits of the day — national the following year, re-christening the show American Bandstand. Launching in January 1957, the show became a hit, and a significant force in expanding the popularity and influence of Rock and Roll in the music’s early years. As the host of the show for 33 years, Clark introduced to the world an endless number of...
people:
Four Freshmen
Founded in 1948 by four students at Butler University in Indianapolis, Ind., the Four Freshmen were a vocal group whose harmonies embraced the Barbershop Quartet tradition and took it a step further, adding Jazz influences and ultimately exerting an influence on Rock and Roll. The Freshmen started as a barbershop quartet called Hal’s Harmonizers, founded by brothers Ross and Don Barbour, who were enrolled in the university’s Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music. After morphing into the Four Freshman, the members – all of whom doubled as instrumentalists, some playing several instruments — began performing in venues around the midwest, honing...
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Muddy Waters, the New Kid in Town
How did Muddy Waters’ music change after he moved to Chicago, and what does that say about the relationship between place and self-expression?
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Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and the Port Royal Experiment
How does the Union occupation of Port Royal highlight the complex issues behind the Civil War?
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The Science and Civics of the Flint Water Crisis (Elementary/Middle School School Version)
What is the Flint water crisis, and why did it occur?
people:
Jan and Dean
In their 1960s heyday, the all-American vocal duo of Jan Berry and Dean Torrence embodied the same California Pop ideal as their friendly rivals the Beach Boys. They scored 16 Top 40 hits, most of them about surfing and drag racing, and laden with infectious choruses, distinctive harmonies, and goofy humor. The pair shared vocals, but it was Berry who was the duo's main songwriter, vocal arranger, and sonic architect. Berry's talents were sufficiently advanced to earn the admiration of Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson, who added vocal harmonies at several Jan and Dean sessions, and gave them his composition...
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The Science and Civics of the Flint Water Crisis (High School Version)
What is the Flint water crisis, and why did it occur?
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#BlackLivesMatter: Music in a Movement
How have musicians responded to the Black Lives Matter movement?
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Distortion: The Sound of Rock and Roll’s Menacing Spirit
What is distortion, and how did it become a desired guitar effect in Rock and Roll?
people:
Bee Gees
The Bee Gees’ public image has long been dominated by the sibling trio's massively successful comeback as one of the most popular acts of the 70s Disco era. But brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb had already achieved international stardom and built a unique and accomplished body of recordings long before they became the white-suited dancefloor smoothies whose Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album burned itself deeply into popular culture. Eldest sibling Barry and twins Robin and Maurice were born in England, moving with their family to Austrailia in 1958, when they were in their early teens. Performing as a trio,...
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9/11: Country Music Responds
How did Country musicians’ responses to the September 11th terrorist attacks speak to the feelings of some Americans after the tragedy?
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New Perspectives on The Great Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan
Does Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” help humanize Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby?
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The New York City Underground
How did New York bands interact with the city's art scene to create something new?
people:
The Shirelles
One of the earliest and most consistently successful Girl Groups, the Shirelles were a quartet of teenagers from Passaic, N.J., who in the late 1950s and early 1960s scored a run of classic hits whose romantic innocence was sweet as the group's harmonies. Originally known as the Poquellos, the girls — originally Doris Coley (later Doris Kenner-Jackson), Addie "Micki" Harris, Shirley Owens (later Shirley Alston Reeves) and Beverly Lee — were schoolmates of the daughter of Scepter Records founder Florence Greenberg. Greenberg auditioned them and was impressed enough to sign the group and become their manager, renaming them the Shirelles....
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Car Culture in Postwar America
How did car culture intersect with and inspire Rock and Roll?
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Dion and the Teen Idols
What role did the so-called "teen idols" of the late 1950s play in bringing Rock and Roll into mainstream American culture?
article:
Bo Diddley: His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection
TO PARAPHRASE the titles of two of the 20 Bo Diddley nuggets contained on His Best: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection , you can't judge a book by its cover but you sure can tell something about how important a musician is by the artists who do cover versions of his songs. That's not to imply that Bo Diddley's legacy rests solely on the interpretations of his music by others. The rich body of work contained here offers ample testament to the multiple talents--as singer, songwriter, guitarist and creator of one of the archetypal rock rhythms--the man born Ellas McDaniels displayed on...
people:
Jerry Wexler
(1917 – 2008) A key figure in exposing Rhythm and Blues music to a wider audience, Jerry Wexler was highly influential during his days as executive and producer for Atlantic Records, helping to shepherd the label's growth from small R&B imprint to massive industry force. The Bronx native began his career as an editor and reporter for the music-industry trade journal Billboard, and it was he who coined the term "Rhythm and Blues" as a classification for what had previously been known in the industry as "race music" – a term Wexler found demeaning. He became a partner in Atlantic in...
people:
Les Paul
(1915 – 2009) A virtuoso guitarist steeped in Country, Jazz, and Pop who found fame as part of a duo with singer Mary Ford, Les Paul was also one of the driving forces behind the development and popularization of the electric guitar, creating one of the first solid-body models using a block of wood. His namesake model, the Gibson Les Paul, is an iconic instrument that’s been played by countless Rock guitarists. Paul is also known for his innovations in recording techniques – among his achievements was pioneering the use of “overdubbing,” or layering multiple tracks atop one another in...
article:
James Taylor: Sweet Baby James (Warner Bros.)
JAMES TAYLOR was the first artist signed to the Beatles’ Apple label, and ironically, the first to leave it as well. While there, he produced an album so effective in its understatement that it went almost unnoticed. Since then he has drifted into the waiting arms of the Warner/Reprise empire (which is beginning to look like a haven for dispossessed artists) for whom he has produced this second album. I’m glad to report that this new album is as beautiful as the first. Glad for myself, because a visit from Mr. Taylor is always welcomed. I must admit that Sweet Baby James took...
video:
Strange Fruit
article:
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
WHILE ENGLAND was paving the way for mass acceptance of white interpretations of classic blues material with bands like the Yardbirds and Bluesbreakers and talented individuals of the caliber of Clapton, Beck and Page, America produced two notable bands working in the same genre – the Al Kooper / Danny Kalb-led Blues Project and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The latter was not as prone as most to the inevitable "can a white man play the blues?" question (the issue being emotional honesty rather than technical ability), having honed their craft in Chicago’s South Side blues clubs and at the...
article:
Gospel: Soul Sources
ON STAGE at the Apollo, Harlem: standing at one microphone, an immaculately dressed man dramatically insists his love. At the second mike, four men bend towards each other, sing a phrase in harmony, step back and spin into an intricate flowing movement as the lead singer takes a line by himself, but comes swooping back in time to echo his last phrase. Behind them, poised, seemingly somehow to control what they do without any obvious signs or instructions, stands the guitarist; near him, the organist and drummer. The scene doesn't change much from week to week. The names and faces are...
article:
Chicano Rock
ON 3 February 1959 Richard Valenzuela died in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly whose final recordings foretold the Beatless sixties; a more pop than rock era for which Valens would have prescribed the remedy. He was a sixteen year old who passed for twenty-eight. A thick set, brutish greaser who carried on rockin' whilst, all around him, pretty boys like Fabian and Avalon ponced up the music. A look at the situation of the Mexican American – scarcely white by U.S. standards – belies America's devotion to freedom and democracy. From San Fernando, Valen's background typified the Mexican-American struggle...
article:
Berry Gordy: Motown Magician
Until recently little was known of Berry Gordy Jnr’s background. Such information as was available made no sense at all except on a romantic level, and Motown’s official version of its own origins is curiously blunt. The aggressive young car-worker is said to have started the company that revolutionized the record industry on nothing more than an 800 dollar loan from his family’s credit union. But this rags-to-riches account overlooks two factors. In the first instance, Gordy was among the hottest songwriters of the late Fifties and had several million-selling compositions to his credit. Moreover, he came – to borrow...
article:
…Howlin’ for the Wolf
"I was just a country boy, glad to get some sounds on wax" IT WASN'T unexpected; not like the sudden shock when a man is wiped out is his prime by ice on the wings, vomit in the throat, or a wayward bullet; but there was still a sense of irretrievable loss that came with the news of Howlin’ Wolf’s death. He'd been ill for a long time now. Overweight and subject to heart attacks, he'd been in and out of hospital since the late sixties and more or less inactive for the last couple of years. Now the news reports...
article:
Unravelling the Legend of Robert Johnson
IN THE short space of seven months in the 1930s, a slender youth from Robinsonville, Mississippi, recorded twenty-nine blues sides in madeshift conditions, and a year later he was dead. But these two sessions, in Dallas and San Antonio, contain the greatest legend the blues has ever known, and precipitated a whole string of tales, theories, fancies and fabrications about the man which present such a incongruous pastiche when woven together that indeed Johnson’s life, his sudden fame and immediate death, is reminiscent of the kind of mysteries usually recounted exclusively in black magic anthologies. But as that great authority...
article:
Cents and Sensibility: Talking Heads
You may find yourself...the leader of a rock band (of sorts)! You may find yourself...starring in a movie of that band's performance! You may find yourself...in a foreign country, staying in a fine hotel and talking to people about that band and that movie! And you may ask yourself...well, how did I get here? And you may ask yourself...what do I do now? Watch out! You might get what you're after. David Byrne, the talking head of Talking Heads, is one of pop music's stranger creatures. This is readily apparent when watching him perform: his onstage demeanour is hugely unsettling; nervous mannerism...
article:
The Who in San Francisco
THE WHO PLAY rock "n’ roll music ("it’s got a back beat, you can’t lose it," says Chuck Berry). Not art-rock, acid-rock, or any type of rock, but an unornamented wall of noise that, while modern and electronic, has that "golden oldies" feeling. Four Mod kids who started in 1963 as the High Numbers in London’s scruffy Shepherd’s Bush, the Who play a tight driving music which is a descendant of the rock of Elvis, Bill Haley, Gene Vincent, and even the early Beatles. In San Francisco near the end of a ten-week, fifty-city tour, the Who were at their...
article:
Bob Dylan: Royal Albert Hall, London
With A Mixture Of Folk, Rock And Comedy, Dylan Shows He Can Take Every Insult But Not A Compliment "EQUALITY, I spoke the word, as if a wedding vow, ah but I was so much older than, I'm younger than that now..." Bob Dylan thus changed. It all began with a song called 'My Back Pages' recorded some three years ago on an LP and reached its probable culmination at the Royal Albert Hall the other week when he performed his last British concert. As always, Dylan is logical and compromising. A full half of his concert is given purely to his...
article:
Jimi Hendrix: Mr. Phenomenon!
NOW hear this — and kindly hear it good! Are you one of the fans who think there's nothing much new happening on the pop scene? Right… then we want to bring your attention to a new artist, a new star-in-the-making, who we predict is going to whirl round the business like a tornado. Name: Jimi Hendrix. Occupation: Guitarist-singer-composer-showman-dervish-original. His group, just three-strong: The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Bill Harry and I dropped in at the Bag O'Nails' club in Kingley Street to hear the trio working out for the benefit of Press and bookers. An astonished Harry muttered: "Is that full, big,...
lesson:
Female Singer-Songwriters in the Early 1970s
What did the success of the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s reveal about the changing roles of women in the United States?
people:
Big Mama Thornton
(1926 – 1984) Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was described by songwriter Jerry Stoller as “a bit frightening,” “a force of nature” and “absolutely magnificent.” With her larger-than-life personality and spicy take on the Blues she was one of the R&B performers that helped usher in the coming of Rock and Roll. Like many R&B performers of her generation, Thornton started singing in church as a youngster. By her teens she was playing drums, guitar and harmonica and developing her earthy singing voice playing shows around her home base of Montgomery, Ala. She spent much of the 1940s touring the South...
people:
Lonnie Donegan
(1931 – 2002) Singer-guitarist-banjoist Lonnie Donegan is a key figure in the foundation of British Rock and Roll. In 1954, long before Rock reached the British Isles, the Scottish-born Londoner created Skiffle, an upbeat acoustic variation on American blues and folk that made Donegan a major star. Donegan’s infectious music and exuberant performing style captured the imaginations of a generation of young English boys. That generation included John Lennon and Paul McCartney — whose skiffle group the Quarrymen evolved into the Beatles — along with many of the performers who would populate the British Invasion. As a teenager in the post-World...
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Soul Music and the New Femininity
How did Aretha Franklin represent a new female voice in 1960s popular music?
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Introducing New Wave
What did Punk Rock provide that opened the door for New Wave acts? And what are some among the defining attributes of New Wave?
people:
Ahmet Ertegun
(1923 – 2006) A larger-than-life figure, Ahmet Ertegun’s long career with Atlantic Records paralleled the music business' evolution from quirky cottage industry to corporate enterprise. Ertegun and original partner Herb Abramson co-founded Atlantic in 1947 as a small independent label, and would eventually turn the company into one of the music industry's most powerful forces, releasing a great many commercial and critical successes and fostering artists ranging from John Coltrane and Ray Charles to Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones to ABBA and Kid Rock. The Istanbul-born son of the Republic of Turkey's ambassador to the United States, Ertegun grew up...
people:
Ma Rainey
(1886 – 1939) A hugely popular touring singer during the 1920s Ma Rainey was one of the earliest popular entertainers to perform and record Blues, spreading the popularity of the genre beyond traditional Blues audiences and earning her the nickname “The Mother of the Blues.” Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett in 1886 in Columbus, Georgia. She showed her abilities as an entertainer at an early age and went from local talent shows to touring with vaudeville and minstrel shows while still in her teens. In 1904 she married William "Pa" Rainey, a minstrel show manager, and took the stage name...
people:
Parliament-Funkadelic
Known to fans as P-Funk, Parliament-Funkadelic is an ever-morphing collective of musicians founded by singer and songwriter George Clinton. Originally it was comprised of two groups, the first being the Parliaments — a Doo Wop group that came together in the late 1950s in the back of a New Jersey barbershop where Clinton straightened hair. The second was an ad-hoc backing band for the Parliaments, assembled by Clinton in the early 1960s, that by 1967 had solidified under the name Funkadelic. As the mad genius behind P-Funk, Clinton – a former staff writer for Motown — drew inspiration from the...
people:
Metallica
In the '80s and '90s, Metallica almost singlehandedly brought the attitude and sensibility of the Heavy Metal underground into the mainstream, bringing Metal back to its earthy roots at a time when commercial Hard Rock had become dominated by the more commercial sounds of Pop Metal (derided by its detractors as “Hair Metal” for its photogenic, elaborately coiffed bands). Maintaining an unpretentious regular-guy image, Metallica combined the Thrash Metal subgenre's emphasis on speed and volume with intricate songwriting and aggressive yet complex instrumental interplay. Founded in Los Angeles, Calif., by Danish-born drummer Lars Ulrich and fronted by singer/guitarist James Hetfield,...
people:
Bessie Smith
(1894 – 1937) Dubbed the “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith was one of the most successful black stars of the 1920s, and one of a handful of women singers of the era who brought the Blues to a wider audience. Born in 1894, Smith had lost her mother, father and a brother by the age of 9, and was raised by her older sister in Chatanooga, Tenn. With limited job prospects, Smith and her brother Andrew began playing for spare change on the street to support the family. In 1912, Smith joined a traveling vaudeville show as a dancer and...
people:
Village People
One of the most successful groups of the Disco era, the Village People were undeniably a manufactured novelty act in a genre that spawned many. But no other disco novelty act managed to break into mainstream consciousness to the degree that the Village People did – an achievement is all the more impressive considering the flamboyantly costumed group's grounding in gay culture and its unabashed, albeit lighthearted, use of gay archetypes. Despite this, in their heyday the Village People managed to win acceptance with mainstream audiences, who embraced the group's cartoonish image and such catchy hits as "Y.M.C.A.," "Macho...
people:
De La Soul
When De La Soul burst upon the Rap scene in 1989, their laid-back vibe, eclectic musical tastes and clever wordplay immediately made an impact for their sharp contrast to the macho bragging and intense beats that ruled the day. Their gentler take on Hip-Hop is credited with expanding the definition of what Rap music could be, and paving the way for future “alternative” Rap artists. De La Soul was formed in suburban Amityville, Long Island, NY, by high school friends Kelvin Mercer, David Jude Jolicoeur and Vincent Mason, who’d soon be better known by their stage names: "Posdnuos," "Trugoy the...
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Toby Keith & The Chicks: Songs and Words During the War on Terror
What were the different reactions to songs and comments by Country musicians about the September 11th terrorist attacks versus the Iraq War?
people:
Alexis Korner
(1928 – 1984) Alexis Korner was never a household name, but his influence on the British Rock scene of the 1960s continues to be felt today. As one of the first British performers to embrace American Blues, Koerner — often called the “Father of British Blues” — was a mentor to the stars of the next generation, from the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin. Born in Paris in 1928 to an Austrian father and a Turkish/Greek mother, Alexis spent his childhood in France, Switzerland and North Africa, arriving in London at age 13, at the height of the Second World War....
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Math With The Grateful Dead
How can math be used to better understand the Grateful Dead’s success?
lesson:
Calculating Pitch
How do musical instruments produce different pitches, and what variables allow you to calculate the pitch of an instrument?
lesson:
The Reclamation of the American Cowboy
How has the image and history of the American cowboy been reclaimed in the 21st Century?
people:
B.B. King
(1925 – 2015) The combination of B.B. King’s gut wrenching vocals and his distinctive guitar style — marked by stinging vibrato, deft phrasing and fluid string bending — has made him one on the most recognizable, successful and influential Blues performers of all time. King was born Riley B. King on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta, where his father abandoned the family when King was 4. Raised mostly by his grandmother, he worked the cotton fields and sang gospel by day, and played blues guitar on street corners for dimes by night. In 1947, King hitchhiked north to the thriving music scene of...
people:
Bruce Springsteen
(b. 1949) Born to working-class parents in a small New Jersey town, Bruce Springsteen rose to become arguably the biggest American superstar in Rock. Now in the fifth decade of a career that’s spanned incarnations as a bar-band guitar hero, Dylanesque street poet, chronicler of blue-collar American life, writer of anthemic radio hits, and Woody Guthrie-esque balladeer, Springsteen has an especially devoted base of fans, who hail “the Boss” for his anti-Rock-star populism and for intense, long-haul performances that reflect both a dogged work ethic and a belief in the power of music as a redemptive, uniting force. A self-described loner...
people:
The Chiffons
The Chiffons formed in 1960, when high school schoolmates Judy Craig, Patricia Bennett and Barbara Lee started singing together in the New York City borough of the Bronx. When their Doo-Wop-influenced harmonies and sassy demeanor were paired with hook-laden arrangements and catchy songs from New York City’s top songwriters, the Chiffons became one of the best-known purveyors of the “girl group” sound. The band's first hit, "He's So Fine," was written by their manager, 22-year-old songwriter Ronnie Mack. Mack initially pitched the song to the vocal group the Tokens, who were just coming off their 1961 hit “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and looking to...
people:
Chuck Berry
(1926 – 2017) John Lennon famously said, "if you tried to give Rock and Roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry." Indeed, Chuck Berry is one of the few to lay claim as a true founding father of Rock music. Born in St. Louis, Mo., Berry started playing guitar in high school, borrowing guitar riffs and stagecraft from Blues legend T-Bone Walker. By early 1953 Berry was performing with local pianist Johnnie Johnson's trio, starting a longtime collaboration with Johnson. Although the band played mostly Blues and ballads — Berry idolized the hard driving Bluesman Muddy Waters and the...
people:
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Folk Rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young rose in the late 1960s from the ashes of several highly successful acts. Both Neil Young and Stephen Stills were previously part of Buffalo Springfield, David Crosby was a member of the Byrds, and Graham Nash arrived from the British Invasion group the Hollies. Known for their soaring harmonies and laid-back Folk Rock sound, the group’s core is the trio of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, with Young as an on-and-off fourth member. The group initially formed after Crosby, Stills, and Nash sang together at a party in Los Angeles and were excited by...
people:
Dead Kennedys
Pioneers of Hardcore Punk, the Dead Kennedys were noted for their biting, often satirical sociopolitical diatribes against U.S. foreign policy, Ronald Reagan-era domestic policy, a culture they lambasted as conformist and superficial and anything else that roused the ire of lead singer Jello Biafra. A puckish, satirical provocateur with a quavering, caustic howl that cut like an icepick over the band’s furious riffing, Biafra (born Eric Boucher) formed the band in San Francisco in 1978, along with guitarist East Bay Ray. The band’s first single, “California Uber Alles,” was released in 1979 – that same year, Biafra ran for mayor...
people:
Muddy Waters
(1915 – 1983) A Mississippi native who rose to prominence in Chicago in the early 1950s, Muddy Waters is one the most esteemed figures in Blues, and a seminal figure in the postwar electrification of acoustic Delta Blues. He was a major influence on many Rock musicians of the 1960s, revered in particular among players who made up the British Blues scene. Waters was born McKinley Morganfield in 1915, and raised on the Stovall Plantation in the Delta town of Clarksdale, Mississippi. At age five Waters began to play harmonica and as a teen he taught himself guitar, emulating the style...
people:
Diana Ross
(b. 1944) After spending most of the 60s reaping massive success as lead singer of the Supremes, Diana Ross transitioned smoothly into her next incarnation as a glitzy solo diva — and the personification of Motown boss Berry Gordy's grand crossover ambitions. Ross and Gordy were laying the groundwork for Ross' solo career long before her departure from the Supremes was announced in November 1969. After giving her final performance with the group in January 1970 at Las Vegas' Frontier Hotel, Ross immediately scored a pair of major solo hits with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Reach Out and Touch...
video:
The Butcher Cover
lesson:
The Teamwork Behind the Beatles (Elementary Version)
How did the input of manager Brian Epstein and record producer George Martin help The Beatles develop and refine skills that aided the band in presenting their music and personalities to a mass audience?
lesson:
Funk Asserts Itself
How did 1970s Funk respond to African-American life in the decade following the Civil Rights movement?
people:
Frankie Avalon
(b. 1940) Pop singer Frankie Avalon was among the premiere “teen idols” of the late 50s and early 60s, scoring many hits in the pre-Beatles era and starring in dozens of films, among them a popular series of beach movies that paired Avalon with Annette Funicello. As a boy growing up in Philadelphia Avalon studied the trumpet, and played with local bands. He scored a break thanks to an encounter with singer Al Martino, who hailed from the same south Philly neighborhood where Avalon lived. Martino was back home visiting friends and celebrating a recent hit when Avalon talked his way into Martino’s party and played...
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Loudspeakers, PA Systems, and the “Wall of Sound”
What is a PA system, how does it work, and how were the Grateful Dead pioneers in live sound technology?
people:
Gil Scott-Heron
(1949 – 2011) Acclaimed as a godfather of Rap and Soul Jazz, musician/poet Gil Scott-Heron forged a radicalized vision of the world with deep roots in the Black Power movements of the late 1960s. He came to prominence in the early 1970s, most notably with “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” a provocative 1970 poem from his debut album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox that gave a militant voice to America’s ghetto street culture. Scott-Heron also made a string of albums with keyboardist Brian Jackson that influenced the “neo Soul” movement of the 1990s, as represented by Erykah Badu,...
people:
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Emerging in New York in the late 1970s, Grandmaster Flash is credited as one of the foremost innovators of Hip Hop DJing as an art form. By backspinning, scratching, mixing and otherwise manipulating vinyl records in search of the “perfect beat,” Flash helped pioneer using the turntable as a musical instrument to create breakbeats, the backbone of any Hip Hop song. Along with the group the Furious Five, Flash came to national prominence in 1982 with the seminal Rap hit “The Message” – a track that with its chilling social commentary changed Hip Hop forever, retooling its image as good-time “party...
video:
The Role of Brian Epstein
video:
Beatlemania
lesson:
Using Ratios to Identify Social Media Engagement
How can ratios be used to identify a music artist’s social media audience engagement?
lesson:
The Birth of the Electric Guitar
How did the electric guitar transform Blues music from the 1940s forward?
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Mi Gente: Fania Records & New York Salsa Music
What is Fania Records, and how does it reflect the history of Spanish-speaking Caribbean communities in New York City?
people:
Devo
One of the most iconoclastic acts to emerge from the American New Wave movement in the late 70s, Devo’s long and productive lifespan belies the assumptions of those who dismissed the group as a novelty act during its original heyday. Along the way, the Ohio-bred Art-Punk sci-fi surrealists managed to break into America's mainstream pop consciousness. Although they've shifted styles numerous times, from jagged Punk to bouncy Synth Pop to ironic Easy Listening and back again, Devo has remained true to its conceptual origins, while maintaining the playful sense of subversion with which it started. Devo's central concept of "devolution"...
lesson:
The Sound of Blue Collar Detroit
How did Rock and Roll serve as an expressive tool for the working-class youth of Detroit?
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Ritchie Valens
How did Ritchie Valens meld traditional Mexican music and Rock and Roll?
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Chuck Berry
Why is Chuck Berry often considered the most important of the early Rock and Rollers?
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Italian-American Vocalists Before Rock and Roll
How did the careers of Italian American vocalists in the first half of the 20th century reflect the experiences of Italian American immigrants and attitudes toward them in the wider American culture?
people:
The Byrds
Formed in Los Angeles in 1964, the Byrds are credited as the first Folk Rock group, pioneering a sound that bridged the gap between popular Folk acts like the Kingston Trio and the bands of the British Invasion. The core members of the band — Jim (Roger) McGuinn, Gene Clark and David Crosby — all had roots in the Folk world, having put their time in playing in coffee houses with groups like the New Christy Minstrels and Les Baxter’s Balladeers. As with so many musicians in the early 60s, it was the wake-up call of hearing the Beatles that...
lesson:
The Juke Joint: Where Oral Literature Comes Alive
What role do Blues lyrics and juke joints play in Black American literature and life?
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The Musical Roots of the Surf Sound
What is the Surf sound and where did it come from?
lesson:
Identifying and Resisting Jim Crow with Words and Songs
How have works of literature and music by Black Americans shared an empowering theme of identifying and resisting Jim Crow?
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Using Algebraic Expressions to Analyze Concert Schedules
How can writing and evaluating expressions be used to explain the scope of an artist’s concert schedule?
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Artists Protest McCarthyism
How were musicians and artists affected by McCarthyism in 1950s America?
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Steve Aoki and Growth Mindset
How can our brains be shaped by our mindset, and how has a growth mindset helped Steve Aoki become one of the most successful DJs and record producers in the world?
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The Emergence of Folk Rock
What is Folk music? To what extent did Folk Rock sustain the spirit of Folk music?
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Dan Penn
How did black artists and white songwriters and musicians interact in the Soul era, and what contributed to that interaction?
people:
Hank Williams
(1923 – 1953) In many ways, Hank Williams was Country music's first Rock star — not just for the fast lifestyle that killed him at the age of 29, but also for the uncompromising, personally charged edge he brought to his music. In addition to being a charismatic performer and a compelling, inventive songwriter, Williams was one of Country's most beloved superstars, scoring 35 Top 10 Country singles, eleven of which reached No. 1, and he was instrumental in expanding Country and Western's popularity beyond its traditional regional audience. Williams' performing style and musical sensibility inspired not only countless Country...
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Dylan as Poet
How did Bob Dylan merge poetry with popular music?
video:
The End of Touring Years
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Signature Style in Art and Album Covers
How have visual artists worked with musicians without compromising their style?
video:
The Beatles’ Stadium Tours
people:
Mamie Smith
(1883 – 1946) Mamie Smith made history when in 1920 she became the first African American singer to make a record of a Blues song, “Crazy Blues.” The record became a massive hit, changing the record industry and launching a new era of “race records” aimed at black listeners. Born in 1883, Smith entered show business at the tender age of ten. She spent the next decade working in vaudeville as dancer and singer. At age 20 she married and settled down in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, where she became a regular performer in night clubs. On August 10, 1920, Smith...
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Assembling Hits at Motown
How did Motown Records in Detroit operate during the 1960s?
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Skip James
(1902 – 1969) One of the most influential of the Delta Blues players, Mississippi-bred Skip James' intricate, unconventional guitar technique and high, haunting vocals made him one of the genre's most distinctive and expressive performers. In his 1930s heyday, James – who played piano as well as guitar, a rarity for Country Blues singers — was notably an influence on Robert Johnson, who reworked James’ "Devil Got My Woman" and "22-20 Blues" as "Hellhound on My Trail" and "32-20 Blues, respectively. In his early life, James worked as a manual laborer on road-construction and levee-building crews, as well as a sharecropper...
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The Role of George Martin
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Jackson Browne
(b. 1948) Jackson Browne emerged from Los Angeles to become the quintessential “sensitive singer-songwriter.” His ability to craft melodic but intimate songs brought him widespread commercial acceptance and helped set the tone for the soft California Rock sound that would flourish in the 70s. Raised in Los Angeles, Browne began writing original songs and performing in local clubs while still in his teens. Shortly after graduating high school in 1966 he moved to New York City to concentrate on songwriting. He became a staff writer for a publishing company and developed a reputation for writing poetic, confessional songs that belied his...
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Vanilla Ice
(b. 1967) Although he was massively popular for a brief period in the early '90s, rapper Vanilla Ice occupies roughly the same niche in Hip Hop history that Pat Boone filled in the early days of Rock and Roll: he’s often regarded as a white performer who achieved commercial success by sanitizing a "dangerous" musical style for mainstream consumption. Born Robert Van Vinkle, Ice – who was born in Texas and raised there and in South Florida — released his first album, Hooked, in 1989 on the independent Ichiban label. He then signed with the corporate SBK Records, which released a...
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The Who
Since they blasted their way into prominence with the British Invasion, the Who’s sprawling half-century saga has been strewn with creative reinventions, personality clashes, breakups, reunions and death by misadventure. It’s also yielded one of the most respected bodies of work in the annals of Rock, from the band’s early days as scrappy Mod icons to its work as Rock-opera conceptualists to its ongoing incarnation as a bigger-than-life arena-rock juggernaut. The Who’s mass of contradictions is reflected in the contrasting yet oddly complementary personae of the four musicians who comprised the band’s classic lineup: guitarist-songwriter Pete Townshend, whose unsparingly personal...
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The Vietnam War: A Document-Based Question
In what ways and to what extent did the Vietnam War change American culture, society, and values?
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The Civil Rights Movement: A Document-Based Question
In what ways did the Civil Rights Movement mark a turning point in United States history?
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Multitracking in the Countercultural 1960s
How did The Beatles’ use of cutting edge recording technology and studio techniques both reflect and shape the counterculture of the 1960s?
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Woody Guthrie
(1912 – 1967) Before Bruce Springsteen, before Bob Dylan, there was Woody Guthrie, the original Folk hero. During the 30s and 40s, Guthrie was instrumental in elevating Folk music to a form of social protest and observation, and in doing so, inspired a generation of songwriters. Guthrie was born into relatively fortunate circumstances; his father had established a successful real estate career in their native Oklahoma. However, by Woody's eighth birthday, the elder Guthrie's business collapsed, and a hardscrabble existence befell the Guthrie family for the remainder of Woody's formative years. He was a voracious reader and had a natural affinity for music, and in...
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Who is “Us” in P!nk’s “What About Us”?
Who is the ‘us’ in P!nk’s song “What About Us?”
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Louis Jordan
(1908 – 1975) Saxophonist/vocalist/songwriter/bandleader Louis Jordan was an early R&B pioneer whose exuberant spirit and musical approach were key influences on early Rock and Rollers, perhaps most notably Chuck Berry, who cited Jordan as an inspiration. His swinging small-combo style was a bridge between the Big Band era and the birth of Rock and Roll. Although he began his career in Big Band swing in the 1930s, Jordan became a star in the following decade as one of the leading popularizers of the uptempo Jazz/Blues/Boogie Woogie hybrid known as Jump Blues. Funny and charismatic, he created a series of joyous, raucous,...
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Negotiating Native Identity through Art, Poetry and Music
How have Native American musicians, poets, and visual artists negotiated their identity, and what role does physical space play in these negotiations?
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The Indigenous Roots of Rock and Roll
What does Link Wray’s biography say about how Native Americans lived in the first half of the 20th century, and what role did Wray’s upbringing have on his music?
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Sam Cooke
(1931 – 1964) A Gospel singer who crossed over to Pop, Sam Cooke was hailed as one of the most gifted singers of his era, and he was also one of the most successful, with a prodigious run of hits between 1957 and 1964. Widely credited as a pioneer of Soul music, Cooke – who maintained huge popularity with black audiences even as he commandeered the Pop charts and built a substantial following among whites — had a notable influence on late 60s singers such as Otis Redding and Al Green. Cooke was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, one of eight children....
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Sam Phillips
(1923 – 2003) If he'd done nothing other than discover Elvis Presley and release his early singles, Sun Records founder Sam Phillips would be a crucial figure in the birth of Rock and Roll. But the Memphis-based impresario's music-related achievements were far broader than his pivotal association with Elvis. The Alabama native opened the Memphis Record Service in 1950, hiring out his services to record weddings, funerals, and civic events, while cutting sessions with such local (and soon to be legendary) Blues musicians as Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Junior Parker, James Cotton, Rufus Thomas, Rosco Gordon, Little Milton, and Bobby Blue...
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Sex Pistols
While they may not have invented the genre, the Sex Pistols emerged in the late 1970s as the very face of Punk Rock. Forming in the midst of a harsh economic recession in Britain – and a musical landscape dominated by Prog, Disco and staged arena Rock — the Pistols were brash, crude, and gleefully provocative, spitting into the face of the British cultural establishment with a howled message of political anarchy and anti-authoritarianism. They were around for only two years and recorded only a single record, but their influence was vast in both the U.S. and the U.K....
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The Rise of the “Girl Groups”
Were the Girl Groups of the early 1960s voices of female empowerment or reflections of traditional female roles?
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Reagan and the Cold War: A Document-Based Question
Did President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War policies serve to heighten or to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union?
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The Blues: The Sound of Rural Poverty
How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?
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Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 2
What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?
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Smokey Robinson
(b. 1940) Although his early hits with the Miracles were instrumental in putting Motown Records on the map, William "Smokey" Robinson was more than just the label's first star. His gifts as a a songwriter, record producer, and spotter of talent played a crucial role in Motown's musical and commercial success, and his behind-the-scenes contributions remained a key element of the company's musical output throughout its glory days. Robinson's graceful presence, sweet voice, and witty lyrical romanticism made him the company's first idol, with Bob Dylan calling him "America's greatest living poet." In the mid-50s, the Detroit native began singing with...
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Mainstream Metal, Parental Advisories, and Censorship
How was Heavy Metal involved in the 1980s controversy surrounding the creation of parental advisories for “offensive” music?
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The Emergence of Grunge
What was Grunge and where did it come from?
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How Records and Radio Shaped American Culture
How did changes in the technology of record manufacturing effect popular music, radio, and the people who consumed both?
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The Impact of the Electric Guitar
How did the electrification, amplification and design of the guitar facilitate its emergence as a dominant instrument of popular music?
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Steven Van Zandt
(b. 1950) Although he's best known as a founding member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and as mob consigliere Silvio Dante on TV's The Sopranos, Steven Van Zandt (aka Little Steven) has a far-ranging resume that speaks to a lifelong devotion to music, and spans the roles of guitarist, songwriter, producer, arranger, radio host, label owner, human-rights activist and educator. Van Zandt's association with Springsteen stretches back to both men's early days of playing in little-known combos on the Jersey Shore bar scene. But he didn't officially join the E Street Band until Springsteen's third album, 1975's Born to Run,...
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The Rolling Stones: Giving America Back the Blues
How did the early Rolling Stones help popularize the Blues?
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Punk as Reaction
How was Punk Rock a reaction both to the commercialization of Rock and Roll and to the social climate in late 1970s Britain?
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LaVern Baker
(1929 – 1997) LaVern Baker was one of first female R&B performers to cross over to reach large numbers of white listeners in the early days of Rock and Roll. Baker's exuberant delivery drove such mid-50s hits as "Tweedlee Dee" and "Jim Dandy," while 1958's "I Cried a Tear" showed her to be an effective ballad singer. Born Delores LaVern Baker in Chicago, she began singing in local clubs in the mid-40s. She did some early recording as Little Miss Sharecropper and Bea Baker; by the time she began recording for Atlantic Records in 1953, she was performing as LaVern Baker....
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Hometown Documentaries
How can music help tell the story of your hometown?
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Rock and Roll Goes to the Movies
How did movies help to introduce Rock and Roll culture to mainstream audiences in the 1950s?
video:
The Beatles’ Early Years
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Designing an Electric Guitar with Shapes
How can shapes be used to design an electric guitar?
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Jay-Z
(b. 1969) Widely regarded as one the greatest rappers of all time, Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter) is one of Hip Hop's most successful entrepreneurs as well as one of its most innovative and influential artists. Such landmark Jay-Z albums as 1999's Reasonable Doubt, 2001's The Blueprint, and 2003's The Black Album — all included in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time — are widely regarded as landmarks of the genre. The 17-time Grammy winner is one of the best-selling artists in any genre, with more than 75 million records sold. He holds the record for most...
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Jerry Lee Lewis
(b. 1935) Perhaps the wildest of Rock and Roll's early pioneers, Jerry Lee Lewis embodied an unruly mass of contradictions that manifested themselves on such hits as "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On," "Great Balls of Fire" "Breathless," and "High School Confidential." Shouting his lusty lyrics and pounding his piano like a man possessed, Lewis — affectionately known, then and now, as the Killer — balanced the sacred and the profane like nothing that had ever been in heard in American popular music, establishing himself as a walking embodiment of American parents' darkest fears about this strange new music. When he showed...
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Johnny Cash
(1932 – 2003) With his rumbling baritone voice, spare, percussive guitar and imposing, black-clad presence, Johnny Cash was an iconic figure whose influence spans the 50s Rockabilly explosion, multimedia stardom in the 60s and a late-life comeback in the '90s. Cash remained a beloved star in the Country field for decades, despite his refusal to play by the genre's established rules. Meanwhile, the empathy for the underdog and passion for social justice that fueled much of his music aligned him with the Rock counterculture from the '60s onward. The Arkansas-bred Cash first recorded in the 50s for the Sun label, where...
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James Taylor
(b. 1948) With his warm, intimate voice and personal, often brooding songs, James Taylor rose to prominence in the early 1970s as one of the leading voices of the West Coast Singer-Songwriter movement, becoming in the eyes of many the avatar of the sensitive, male Singer-Songwriter. A star and hitmaker throughout the 1970s, he endures as a popular concert draw and recording artist. Taylor was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where his well-off family moved when he was three. He studied cello as a child, but switched to guitar at age 12. He credited his...
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Lightnin’ Hopkins
(1912 – 1982) With a career spanning six decades and hundreds of recordings, Lightnin’ Hopkins was among the most prolific and admired Blues players of the 20th century, and one who spanned the rural Country Blues tradition and the electric Blues of the postwar years. He was also an accomplished guitarist whose syncopated, thumping fingerpicking style directly or indirectly influenced many subsequent Blues and Rock players. Sam John Hopkins was born in 1912 in Centerville, Texas, the grandson of slaves and the son of sharecroppers. Immersedi in the Blues from a young age, Hopkins built his first “guitar” from a cigar box...
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Musical Reactions to the Vietnam War
How were American’s divisive opinions over the Vietnam War articulated by musicians in the 1960s and early 1970s?
video:
Little Blue Wren
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Janis Joplin
(1943 – 1970) With a powerhouse vocal style and a brash, larger-than-life persona, Blues-steeped singer Janis Joplin arrived in San Francisco from Port Arthur, Texas, a few years before the Summer of Love and rose to become one of the biggest stars of the late 1960s. As a charismatic female star at a time when Rock was heavily male-dominated, Joplin was a trailblazer – however, her career was cut short when she died of a drug overdose in 1970, at the age of 27. As a teenager growing up in Texas in the late 1950s, Joplin was smitten by old Folk,...
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Joni Mitchell
(b. 1943) Initially branded as a Folk singer, Joni Mitchell came to prominence as part of the wave of introspective Singer Songwriters who emerged in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. A restless creative spirit, she soon moved beyond those labels, embracing Jazz, Pop, and African and Latin rhythms, and turning out an idiosyncratic body of work that earned her critical plaudits and a legion of devoted fans. Her 1971 album Blue was particularly hailed as a masterwork, and is often ranked among the 20th century’s best and most influential albums. Growing up in Alberta, Canada, Mitchell was drawn to painting...
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Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an iconic Heavy Metal band who helped to transform the genre from its 60s Blues-Rock roots to the mainstream phenomenon we know today. Alongside Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, the band are widely ranked among the most influential Heavy Metal bands of all time, and with a career that’s spanned over 40 years, they’re one of the most enduring. Judas Priest formed in the gritty industrial city of Birmingham, England, in 1971. They spent the next few years playing local shows and developing their heavy, Blues-based sound. Their debut album, Rocka Rolla, was released in 1974 and...
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Exploring Shapes in Pablo Picasso’s “Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass”
What shapes did Pablo Picasso use to create his piece Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass and how can similar shapes be used to create other instruments?
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The Memphis Sound and Racial Integration
How has Memphis music culture provided one example of art’s capacity to challenge the racial boundaries that have so often structured American life?
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The Gospel Origins of “Chain of Fools”
Essential Question: How did Aretha Franklin’s foundation in Gospel music influence her recording of “Chain of Fools,” helping to establish a Soul sound and bringing black culture into mainstream America?
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The Last Poets
The Last Poets were a collective of African American and Hispanic poets and percussionists that formed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) in Harlem, New York, in 1968. In casual get-togethers, group members would recite their poetry, sometimes improvised and often political in nature, while the percussionists played African-based rhythms. The results have often been cited as a precursor to Rap music. Their 1970 self-titled debut album featured politically charged songs like "When the Revolution Comes" and "Wake Up, Niggers" — messages of self-empowerment that sought to inspire and educate, and that put the group at the forefront of the Black...
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Led Zeppelin
Formed in London in the late 1960s, Led Zeppelin went on to become one of the most popular and influential bands in Rock and Roll history. Like many British bands of the era, Led Zeppelin were steeped in American Blues, but they took that influence in a heavier direction than most of their peers, creating a powerful, stomping sound that also incorporated elements of British Folk, Psychedelia, Soul, Reggae, and Celtic and Arabic music. As such, they wielded a huge influence over subsequent Hard Rock bands, and are often credited as forbears of Heavy Metal. The band was brought together...
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Mary Wells
(1943 – 1992) In the early 1960s, Mary Wells was one the first stars to emerge from the Motown label, helping to define the “Motown sound” with a handful of hit singles including the enduring classic “My Guy." Wells grew up in Detroit, Mich. She was raised by her mother who nursed her through bouts of spinal meningitis and tuberculosis. By age 12 Wells was helping her mother clean houses and singing as she worked. By her teen years she had graduated from her church choir to occasional nightclub performances and, encouraged by the success of local acts the Miracles and Jackie...
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Meat Loaf
(b. 1947) Cutting an imposing figure at 350 pounds and belting out songwriter Jim Steinman's Wagnerian compositions with appropriate grandiosity, Meat Loaf achieved stardom in 1977 with his blockbuster breakthrough album Bat Out of Hell, which eventually sold more than 43 million copies worldwide and spent nine years on the Billboard album chart. Although his fame arrived virtually overnight, Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday) had actually been kicking around the fringes of showbiz for a decade. He had led an L.A. band known alternately as Meat Loaf Soul, Popcorn Blizzard, and Floating Circus, had been a cast member of the...
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Mos Def
(b. 1973) Beginning in the late 90s, socially-conscious rapper Mos Def — more recently known as Yasiin Bey — established a reputation as one of Hip Hop's most forward-thinking artists, while building a parallel acting career that's demonstrated the same thoughtfulness and versatility that are hallmarks of his music. Born Dante Terrell Smith in Brooklyn, Mos Def began rapping at age nine and began acting professionally at 14. He formed Urban Thermo Dynamics with his brother and sister, and later made guest appearances on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. But his musical career didn't really take off...
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100 Years of Dance
Why might people dance, and how have dance trends changed in America since the 1920s?
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N.W.A.
One of the most influential and controversial groups in the history of Hip Hop, N.W.A. were almost solely responsible for elevating Gangsta rap from a street phenomenon in South Central Los Angeles to national prominence, through their raw, provocative debut Straight Outta Compton, which sold 3 million copies in the year after its 1988 release. N.W.A. (short for “Niggaz Wit Attitude”) began taking shape in early 1986, when Eric “Eazy-E” Wright sought out Dr. Dre and DJ Yella, who had performed together in an electro-rap band and produced beats and mixtapes for the KDAY radio station. The trio then recruited...
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Paul McCartney
(b. 1942) It's tempting to imagine how different the world would be today if Paul McCartney hadn't run into John Lennon on July 6, 1957, at the Liverpool church fete where Lennon's group the Quarrymen was performing. But it's also hard to imagine that, even if the Beatles had never existed, McCartney's prodigious talents and considerable ambition wouldn't have found an outlet somehow, or that he wouldn't have become an influential cultural figure even if the British rock explosion that the Beatles ignited had never happened. It's an oft-repeated if overly simplistic meme that McCartney was the facile Pop tunesmith to...
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Tom Petty
(b. 1950) A prolific source of melodic, personally-charged, guitar-driven Rock and Roll, Tom Petty has proven one of America’s most enduring hitmakers, earning wide respect for maintaining a consistent level of creative integrity throughout a four-decade recording career. During that time he’s racked up scores of Top Ten singles, while maintaining his long association with backup band the Heartbreakers, which includes musicians (including guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench) whom Petty has played with since his bar-band days in his hometown of Gainesville, Florida. Petty and the Heartbreakers emerged in the late 1970s, and with their catchy choruses and concise...