TeachRock

lesson:
Native Americans and Westward Expansion featuring Redbone

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Primary Source Analysis, Station Activities

Topics: Native American History, Pre-20th Century History, Social Justice Movements

What were the experiences of Native Americans during Westward Expansion and how did the U.S. government use music and other aspects of culture to force assimilation on Native Americans?

lesson:
Negotiating Native Identity through Art, Poetry and Music

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Art/Design, Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis, Visual Art

Topics: Contemporary Music, Literature, Native American History, Social-Emotional Learning

How have Native American musicians, poets, and visual artists negotiated their identity, and what role does physical space play in these negotiations?

lesson:
Indigenous Music from Wounded Knee to the Billboard Charts

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Dance, Native American History, War

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?

lesson:
The Music and Poetry Behind the Red Power Movement

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Music Business, Native American History, Social Justice Movements

What was the Red Power movement, and what role did Folk and Country music play within it?

article:
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...

lesson:
Italian-American Vocalists Before Rock and Roll

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Gallery Walk, Musical Analysis, Station Activities, Visual Analysis

Topics: Migration

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?

lesson:
The Myth of the American Cowboy

Grades: AP/Honors/101

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Labor History, Latin American History, Migration, Native American History, Pre-20th Century History, War

How did Westward Expansion and the idea of Manifest Destiny inform the image of the cowboy in American culture?

lesson:
The Reclamation of the American Cowboy

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Musical Analysis, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Appropriation, Black History, Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Geography, Native American History, Pre-20th Century History

How has the image and history of the American cowboy been reclaimed in the 21st Century?

lesson:
The Homestead Act featuring Cowboy Songs collected by John Lomax

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Primary Source Analysis, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Black History, Pre-20th Century History

How did the Homestead Act of 1862 impact growth and development in the American West, and what is meant by the term “crossroads of culture” in the context of the American West?

lesson:
Rock and Roll and the American Dream

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Economics, Literature

What is the American Dream and how did Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash personify its ideals?

lesson:
The Blues and the Great Migration

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History, STEAM

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Document-Based Questions, Maps, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Economics, Geography, Migration

How did the Great Migration spread Southern culture, helping to give the Blues a central place in American popular music?

lesson:
1950s American Society and Conformity

Grades: High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Station Activities

Topics: Latin American History

How did the presence of Latin American artists challenge the image of 1950s American society seen in popular media?

lesson:
Artists Protest McCarthyism

Grades: High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Censorship, Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements, War

How were musicians and artists affected by McCarthyism in 1950s America?

lesson:
Producing the Sounds of a Changing South

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Geography, Music Business, Technology

How did the recordings Sam Phillips produced at Sun Records, including Elvis Presley’s early work, reflect trends of urbanization and integration in the 1950s American South?

lesson:
Early Reconstruction featuring the Hyers Sisters

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Primary Source Analysis, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Pre-20th Century History, Women's History

Who were the Hyers Sisters, and how did their work represent the Reconstruction era?

lesson:
Plessy v. Ferguson featuring Bert Williams

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Jigsaw Activity, Primary Source Analysis, Structured Academic Controversy

Topics: Black History, Pre-20th Century History

Who was Bert Williams and how does his life represent an American experience during the rise of Jim Crow laws and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson?

lesson:
Debating Cultural Appropriation

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: ELA, Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Station Activities, Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Appropriation, Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Native American History

What is cultural appropriation, how does it affect Native American communities, and should it be regulated by law?

lesson:
Rhythm and Blues Hit the Airwaves

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Maps, Performance, Role Playing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Media Studies, Technology

How did Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock help bring Rhythm and Blues music to mixed race audiences?

lesson:
The American Blues in Britain

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History

In what ways did American Blues affect English musicians in the early 1960s?

lesson:
The Beatles and American Segregation

Grades: All Ages, Elementary 4-6, High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Geography, Social Justice Movements, Youth/Teenagers

How did the Beatles take a stand against segregation while touring America? And what did it mean for popular music culture?

lesson:
Funk Asserts Itself

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Economics, Geography, Migration

How did 1970s Funk respond to African-American life in the decade following the Civil Rights movement?

lesson:
The Beat as an Object of Celebration and Concern in Segregation-Era America

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Censorship, Technology

How has “the beat” been an object of both celebration and concern in the history of popular music?

lesson:
Westward Expansion and Country Music’s Hispanic Influence

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Latin American History, Migration, Pre-20th Century History, War

What was Westward Expansion, and what effect did it have on American Popular music?

lesson:
Toby Keith & The Chicks: Songs and Words During the War on Terror

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Interview, Musical Analysis, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Media Studies, Social-Emotional Learning, War

What were the different reactions to songs and comments by Country musicians about the September 11th terrorist attacks versus the Iraq War?

lesson:
Almost Emancipated: Reconstruction

Grades: AP/Honors/101

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, War

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?

article:
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...

lesson:
Late Reconstruction featuring The Jubilee Singers

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Jigsaw Activity, Primary Source Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Pre-20th Century History

Who were the Jubilee Singers and how do their experiences reflect the final years of Reconstruction in the United States?

lesson:
“Twist and Shout” and Post-War Britain

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Geography, War, Youth/Teenagers

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?

article:
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...

lesson:
Dancing the Twist on Television

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Dance, Media Studies

How did teen dance shows and the Twist influence American culture?

lesson:
Car Culture in Postwar America

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Economics, Technology, War, Youth/Teenagers

How did car culture intersect with and inspire Rock and Roll?

lesson:
“Hound Dog” and 1950 Race Relations

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Maps, Musical Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Geography, Media Studies

How does the story of “Hound Dog” demonstrate music culture’s racial mixing as it differed from mainstream American life in the 1950s?

lesson:
How to Study Rock and Roll

Grades: AP/Honors/101, Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3, High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

How can teachers help students analyze and understand Rock and Roll?

lesson:
The Memphis Sound and Racial Integration

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Maps, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Geography

How has Memphis music culture provided one example of art’s capacity to challenge the racial boundaries that have so often structured American life?

lesson:
The Latin Rhythms of “Despacito”

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Geography, Latin American History, Migration

What Latin American genres inspired Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s hit song “Despacito”?

lesson:
Radio Before Rock and Roll

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Interview, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Technology

How did radio influence American life in the years before the birth of Rock and Roll?

lesson:
The Blues: The Sound of Rural Poverty

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Maps, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Black History, Economics, Labor History

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

article:
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...

article:
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,...

lesson:
World War II and the Shrinking of the Ensemble

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Labor History, Technology, War

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?

lesson:
The Impact of 1960s Antiwar Music

Grades: High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements, War, Youth/Teenagers

How did antiwar protest music provide a voice for those opposed to the Vietnam War?

lesson:
The Indigenous Roots of Rock and Roll

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Interactive Tech Tools, Role Playing, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Guitar, Native American History

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?

lesson:
The Birth of Hippie Culture in the 1960s

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Gallery Walk, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Youth/Teenagers

How did the Grateful Dead reflect new ideas about life and society in the 1960’s?

lesson:
A Veteran’s Soundtrack to the Vietnam War

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Social-Emotional Learning, War

How did popular music amplify the voices and experiences of Americans serving in the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War?

lesson:
The Gospel Origins of “Chain of Fools”

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Maps, Musical Analysis

Topics: Black History, Geography, Migration

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?

lesson:
The Transcontinental Railroad featuring Work Songs Collected by John Lomax

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Maps, Musical Analysis, Primary Source Analysis, Think-Pair-Share, Timeline

Topics: Pre-20th Century History

In what ways did the Transcontinental Railroad contribute to the physical, cultural, and musical growth of the American West in the late 19th Century?

lesson:
The Rise of Black Pride

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Literature, Social Justice Movements

How did Social Soul reflect a new vision of African-American identity in the late 1960s and early 1970s?

lesson:
Rhythm as a Representation of People and Place

Topics: Contemporary Music, Dance, Geography, Latin American History

How does “the beat” of popular music reflect the histories of multiethnic populations and places?

lesson:
Musical Reactions to the Vietnam War

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, War

How were American’s divisive opinions over the Vietnam War articulated by musicians in the 1960s and early 1970s?

lesson:
How Records and Radio Shaped American Culture

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, General Music, Science, STEAM

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Technology

How did changes in the technology of record manufacturing effect popular music, radio, and the people who consumed both?

lesson:
Liverpool: The Birthplace of the Beatles

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Maps, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Economics, Geography, War

How did growing up in post-WWII Liverpool influence the Beatles?

lesson:
Music of the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High

Subjects: Civics, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Musical Analysis, Station Activities

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements

How did music advance the goals and inform the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement?

lesson:
The Rolling Stones: Giving America Back the Blues

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Black History, Geography

How did the early Rolling Stones help popularize the Blues?

lesson:
Deadheads and Reagan’s America in the 1980s

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Maps, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Youth/Teenagers

Who are the Deadheads and how did their lifestyle contrast with the conservative values promoted by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s?

lesson:
The Emergence of Folk Rock

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis

What is Folk music? To what extent did Folk Rock sustain the spirit of Folk music?

lesson:
Singer-Songwriters and the Environmental Movement

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share, Visual Analysis

Topics: Environment, Literature, Social Justice Movements

How did the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s address the concerns of the environmental movement?

article:
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...

lesson:
Latin Music and Puerto Rican Migration to New York City

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Latin American History, Migration

What is the history behind Puerto Rican migration to New York City in the 1940s and 1950s, and how did Puerto Rican migration affect American Popular Music?

lesson:
Motown Records: Detroit’s Sound of Success

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Maps, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Geography, Media Studies, Music Business

How did Detroit’s cultural and economic history influence the sound and success of Motown Records?

lesson:
DAMN.: The Art and Importance of Storytelling

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Art/Design, ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Contemporary Music, Literature

How do Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. and the work of photojournalist Gordon Parks tell stories that bring attention to social issues?

lesson:
Almost Emancipated: The Civil War and the Port Royal Experiment

Grades: AP/Honors/101

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Gallery Walk, Maps

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Pre-20th Century History, War

How does the Union occupation of Port Royal highlight the complex issues behind the Civil War?

article:
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...

lesson:
Birth of the American Teenager

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Economics, Music Business, Youth/Teenagers

How did teenagers become a distinct demographic group in the 1950s?

lesson:
Gospel Music and the Birth of Soul

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History

How did Gospel influence American popular music?

lesson:
100 Years of Dance

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Performance, Station Activities

Topics: Dance, Youth/Teenagers

Why might people dance, and how have dance trends changed in America since the 1920s?

article:
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...

lesson:
Mining and Union Songs in the Early 20th Century

Grades: AP/Honors/101

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Geography, Labor History

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?

lesson:
9/11: Country Music Responds

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Interview, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Social-Emotional Learning, War

How did Country musicians’ responses to the September 11th terrorist attacks speak to the feelings of some Americans after the tragedy?

lesson:
Black Radio and the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Maps, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Economics, Geography, Media Studies, Migration, Social Justice Movements, Technology

How did Black radio empower Black Americans, aid the Civil Rights Movement, and influence U.S. society?

lesson:
The Beatles Work Towards Success

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Math, Social Studies/History, STEAM

Activities: Equations and Calculations, Maps, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Geography, Math, War, Youth/Teenagers

How did The Beatles' rigorous work schedule during the years 1960-63 build their strengths as performers, as musicians, and as a band?

lesson:
Identifying and Resisting Jim Crow with Words and Songs

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Civics, ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Literature, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

How have works of literature and music by Black Americans shared an empowering theme of identifying and resisting Jim Crow?

lesson:
Kanye and Katrina: Environmental Racism in New Orleans

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Interview, Maps

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Environment

What was Hurricane Katrina, and how did Black Americans articulate the frustrations they felt in its aftermath?

lesson:
Seventies Soul: The Soundtrack of Turbulent Times

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements, War

How did changes in the Soul music of the early 1970s reflect broader shifts in American society during that time?

lesson:
Singing Democracy During the Second Great Awakening

Grades: AP/Honors/101

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Contemporary Music, Pre-20th Century History, Social Justice Movements

What was the Second Great Awakening, how did it change American society, and how does Sacred Harp singing exemplify its ideals?

lesson:
The Sound of the Suburbs

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Geography, Migration, War, Youth/Teenagers

How did the music of the Beach Boys reflect the suburbanization of postwar America?

lesson:
The Gilded Age featuring the Phonograph

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Gallery Walk, Primary Source Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Technology

How does the invention of the phonograph represent how the daily lives of Americans changed during the Gilded Age?

lesson:
The Zoot Suit: Style and Swing in the Wartime Economy

Grades: High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Censorship, Dance, Latin American History, Migration, War, Youth/Teenagers

What was the cultural, social, and historical significance of the zoot suit during the period of World War II?

lesson:
Sound Waves, Analog Synthesis and Popular Culture

Grades: All Ages, AP/Honors/101, Elementary 4-6, High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, General Music, Science, STEAM

Activities: Interactive Tech Tools, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Music Business, Technology

How did synthesizers allow musicians to create new sounds and how did those sounds reflect American culture throughout the 20th century?

lesson:
Debating Dylan’s Nobel Prize

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis

Topics: Literature

What are the arguments for and against Bob Dylan receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature?

lesson:
The Rise of the Electric Guitar

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Four Corners, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Economics, Guitar, Music Business, Technology

What factors led to the rise of the electric guitar as the dominant symbol of Rock and Roll?

lesson:
Glam: The Return of the Teenager

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Gender and Sexuality, War, Youth/Teenagers

How was Glam Rock part of a new teenage culture in the 1970s?

Trace It Back:
The Chicks

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Censorship, Current Events, Social Justice Movements, War, Women's History

article:
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...

people:
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...

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...

lesson:
Celebrating Community with Art and Poetry (Elementary School Version)

Grades: Elementary 4-6

Subjects: Art/Design, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Personal Reflection, Visual Art

Topics: Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Literature

What different types of communities exist, and how do the people in our communities impact us?

lesson:
The Musical Roots of the Surf Sound (Elementary Version)

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle

Subjects: Art/Design, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis, Visual Art

Topics: Youth/Teenagers

How does the “Surf Sound” in Rock and Roll reflect early surf culture, and what are the roots of this genre of music?

lesson:
Sampling: The Foundation of Hip Hop

Grades: High

Subjects: CTE, General Music

Activities: Maps, Musical Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Appropriation, Black History, Geography, Migration, Technology

How is the re-use and re-purposing of existing music at the heart of the Hip Hop recording experience?

video:
“You Can’t Sit Down” on American Bandstand

video:
“Love Me Forever” on American Bandstand

video:
The Beatles Confront American Segregation

video:
Please, Please Me: The Beatles’ American Fanbase

lesson:
Feeling the Vibrations

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3, Middle

Subjects: Science, Social Emotional Learning, STEAM

Activities: Design and Build, Musical Analysis, Performance, Role Playing

Topics: Disability Studies, Media Studies, Social-Emotional Learning, Technology

How did the Grateful Dead make their concerts more accessible to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) community?

lesson:
From the Stage to the Studio

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Social Justice Movements, Technology, War, Youth/Teenagers

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?

lesson:
Counterculture in the 1960s

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Economics, Youth/Teenagers

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?

lesson:
Brazilian Music and Culture in the United States

Grades: High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Dance, Geography, Latin American History, Migration

What is the influence of Brazilian music and culture in the United States?

video:
1950s American Society

article:
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...

article:
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...

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:
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...

lesson:
Dion and the Teen Idols

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Visual Analysis

Topics: Censorship, Youth/Teenagers

What role did the so-called "teen idols" of the late 1950s play in bringing Rock and Roll into mainstream American culture?

video:
American Harvest

video:
American Graffiti – Trailer

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...

video:
The Beat Throughout American Popular Music History

lesson:
Ritchie Valens (Elementary School Version)

Grades: Elementary 4-6

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis

Topics: Appropriation, Latin American History

How did Ritchie Valens meld traditional Mexican music and Rock and Roll?

Trace It Back:
Bonnie Raitt

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Guitar, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

lesson:
Ritchie Valens

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Role Playing

Topics: Latin American History, Migration

How did Ritchie Valens meld traditional Mexican music and Rock and Roll?

people:
Charley Patton

(died 1934) Though some of the details of Charley Patton's life are not definitively known, like his race and the exact year of his birth, what is agreed on is the impact he had on American Blues music. Often called the "Father of the Delta Blues," Patton influenced bluesmen from Robert Johnson to Howlin' Wolf; the Blues writer Robert Palmer went so far as to call him one of the most important American musicians of the 20th century. Born in Mississippi to sharecropper parents, Patton was raised in part at the Will Dockery Plantation in the Mississippi Delta. A huge operation, the plantation employed...

lesson:
Chicana Punk and the Chicano Movement

Grades: High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis

Topics: Gender and Sexuality, Latin American History, Social Justice Movements, Women's History, Youth/Teenagers

What is Chicana Punk, how does it relate to the Chicano Movement, and how did it transform the Punk music scene?

lesson:
The Beatles and Teen Culture

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Media Studies, Music Business, Youth/Teenagers

How did the Beatles’ image as a “rock band” affect young people in America?

people:
Alan Lomax

(1915 – 2002) Folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax was an influential figure in 20th century American music, producing archival and field recordings that significantly boosted public awareness of American Folk, Blues and Jazz traditions, and was instrumental in launching the Folk and Blues revivals that took place among young white musicians and listeners in the 1950s and 60s. Lomax spent much of his life traveling and recording music, first traversing the backroads of the American South and eventually making his way around the world, interviewing musicians playing Folk, Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Calypso, Cajun music, and other genres, and capturing their music for...

lesson:
The Impact of the Electric Guitar

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, General Music, Science, STEAM

Activities: Gallery Walk, Interactive Tech Tools, Visual Analysis

Topics: Guitar, Migration, Music Business, Technology

How did the electrification, amplification and design of the guitar facilitate its emergence as a dominant instrument of popular music?

image:
Rolling Stones’ 1965 North American Tour

video:
Tori Kelly on American Idol, 2010

video:
President Reagan’s Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family

image:
African-American Migration Map (1940 – 1970)

Trace It Back:
Gladys Bentley

video:
“Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)”

video:
Americans React to the Assassination of John F. Kennedy

image:
The American Dream

image:
American Dream Definition

image:
American Progress

video:
Operation Correction, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California

video:
Interviewed on American Bandstand

video:
American Segregation

video:
Operation Abolition, House of Un-American Activities Committee

video:
American Music Brought to Liverpool

image:
Rock and Roll: An American Story logo

image:
T-Bone Walker, American Folk Blues Festival, Hamburg, March 1972

lesson:
Intersectionality and Punk Music in the 2020s

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Personal Reflection, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Gender and Sexuality, LGBTQ+ History, Music Business, Social-Emotional Learning

What is intersectionality, and how do musicians in the Punk music scene navigate life at different intersections?

Student Edition:
1950s American Society and Conformity

Grades: High

Subjects: Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Station Activities

Topics: Latin American History

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...

lesson:
Debating the Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Media Studies, Technology, War

What was NASA’s Apollo program and why was it controversial?

lesson:
The Juke Joint: Where Oral Literature Comes Alive

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Creative Writing, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Literature

What role do Blues lyrics and juke joints play in Black American literature and life?

lesson:
Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 2

Grades: High

Activities: Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Native American History, Social Justice Movements

What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?

lesson:
Singer-Songwriters and the Environmental Movement (Elementary Version)

Grades: Elementary 4-6

Subjects: Art/Design, Science, Social Studies/History

Activities: Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share, Visual Art

Topics: Environment

How did the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s address the concerns of the environmental movement?

article:
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...

lesson:
Celebrating Community with Art and Poetry (High School Version)

Grades: High

Subjects: Art/Design, ELA, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Performance, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Geography, Literature, Social-Emotional Learning, Youth/Teenagers

What different types of communities exist, and how do the people in our communities impact us?

lesson:
“Y’all Better Quiet Down”: Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ Pioneers

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Latin American History, LGBTQ+ History, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

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?

Trace It Back:
Janelle Monáe

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Black History, Contemporary Music, Gender and Sexuality

lesson:
Lydia Mendoza: Tejano Life and Music on the Mexico/Texas Border

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Geography, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Maps, Visual Art

Topics: Contemporary Music, Geography, Guitar, Latin American History, Literature, Migration, Women's History

How does Lydia Mendoza’s Tejano music connect to the history of Texas and the influence Mexico has had on that state?

article:
Rockabilly: Was this the purest style in rock?

A DEFT, HARD-DRIVING BLEND of country, gospel and blues, rockabilly was performed mainly by white artists who traded legitimate country backgrounds for a short-lived but frenzied involvement in music with a strong beat. Young, naturally exuberant musicians were the prime exponents, but traditional country singers were not without guile and, for a brief period around 1954-57, they too sang with a flash and glamour to match their rhinestoned clothes. The word rockabilly was first coined by American trade papers who required a catchall term to cover a new development which had a variety of names including ‘western and bop’, ‘cat...

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...

article:
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...

article:
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...

article:
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...

lesson:
Business with the Grateful Dead

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, General Music

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Creative Writing, Role Playing, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Economics, Media Studies, Music Business, Technology

How did the Grateful Dead’s business practices create a dedicated fan culture and ensure the financial success of the group?

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 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:
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:
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...

article:
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...

lesson:
Second Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1960s

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Women's History

What was second-wave feminism, and how did music contribute to the movement?

lesson:
“Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall”: The Stonewall Riots in the Fight for Equality

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Current Events, Gender and Sexuality, LGBTQ+ History, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

What were the Stonewall Riots, and what role did they play in ongoing struggles for LGBTQ+ equality in the United States?

lesson:
Dolores Huerta and The United Farm Workers Movement

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle

Subjects: Art/Design, Civics, ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Latin American History, Migration, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

Who is Dolores Huerta, what role did she play in the United Farm Workers movement, and how is she recognized today?

lesson:
#BlackLivesMatter: Music in a Movement

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Current Events, Gender and Sexuality, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

How have musicians responded to the Black Lives Matter movement?

lesson:
Dan Penn

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History

How did black artists and white songwriters and musicians interact in the Soul era, and what contributed to that interaction?

Trace It Back:
Mitski

Grades: AP/Honors/101, Elementary K-3, High, Middle

Topics: Contemporary Music, Guitar, Literature

lesson:
The Banjo, Slavery, and the Abolition Debate

Grades: AP/Honors/101

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Geography, Labor History, Pre-20th Century History

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?

lesson:
Female Singer-Songwriters in the Early 1970s

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Women's History

What did the success of the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s reveal about the changing roles of women in the United States?

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,...

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...

article:
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...

lesson:
The Musical Roots of Doo Wop

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Station Activities

How did Doo Wop develop as a musical genre?

lesson:
The Origins of Disco

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Ethnic Studies, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Gallery Walk, Musical Analysis

Topics: Black History, Dance, Gender and Sexuality, LGBTQ+ History, Social Justice Movements

What are the cultural, economic, and geographic origins of Disco and how has the genre been presented, remembered, and represented in popular culture?

Trace It Back:
Mavis Staples

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Black History, Social Justice Movements

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...

Trace It Back:
Howlin’ Wolf

lesson:
The Rise of Disco

Grades: High

Subjects: Art/Design, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Role Playing, Station Activities, Visual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Dance, Economics, Gender and Sexuality, Women's History

How did Disco relate to the sentiments and social movements of the 1970s?

lesson:
Contemporary Latin Artists and Activism

Grades: High

Subjects: Civics, Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Musical Analysis, Station Activities, Visual Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Current Events, Latin American History, Social Justice Movements

How are contemporary Latin artists pursuing activism and promoting positive change in their communities?

lesson:
Women’s Perspectives in Country and Tejano Music

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis

Topics: Censorship, Civics and Politics, Economics, Gender and Sexuality, Social Justice Movements, Social-Emotional Learning, Women's History

How did female Country and Tejano artists approach the issues of feminism and Women’s Rights in the 20th and 21st century?

lesson:
Part 2: Riot or Rebellion? Asbury Park in the Summer of 1970

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements

What factors led up to the Asbury Park "Riots" in New Jersey in the summer of 1970?

Trace It Back:
Amy Winehouse

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Addiction

lesson:
Soul Music and the New Femininity

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Timeline

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Women's History

How did Aretha Franklin represent a new female voice in 1960s popular music?

lesson:
The Sound of Blue Collar Detroit

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Textual Analysis

Topics: Economics, Geography, Labor History, Social Justice Movements

How did Rock and Roll serve as an expressive tool for the working-class youth of Detroit?

lesson:
How a Bill Becomes a Law: Legislating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Timeline

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements

How does a bill become a law in the United States of America?

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:
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....

lesson:
Blues, Poetry, and the Harlem Renaissance

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Geography, Literature, Migration

How does Langston Hughes’ Blues-inspired poetry exemplify the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance?

lesson:
The Ethics of Sampling

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Interactive Tech Tools, Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Appropriation, Civics and Politics, Technology

What makes a work of art “original,” and how does the use of “sampling” technology in Hip Hop challenge perceptions of “originality”?

people:
Lead Belly

(1889 – 1949) A singular figure in American music, Lead Belly is often called a Blues singer, but his repertoire ran well beyond Blues, and into a breadth of American Folk styles, from prison work songs and field songs to spirituals and square-dance calls. An itinerant singer who was both a songwriter and a repository for tradional songs, Lead Belly built an extensive repertoire that significantly influenced the Folk revival of the 1960s. Huddie Ledbetter was born in 1889 (by most estimates) near Shreveport, Louisiana. He was the son of sharecroppers and took an interest in music as a young boy,...

lesson:
The Roots of Country Rock

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

How did Country Music influence Rock and Roll and the musicians who made it?

Trace It Back:
Mahalia Jackson

lesson:
Assembling Hits at Motown

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Station Activities

Topics: Economics, Geography, Labor History, Music Business

How did Motown Records in Detroit operate during the 1960s?

lesson:
Third Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1990s

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Civics, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Station Activities

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

What was Third Wave Feminism, why did it occur, and how did musicians address some of the movement’s demands?

lesson:
Folk Music, Rock and Roll Attitude

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

How did Bob Dylan’s early experiences with Folk and Rock and Roll music influence his songwriting?

lesson:
“Blowin’ in the Wind” as a Rallying Cry

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Timeline

Topics: Geography, Literature, War

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?

Trace It Back:
Louis Armstrong

Trace It Back:
The Beatles

Grades: All Ages

article:
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...

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:
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...

people:
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...

people:
Otis Redding

(1941 – 1967) Although his recording career lasted just over five years and      was cut short by his premature death, Otis Redding left a legacy as one of the most important figures in Soul music. An electrifying performer with an impassioned voice and a volcanic performing style, as well as a distinctive songwriter whose compositions became classic hits for other artists, Redding's influence continues to loom large over American Rhythm and Blues. Although he was the seminal Memphis label Stax's biggest star, the Georgia native first arrived at the company not as an artist, but as driver for guitarist Johnny Jenkins. ...

people:
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...

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:
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...

lesson:
Sun City: A Musical Force Against Apartheid – Part 1

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Native American History, Social Justice Movements

What was South African apartheid, and how did musicians unite to challenge it?

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...

people:
Gram Parsons

(1946 – 1973) When it comes to the melding of Country and Rock, no figure looms larger than Gram Parsons, whose small but accomplished body of work — encompassing landmark recordings as a member of the Byrds, the International Submarine Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers as well as a pair of now-classic solo albums – exerts an influence that outstrips any popularity Parsons achieved during his short lifetime. A North Carolina native, Parsons began pursuing a Rock-Country melding while attending Harvard University, founding the International Submarine Band in 1966. Parsons favored the term “Cosmic American Music” to describe his vision,...

Trace It Back:
Gary Clark Jr.

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Contemporary Music, Guitar

lesson:
Swing Down: Afrofuturism & Flight in the Black Imagination

Grades: High

Subjects: Art/Design, ELA, General Music

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Maps, Musical Analysis, Playlists and Podcasts, Visual Analysis, Visual Art

Topics: Black History, Contemporary Music, Migration

What is Afrofuturism and what are some of the cultural traditions and historical events that inspired and reinforced it?

people:
U-Roy

(b. 1942)  A native of the Kingston, Jamaica, U-Roy (born Ewart Beckford), also known as the Originator, is credited with bringing wider popularity to the Jamaican “toasting” style — an ancestor to modern Rap that traces its roots back to the late 1950s. U-Roy landed his first professional gig as a DJ in 1961, when he was 19. At the time in Jamaica, the actual choice of a record was the job of the “selector,” while the DJ was the “hype man” on the microphone, much like those on American radio. Early Jamaican DJs would improvise call-and-response routines with the original...

lesson:
Supporting Sobriety in a Musical Community

Grades: High

Subjects: CTE, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Creative Writing, Personal Reflection, Textual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Addiction, Music Business

Who are the Wharf Rats, and how do they exemplify the practices of sobriety, peer support, and community building within a musical fan culture?

Trace It Back:
LADAMA

Grades: All Ages, Elementary K-3, High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Geography, Physical Education, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Musical Analysis, Performance, Personal Reflection

Topics: Contemporary Music, Dance, Geography, Latin American History, Social-Emotional Learning, Women's History

lesson:
Part 1: Segregation and the Founding of Asbury Park

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Document-Based Questions

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Economics, Geography

What does the founding and early history of Asbury Park reveal about practices of segregation in the Northern United States?

image:
Dick Clark, 1961

lesson:
Music and the Berlin Wall during the Cold War

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Maps, Personal Reflection, Role Playing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Censorship, Civics and Politics, European History, Geography, Migration, War

What was the Berlin Wall and how did music respond to what it symbolized?

people:
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...

lesson:
Mainstream Metal, Parental Advisories, and Censorship

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Censorship, Media Studies

How was Heavy Metal involved in the 1980s controversy surrounding the creation of parental advisories for “offensive” music?

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...

lesson:
“Alright” and the History of Black Protest Songs

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Contemporary Music, Current Events, Social Justice Movements

How have Black artists throughout the 20th century used music to speak about racial injustice in America?

lesson:
The Rise of the “Girl Groups”

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Structured Academic Controversy, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share, Visual Analysis

Topics: Literature, Women's History

Were the Girl Groups of the early 1960s voices of female empowerment or reflections of traditional female roles?

lesson:
Muddy Waters, the New Kid in Town

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3

Subjects: Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Maps, Personal Reflection

Topics: Black History, Social-Emotional Learning

How did Muddy Waters’ music change after he moved to Chicago, and what does that say about the relationship between place and self-expression?

people:
Chubby Checker

(b. 1941) Chubby Checker changed the way Americans danced with his hit record “The Twist,” which took the country by storm in the early 1960’s, launching a dance fad that lasted years and crossed social and racial boundaries. Checker’s recording was actually a cover of a song by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, who had released it only a few months earlier. Their version was a modest success, but it was Checker, a Philadephia-based singer who recorded for the local Cameo-Parkway label, who took it to the top of the Billboard singles chart, after he appeared singing the song and dancing...

people:
Mahalia Jackson

(1911 – 1972) Widely acknowledged as the "Queen of Gospel," Mahalia Jackson was a major musical and cultural force whose popularity and influence made her an icon in African-American culture for decades; Harry Belafonte once described her as "the single most powerful black woman in the United States." Possessing both a powerful presence and an authoritative contralto voice, Jackson remained one of America's top-selling Gospel artists for most of her career.  Growing up in New Orleans, Jackson began singing in church as a child in the 1920s, and performed around the city with the Johnson Gospel Singers, one of the first...

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...

lesson:
The Vietnam War: A Document-Based Question

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis

Topics: Social Justice Movements, War, Youth/Teenagers

In what ways and to what extent did the Vietnam War change American culture, society, and values?

people:
Cyril Davies

(1932 – 1964) During his short life, singer and harmonica player Cyril Davies played a key role in popularizing American Blues music in the U.K. in the 1960s, both as a performer and bandleader and as the driving force, with partner Alexis Korner, behind a pair of influential venues. Blues Incorporated, the band Davies started with guitarist Korner, is credited as the first British band to play electric Blues and R&B, and an inspiration for many musicians who would go on to fame, including members of the Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin and the Yardbirds. Davies began playing music publicly in...

lesson:
Beatlemania

Grades: High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Four Corners, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Music Business, Youth/Teenagers

What were the factors that contributed to the rise of Beatlemania?

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:
Bob Dylan

(b. 1941) Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, singer and songwriter Bob Dylan is one of the most influential and revered figures in Folk and Rock. Among the most celebrated songwriters of the 20th century, Dylan is often credited with introducing literary and intellectual ambition into popular music. Dylan came to prominence as part of the American folk revival of the early 1960s, and has maintained an active career that spans five decades and over 30 albums. Bob Dylan was a teenager when Rock and Roll exploded onto the American landscape in the mid-1950s and the young Dylan was an avid...

lesson:
Rock and Roll Goes to the Movies

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Censorship, Media Studies, Technology, Youth/Teenagers

How did movies help to introduce Rock and Roll culture to mainstream audiences in the 1950s?

people:
Albert Grossman

(1926 – 1986) Albert Grossman was an American talent manager who is most famous for representing Bob Dylan between the years 1962 and 1970. A shrewd and aggressive businessman, Grossman foresaw the 1960s Folk revival, and smelled opportunity. He co-founded the Newport Folk Festival in 1959, famously saying at the time, "The American public is like Sleeping Beauty, waiting to be kissed awake by the prince of Folk music." Over the years, Grossman represented many of the most prominent names in the folk and rock worlds, notably John Lee Hooker, Odetta, Todd Rundgren, The Band, Gordon Lightfoot, Peter, Paul and Mary, Electric Flag and...

article:
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...

lesson:
Using Data to Analyze an Artist’s Success

Grades: Middle

Subjects: Math

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Equations and Calculations

Topics: Economics

How can data be analyzed and interpreted to better understand a band's success?

Trace It Back:
Alice Bag

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Contemporary Music, Current Events, Labor History, Latin American History, Literature, Migration, Social-Emotional Learning, Women's History, Youth/Teenagers

lesson:
The Musical Roots of the Surf Sound

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Role Playing, Station Activities, Visual Analysis

What is the Surf sound and where did it come from?

lesson:
The United Farm Workers Movement through Music and Poetry

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Civics, ELA, Ethnic Studies, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Personal Reflection, Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Labor History, Latin American History, Migration, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

Who is Dolores Huerta, what role did she play in the United Farm Workers movement, and how is she recognized today?

Student Edition:
“Lean on Me”: Expressing Gratitude and Care with Music

Grades: All Ages

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Creative Writing, Performance

Topics: Labor History, Social-Emotional Learning

How does Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” express gratitude and the importance of mutual care?

lesson:
Math With The Grateful Dead

Grades: Elementary 4-6

Subjects: Math

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Equations and Calculations, Visual Art, Visual Design

Topics: Math, Music Business

How can math be used to better understand the Grateful Dead’s success?

lesson:
The Birth of the Electric Guitar

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: CTE, Science, Social Studies/History, STEAM

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Guitar, Technology

How did the electric guitar transform Blues music from the 1940s forward?

lesson:
Jimi Hendrix: Introducing Hard Rock

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music

Activities: Role Playing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Guitar

In what ways did Jimi Hendrix help create a new "Hard Rock" sound while retaining a connection to the Blues and R&B of his past?

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,...

article:
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...

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...

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:
Aretha Franklin: Lady Soul

SOME PEOPLE are going around saying that Aretha Franklin is the Queen Of Soul, many people are buying her records, and one person (show compère Johnnie Walker) even said that she was the best coloured girl singer ever to make records. Now it isn't every girl singer who is fortunate enough to have these things said about her or happen to her, whether you go along with them or not. After chasing around and about the metropolis, I tracked Aretha down to her hotel (in the Penthouse Suite) and asked her a few questions, some of which she answered in...

article:
Solomon Burke: The Burke v. Brown Feud

"TELL ME," I said, "all about you and James Brown. There was a two-second hush, and then Solomon Burke, king of rock & soul, launched into a torrent of attack upon fellow-R&B singer James Brown. Here's the printable, edited version. "Man, you wanna know about James Brown? You must be crazy. Listen, this James Brown, he wouldn't come within 500 miles of me. On or off stage. I know all about him. "He says he's sold over a million records in Britain on the Ember label. He says that he don't record for America anymore, only for Britain. Well I found...

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...

video:
Latin Influences in Pop Music

Trace It Back:
Miguel

Grades: All Ages

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Topics: Black History, Contemporary Music, Latin American History, Social Justice Movements

lesson:
Student Activism and Music During the Civil Rights Movement

Grades: High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Maps, Station Activities, Timeline

Topics: Black History, Civics and Politics, Social Justice Movements

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?

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,...

people:
Miguel

Birth Name: Miguel Jontel Pimentel Birthplace: San Pedro, California October 23, 1985 – Present Years Active: 2004 – Present R&B singer Miguel grew up in a middle-class Hispanic community in San Pedro, California with a Mexican-American father and African-American mother.  His love of music started young with his father being an amateur musician who was a fan of Funk, Hip Hop, Jazz and Classic Rock. However, it was his mother who introduced him to R&B. Miguel started pursuing a career in music in his early teenage years, working at a local production company called Drop Squad.  In 2004, he signed with an independent record...

article:
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...

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...

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...

people:
The Police

One of the first bands associated with the 70s Punk/New Wave movement to achieve widespread commercial success, the Police were initially ridiculed by some for their perceived lack of “authenticity.” But the bleach-blond, leather-jacketed threesome quickly got the last laugh on their critics, becoming one of the world's biggest recording acts with an expansive musical approach that won them a massive global audience. It's not surprising that the Police were initially dismissed as bandwagon-jumpers, since all three members were seasoned players whose technical skill violated Punk's embrace of amateurism. Singer/bassist Sting (born Gordon Sumner) had played with various Jazz-Rock combos,...

article:
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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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...

article:
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....

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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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...

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:
Thomas Dorsey

(1899 – 1993) Hailed as the "father of Gospel music," composer and pianist Thomas Dorsey was responsible for writing many of the genre's best-known standards, including songs widely recorded by secular artists. He is credited with creating much of the template for 20th century African-American gospel music, incorporating Jazz and Blues rhythms that had previously not been a part of the genre. Dorsey also played a key role in the early career of Mahalia Jackson, working with her as songwriter and accompanist for 14 years. His composition "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" (which he wrote after his wife and newborn...

lesson:
Heroes and Mortals in “Something Just Like This”

Grades: All Ages, AP/Honors/101, Elementary 4-6, High, Middle

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Contemporary Music, Literature

Who are the gods and superheroes referenced in “Something Just Like This,” and what are the connections between them?

article:
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...

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...

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...

article:
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...

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Thomas A. Dorsey

article:
The Stooges: The Apotheosis Of Every Parental Nightmare

THE BIGGEST TREND on the rock circuit this year is decadence. Go to any concert, and you'll be amazed at the sudden change in American youth, who are now as far from last year's organic coveralls and bushy hanks of hair as they are from the madras shirts and slacks of 1963; teenagers of both sexes are piling on clots of make-up and swaddling themselves in flashily indeterminate glad rags. Boys with rouge and glitter on their eyelids, girls with the stark white faces and rinsed-out blonde hair of the Marilyn Monroe look they picked up from the drag queens...

lesson:
The Beatles, a New Kind of Star

Grades: High

Subjects: General Music, Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Gallery Walk, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Music Business, Social-Emotional Learning, War, Youth/Teenagers

How did The Beatles establish a new paradigm for the image of "the star," and how did that image support their global success?

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...

people:
Mills Brothers

The Mills Brothers’ career lasted over 50 years, from the Jazz Age of the 1920s through the Rock and Roll era and beyond. During that time the vocal group recorded many hit records, featuring inventive four-part harmonies that were a formative influence on Doo Wop. Actual siblings who grew up in the small town of Pioqua, Ohio, the Mills brothers — Donald, Herbert, Harry and John Jr. — learned to harmonize from their father, who sang in his own barbershop quartet (and was an actual barber). In addition to their singing, the brothers became known for their ability to imitate...

lesson:
The History of Music Videos

Grades: High

Subjects: Art/Design, CTE, General Music, Science, Social Studies/History

Activities: Interactive Tech Tools, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Technology

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?

article:
Ritchie Valens: The Young Singer Who Pioneered Chicano Rock

WHEN ROCK'N'ROLL first stopped calling itself rhythm and blues in the mid Fifties, it became a young man's game. Teenage performers like Ritchie Valens began to influence the course of popular music; his double-sided smash hit 'Donna'/'La Bamba' dominated the charts in December 1958. But, unlike rock'n'roll, Ritchie Valens did not survive to face the Sixties. Ritchie's is not the most famous name in rock'n'roll but he had as many or even more hits than some celebrated stars. In a remarkably short career – he was not yet 18 years old when he died – Valens made some excellent individually-styled...

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Leonard and Philip Chess

(Leonard: 1917 – 1969; Philip: b. 1921) Immigrants from Poland, Leonard and Philip Chess got into the record business more or less by happenstance, and ended up creating one of the most revered labels of the 20th century, Chicago-based Chess Records. Founded in 1950, Chess became perhaps the most influential Blues label ever, issuing seminal records by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson and many others, while also becoming a force in early Rock and Roll, recording Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, among others. Born Lejzor and Fiszel Czy?, the brothers were just boys when they emigrated...

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Bob Marley

(1945 – 1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter and bandleader Bob Marley is the biggest star Reggae has produced, credited with bringing the music to international prominence. A charistmatic performer, he was also a gifted songwriter, whose best-known hits include "I Shot the Sheriff" "No Woman, No Cry," "Could You Be Loved," "Stir It Up," "Get Up Stand Up," "Redemption Song," "One Love," "Buffalo Soldier" and "I Shot the Sheriff" (prominently covered by Eric Clapton, who had a hit with the song in 1974).  Much of Marley's music was heavily influenced by the social issues of his native Jamaica, and his popularity and stature were such that his pronouncements on public issues were accorded the attention usually reserved...

image:
Elton John, 1974

lesson:
Multitracking in the Countercultural 1960s

Grades: High

Subjects: CTE, General Music, Science, STEAM

Activities: Interactive Tech Tools, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Social Justice Movements, Technology, War

How did The Beatles’ use of cutting edge recording technology and studio techniques both reflect and shape the counterculture of the 1960s?

people:
John Lee Hooker

(1917 – 2001) One of the most distinctive and enduring of Blues icons, John Lee Hooker created a stark, brooding signature style rooted in his primitive, hypnotic guitar grooves, along with a highly original songwriting sensibility. His trademark sound and imposing presence helped to make "the Hook" one of the most popular Blues performers of the post-World War II era, and an influence on many Rock and Roll musicians. Although a native of Mississippi, Hooker came to prominence after relocating to Detroit in 1943, following unproductive stints in Memphis and Cincinnati. He began recording in 1948 and experienced immediate success with...

people:
Lou Reed

(1942 – 2013) With a poetic sensibility, a street-level outsider mentality and a focus on dark themes, New York City-based singer, songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed proved one of the most influential figures in Rock and Roll over a five-decade career. A native of Long Island, NY, Reed sang in a Doo Wop group in high school, before attending Syracuse University in the early 1960s, where he studied with the poet Delmore Schwarz. After a stint as a staff songwriter at Pickwick Records, Reed came to prominence in the mid-late 1960s as the leader of the Velvet Underground, whose raw, arty minimalism...

people:
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,...

people:
Sweet

The Sweet (later just Sweet) were among the most popular (and Pop-oriented) purveyors of 1970s Glam Rock, racking up a string of hit singles in their native U.K. and beyond. The origins of Sweet go back to 1967, when core members got together as the Sweetshop and began attracting fans on the London pub circuit. Their sound initially was in the Bubblegum Pop vein of acts like the Archies and the Monkees, but the band began to toughen it with a Hard Rock edge, inspired in part by the Who. Their popularity grew steadily throughout Europe, especially in the U.K., where...

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...

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St. Vincent

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Contemporary Music, Music Business

lesson:
New Perspectives on The Great Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Textual Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Gender and Sexuality, Literature, Women's History

Does Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” help humanize Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby?

people:
Berry Gordy

(b. 1929) Although he began his musical career as a songwriter and producer, Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. made his fortune, and his mark on popular culture, through his ability to recognize and nurture the musical talents of others. At a time when black-owned record labels were largely restricted to a relatively small piece of the Pop marketplace, Gordy created a radio-friendly Pop-R&B hybrid that appealed equally to black and white listeners, and built a musical empire that rivaled the bands of the British Invasion for chart dominance through the 1960s.  The Detroit native was a former boxer and all-around hustler...

image:
Chuck Berry, 1957

lesson:
Joropo: Music Inspired by Nature from the High Plains of Venezuela

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Geography, Physical Education, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Musical Analysis, Performance

Topics: Dance, Environment, Geography, Latin American History, Social-Emotional Learning

What is Joropo, and how is it inspired by nature?

lesson:
The Roots of Progressive Rock

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Technology

How did Progressive Rock’s incorporation of classical traditions and countercultural values help to forge a unique Rock genre in the late 1960s?

image:
Ted Koppel, 1976

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The Supremes, The Ed Sullivan Show, 1966

image:
Donna Summer, 1977

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Bill Haley and His Comets, 1956

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Blondie, 1977

image:
Stoney and Meat Loaf, 1971

image:
Jerry Lee Lewis

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Tame Impala

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Contemporary Music

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ChocQuibTown

Grades: All Ages, Elementary K-3, High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Geography, Physical Education, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Musical Analysis, Performance

Topics: Contemporary Music, Dance, Geography, Latin American History

image:
Jackson Browne, 1977

people:
Genesis

Although Genesis is among the most commercially recording acts of all time, with approximately 150 million albums sold worldwide, the group's colorful four-decade history is actually the story of two very different bands with two very different bodies of work.  After being formed by a group of classmates at England's posh Charterhouse school in the late '60s, Genesis emerged in the early 70s as a Progressive Rock powerhouse, distinguished by complex compositions, elaborate instrumental arrangements and frontman Peter Gabriel's imaginative lyrical flights and flamboyant onstage theatricality.  Such albums as Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound and the elaborate...

people:
DJ Kool Herc

(b. 1955) A Jamaican native who moved to New York City’s Bronx borough at the age of 12, Kool Herc is widely credited as the originator of Hip Hop. Herc (given name Clive Campbell) came to prominence in the early 1970s, when he began throwing dance parties in the rec room at his family’s apartment complex in the South Bronx – at the time a blighted, crime-ridden neighborhood. Noting a spike in crowd energy during the instrumental breaks on the Funk and Soul records he spun, Herc came up with the technique of extending the break by playing two copies of...

lesson:
Indigenous Voices in Global Environmental Protection

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Civics, Geography, Social Studies/History

Activities: Maps, Role Playing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Civics and Politics, Environment, Latin American History, Native American History

How do Indigenous perspectives contribute to international environmental protection policies?

people:
Ice-T

(b. 1958) A native of Newark, N.J., who migrated to Los Angeles as a teen, Ice-T (born Tracy Marrow) is widely credited with having sparked the West Coast “gangsta” rap style. His music has exerted a deep influence on such artists as N.W.A., Compton’s Most Wanted, Snoop Dogg and many others. Before he turned 13, Marrow lost both parents to heart failure, and moved west to live with his father’s sister. There he attended South Central’s Crenshaw High, then considered one of the roughest in the nation because of its proximity to gang-controlled neighborhoods. A devotee of pimp-turned-author Iceberg Slim and...

lesson:
Palm Oil – The Environmental Impact

Grades: Middle

Subjects: Civics, Science

Activities: Equations and Calculations, Maps, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Environment, Native American History, Social Justice Movements

How have palm oil plantations impacted indigenous communities in Indonesia and the global climate as a whole, and how have activists and musicians spread awareness about the issue?

lesson:
Life Songs Scaffolded Resources

Grades: All Ages

Subjects: Art/Design, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Design and Build, Timeline, Visual Design

Topics: Social-Emotional Learning

What other projects can students develop to showcase their Life Songs Interview?

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...

people:
Kanye West

(b. 1977) As famous for his outsized media presence as for his music, Kanye West is nonetheless regarded as one of Hip Hop's most innovative creative forces. In the space of a few years, he went from respected producer and beatmaker to international superstar. Both a sonic visionary and a distinctive, verbally inventive rapper, West makes music whose creativity and flamoyance are more than a match for his cocky personality and dapper visual image. Although the Chicago native started as an aspiring rapper, West first gained significant attention in the late 90s for his production work with the likes of Foxy...

people:
Lady Gaga

(b. 1986) Beginning with her 2008 debut, The Fame, Lady Gaga has emerged as one of the biggest Pop stars of the new millennium, with a flamboyant, shape-shifting persona and a theatrical approach to music that’s often likened to performance art, whether she’s wearing a dress made of meat or wrapping herself in gauze like a burn victim. A New York City native, Gaga was born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta in 1986. She showed musical ability from an early age, and spent her childhood taking music and acting classes. By her teen years was writing songs, appearing in school plays and...

people:
Pearl Jam

Although Nirvana was the band that broke the mainstream market open for Grunge and Alternative Rock combos, it was their fellow Pacific Northwest outfit Pearl Jam who rode the Grunge boom to the longest and most commercially successful career. The Seattle quartet merged a heavy but melodic sound with an ambivalent attitude towards the trappings of success and a resistance to such standard music-industry practices as music videos and high ticket prices. That stance doesn't seem to have hurt the band’s popularity, however, considering Pearl Jam’s worldwide album sales of over 60 million. Pearl Jam was launched by guitarist Stone...

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...

people:
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...

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...

lesson:
Creating a Personal Logo

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3

Subjects: Art/Design

Activities: Design and Build, Visual Art, Visual Design

Topics: Media Studies

How can a logo help communicate a person or group’s unique personality?

people:
Nas

(b. 1973) Rapper Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones emerged as one of New York Hip Hop's preeminent voices in the early 1990s, embodying a swaggering verbal mastery and an outspoken, often politically charged persona on a series of highly regarded albums, beginning with his 1994 debut, Illmatic. Since then, Nas has scored eight consecutive platinum and albums, had six No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and sold over 25 million records. A native of Brooklyn, NY, and the son of revered jazz musician Olu Dara, Nas dropped out of high school in eighth grade, but soon developed a literate lyrical...

people:
Buddy Guy

(b. 1936) From his pioneering 1950s work to his late-blooming mainstream stardom, Buddy Guy has built a track record as one of Blues’ most inventive and influential guitarists. His raw, forceful playing on numerous Chess Records sessions, as well as his flamboyant onstage showmanship, served as a crucial inspiration to such Rock players as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Stevie Ray Vaughan.  The Louisiana native got his start playing with bands in Baton Rouge, before moving to Chicago in 1957. There, he joined Muddy Waters' band and began working for Chess as a session guitarist,  playing on...

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Bad Brains

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...

people:
Poison

Poison was one of the most successful of the Pop Metal acts that dominated the landscape in the second half of the 1980s, combining a swaggering Hard Rock stance, a flamboyant Glam look and catchy Pop tunes that made female MTV viewers swoon. The Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania-via Hollywood quartet achieved massive success during its original run, selling over 45 million records worldwide and over 15 million in the United States alone, while scoring half a dozen U.S. Top 10 singles. With an androgynous, long-haired image that seemed to establish the band members as vaguely dangerous yet non-threatening, frontman Bret Michaels, guitarist...

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Nicki Minaj

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Black History, Contemporary Music

lesson:
The Who’s Generation

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share, Visual Analysis

Topics: Youth/Teenagers

How did the Who represent “My Generation” in mid-1960s England?

image:
Old Jim Crow Has Got to Go! pamphlet, 1941

lesson:
ChocQuibTown: Embracing Cultural Identity through Colombian Rap

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Geography, Physical Education, Social Emotional Learning

Activities: Musical Analysis, Performance

Topics: Dance, Environment, Geography, Latin American History, Social-Emotional Learning

How can the music of ChocQuibTown, from the Pacific Coast of Colombia, help students express and celebrate their cultural identity through Rap?

Trace It Back:
Queen

lesson:
The Water Walker: Indigenous Wisdom and Water Contamination

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle

Subjects: Civics, STEAM

Activities: Design and Build, Textual Analysis

Topics: Current Events, Environment, Native American History, Social Justice Movements, Youth/Teenagers

In what ways do indigenous views of water align with scientific views, and how do indigenous activists use artistic expression to advocate for water protection?

image:
The Original Jubilee Singers

lesson:
What is a Mӧbius Strip?

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3

Subjects: Art/Design, Math, Science

Activities: Design and Build, Textual Analysis

Topics: Math, Technology

What is a Mӧbius strip, how do you create one, and what can it represent?

Trace It Back:
Rita Moreno

people:
Cardi B

Birth Name: Belcalis Almanzar Birthplace: The Bronx, New York, NY October 11, 1992 – Present Years Active: 2015 – Present Rapper/Singer Cardi B grew up in the Latin neighborhood Highbridge in the South Bronx with a Dominican father and Trinidadian mother.  After growing up in the Bronx, she gained popularity after she had several videos go viral on Vine and Instagram in 2013.  In 2015, she joined the cast of Love & Hip Hop: New York. Cardi B made her music debut in the fall of 2015 in Jamaican singer Shaggy’s song “Boom, Boom”.  In 2017, she released her second mixtape and signed her...

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Cardi B

Grades: All Ages

Subjects: General Music

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Aerosmith

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Margo Price

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Social Justice Movements, Women's History

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Run-DMC

lesson:
The Crossroads as a Literary Symbol

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Creative Writing, Document-Based Questions, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Literature

How have writers, storytellers, and musicians explored the crossroads as a symbol in their work?

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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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Grateful Dead

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Little Richard

lesson:
Using Algebraic Expressions to Analyze Concert Schedules

Grades: Middle

Subjects: Math

Activities: Equations and Calculations

Topics: Music Business

How can writing and evaluating expressions be used to explain the scope of an artist’s concert schedule?

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Mickey Hart

Subjects: Art/Design, General Music, Math, Science

people:
Bill Haley and His Comets

(1925 – 1981) A disc jockey and Western Swing bandleader in Chester, Pa., Bill Haley was perhaps an unlikely purveyor of the first smash hit of the Rock and Roll era. But that's exactly what he became, when his song "Rock Around the Clock" was featured over the opening scene of the juvenile-delinquent drama "Blackboard Jungle," and became a worldwide hit, by some estimates making Haley the first Rock and Roll star. A working guitarist by the age of 15, Haley was rooted in Country and Western Swing (the Saddlemen was his group's initial name), but added elements of Rhythm and Blues...

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Blondie

Formed in 1974, Blondie is a pioneering American New Wave group fronted by lead singer Debbie Harry. The group was part of the fruitful New York underground scene of the 1970s, which included such bands as Television and Talking Heads, and revolved around the club CBGB. Blondie's first two major-label releases charted in Australia and the United Kingdom, but it was their third record, "Parallel Lines," that charted the band in the United States and became New Wave's big Pop breakthrough. Rolling Stone called the album "a perfect synthesis of raw punk edge, Sixties-pop smarts and downtown-New York glamour." During the late 70s and...

lesson:
The Influence of Rhythm and Blues

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Music Business

What did R&B bring to early Rock and Roll, and how was early Rock and Roll different?

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Vietnam, The Oklahoma Kid Playing Guitar

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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...

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The Four Seasons

The vocal group the Four Seasons rose from their working-class roots in Newark, NJ, to become one the most commercially successful recording acts of all time. With over 25 singles in the Top 40, they helped define the sound of mid-60s Pop, and remain popular over 50 years after their initial success. Versions of the group were working in New Jersey clubs and lounges and recording for small labels as early as 1953 under various names. It wasn’t until lead singer Frankie Valli, guitarist-vocalist Tommy DeVito and bassist-vocalist Nick Massi added keyboardist-vocalist Bob Gaudio to the band in 1959 that...

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Grateful Dead

Perhaps more then any other band, the Grateful Dead helped develop and propagate the 1960s San Francisco hippie image, and it’s an image they unwaveringly maintained throughout their 30-year career. Hugely popular as a touring act, the band was singular in a number of aspects, including the way it combined Blues, Country, and Folk influences with a devotion to psychedelia-drenched improvisation, the way it achieved large-scale popularity without radio hits, and the rabid intensity of its itinerant army of fans, called Deadheads. The roots of the Grateful Dead go back to 1964, when lead guitarist/vocalist Jerry Garcia, keyboard player Ron...

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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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Long John Baldry

(1941 – 2005) Although he never achieved the fame of such contemporaries as Rod Stewart and Elton John — both of whom were members of his early bands and championed him after they became successful — 6'7" vocalist Long John Baldry was a key figure in the Blues revival that hit England in the early '60s.  Baldry was one of the first on the London scene to perform American Blues material, and was an early member of the Alexis Korner’s seminal group Blues Incorporated. He was featured on Korner's 1962 LP R&B from the Marquee, which is generally regarded as the...

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Jim Stewart

 (b. 1930) As one of Stax Records' two founding partners (with his sister Estelle Axton), Jim Stewart helped create a golden age of Southern Soul music in the 1960s. Within a few years of the company's launch, Stax — based in a Memphis movie theater converted into a recording studio/office/record store — became a trend-setting hit factory where black and white music-makers collaborated to create a dizzying string of Soul classics. Stax's creative and commercial successes were all the more impressive in light of the fact that the company was based in racially segregated Memphis, while civil rights struggles and...

lesson:
The Birth of the Microphone

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, General Music, Science, STEAM

Activities: Interactive Tech Tools, Textual Analysis, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Technology

How did the development of microphones in the 20th century change the way people make and listen to music?

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Dan Penn

(b. 1941) Memphis songwriter and producer Dan Penn is credited as one of the behind-the-scenes architects of 1960s Southern soul. Songs Penn has written or co-written include the classics "The Dark End Of The Street" (a hit for James Carr), "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" (Aretha Franklin), "I'm Your Puppet" (James and Bobby Purify), "Cry Like a Baby" (the Box Tops), "You Left the Water Running" (Otis Redding) and "Out of Left Field" (Percy Sledge), while Penn's work as a producer yielded a long series of blue-eyed Soul hits for the Box Tops during the same period. Born in Vernon,...

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Nina Simone

(1933 – 2003) Beyond her status as one of Jazz's most distinctive and dynamic vocal stylists, singer-pianist Nina Simone won attention and respect for her feisty, commanding personality.  Performing her own personally charged compositions as well as a broad array of outside material drawn from the worlds of Jazz, Pop, Soul, Blues, Folk, Gospel, and Broadway, Simone resisted easy categorization but put a fiercely personal stamp on every song she sang. Over a performing and recording career that covered four decades, Simone’s uncompromising approach to her work helped establish her as a role model for subsequent generations of performers. Born Eunice...

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Ritchie Valens

(1941 – 1959) The first Rock and Roll star of Latin-American descent, Ritchie Valens had only a brief musical career, which was cut short when he died at 17 in the same 1959 airplane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.  He’s best known for his single “La Bamba,” a rocked up version of a traditional Mexican wedding song, which was only a minor hit on its release, but has endured as a classic of the early Rock and Roll era, as well as perhaps the first example of Latin culture and Rock and Roll intersecting. Born Richard Valenzuela,...

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Foo Fighters

The Foo Fighters are an American rock band formed in 1994 by former Scream and Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, who switched to guitar and vocals for his new project. Grohl is joined by Pat Smear on guitar, Chris Shiflett on guitar, Nate Mendel on bass, and Taylor Hawkins on drums.

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Peter, Paul and Mary: Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 1963

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T-Bone Walker, Hamburg, Germany, 1972

lesson:
Recording and Producing the Voice

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, General Music, Science, STEAM

Activities: Interactive Tech Tools, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Media Studies, Social-Emotional Learning, Technology

How have singers responded as advances in studio recording techniques have enabled increased technological “perfection”?

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Modesty Bumper, Chicago, 1923

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Website Now Compatible with Mobile Devices

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Steven Van Zandt pictured with students from East Side Community High School, 2015

lesson:
Bo Diddley: The Grandfather of Hip Hop?

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Musical Analysis, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Guitar

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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Summer Teacher Workshop Participants, 2015

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Telharmonium Cover

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Black Flag

Pioneers in the development of American Punk, Black Flag was formed in Hermosa Beach, CA, in 1976. Spearheaded by guitarist and chief songwriter Greg Ginn, a UCLA graduate with a degree in economics, Black Flag incorporated the shot-out-of-a-cannon speed of East Coast punk rockers like the Ramones but substituted the Ramones's buzzsaw sound with a sloppier, growling, bass-heavy din. Black Flag's message was anti-authoritarian and non-conformist — an alienated rage against suburban, middle-class values. Originally fronted by vocalist Keith Morris, who left to form the Circle Jerks, Black Flag went through several vocalists before settling into their most productive period with Henry Rollins, a fan from Washington D.C. who...

lesson:
The Roots of Heavy Metal

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, General Music

Activities: Musical Analysis, Role Playing, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Think-Pair-Share

Topics: Geography, War

What are the musical and cultural roots of Heavy Metal?

lesson:
Punk as Reaction

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: Art/Design, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Station Activities, Visual Analysis, Visual Design

Topics: Civics and Politics, Youth/Teenagers

How was Punk Rock a reaction both to the commercialization of Rock and Roll and to the social climate in late 1970s Britain?

lesson:
Divergent Paths in the 1990s: Gangsta Rap and Conscious Hip Hop

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Economics, Literature

How did Gangsta Rap and Conscious Hip Hop respond to the social and political conditions of the 1990s?

lesson:
Thematic Lesson: Love Songs

Grades: All Ages, AP/Honors/101, Elementary 4-6, Elementary K-3, High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Textual Analysis

Topics: Social-Emotional Learning

Why is the Pop song such a common medium for expressing feelings about love, and how do individual songs relate to their historical moments?

lesson:
Considering the Future of Rock and Roll

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Role Playing, Textual Analysis

Topics: Geography

How is Rock and Roll's power, at least in part, a result of its being born on the margins of society?

lesson:
The Roots of Hip Hop

Grades: High

Subjects: ELA, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Maps, Timeline, Visual Analysis

Topics: Black History

What are the roots of Hip Hop?

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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"...

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Donna Summer

(1948 – 2012) Donna Summer remains best known as one of the superstars of '70s Disco. But she transcended that genre by demonstrating a distinctive vocal talent that might have made her a star in any era.  Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in Boston, Summer gained early experience singing in church choirs, school musicals, R&B cover bands and a psychedelic Rock combo, before joining a company of the Rock musical Hair based in Munich, Germany. She spent several years in Germany and Austria, acting in stage musicals, and released her first recordings there in 1968. Summer began working with German producer/songwriters Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte in...

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Selena

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High, Middle

Topics: Gender and Sexuality, Latin American History

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Jimmie Rodgers

(1897 – 1933) A onetime railroad man dubbed “The Singing Brakeman,” Jimmie Rodgers is widely credited as the Father of Country music. By combining Folk, Hillbilly and Blues with a little bit of Jazz and his trademark yodeling, Rodgers helped create the classic American genre, and influenced countless performers who followed him. Rodgers was born in Meridian, Mississippi; his mother died when he was a young boy. After wining a talent show at age 12, young Jimmie, itching to try his hand at entertaining, ran away from home to start his own tent show. His father brought him home and offered...

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Chuck D.

(b. 1960) Public Enemy founder/leader Chuck D is one of Hip-Hop's most influential artists, as well as one of its most respected minds.  His booming, authoritative voice is regarded as one of the most distinctive in Rap, and his righteous, politically charged lyrics helped to raise the genre's creative stakes during PE's rise to prominence in the late 80s. In the years since, he's continued to build a prestigious body of work that's kept him on Hip-Hop's cutting edge, while remaining one of Hip-Hop's most articulate spokesmen. Born Carlton Douglas Ridenhour to politically active parents in Roosevelt, Long Island, Chuck turned...

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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...

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Curtis Mayfield

(1942 – 1999) As a songwriter, singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and record-label owner, Curtis Mayfield was a significant force in shaping the Soul music of the 60s and 70s. Among his achievements, he is credited as a pioneer in bringing a social consciousness to Soul music, creating music that reflected the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s; his song “People, Get Ready” in particular was embraced as something of an anthem for the movement. Born in Chicago and raised in the city’s massive Cabrini-Green housing project, Mayfield started singing in his grandmother's Traveling Soul Spiritualists' Church at age 7. He picked up...

lesson:
Beat Culture and the Grateful Dead

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: ELA

Activities: Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Literature

How did beat writers like Jack Kerouac influence the Grateful Dead’s music?

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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...

lesson:
Art, Music, and the AIDS Epidemic

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Art/Design, Social Emotional Learning, Social Studies/History

Activities: Charts and Graphs, Document-Based Questions, Gallery Walk, Station Activities, Textual Analysis, Timeline, Visual Analysis, Visual Art

Topics: Civics and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, LGBTQ+ History, Media Studies, Social Justice Movements, Social-Emotional Learning, Technology

How did the LGTBQ+ community creatively respond to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, and protest government inaction in addressing the epidemic?

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Dick Dale

(1937 – 2019) Dick Dale is known as "The King of the Surf Guitar," and it’s a title that few have contested. The fervid instrumentals he cut in the early 1960s are widely credited as landmarks in the development of Surf Rock – his 1961 single “Let’s Go Trippin’” is often cited as the first Surf record. Dale (birth name Richard Monsour) was born in Boston, Mass., to a Lebanese-American family. His family moved to Southern California when he was 16, and Dale became a passionate surfer. He's said that his love of surfing inspired him to come up with a...

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Ed Sullivan

(1901 – 1974) Ed Sullivan was a television host whose hugely popular variety show — The Ed Sullivan Show, which broadcast from 1948 to 1971 — was an important outlet for many early Rock and Roll acts. Artists who appeared on the show during its long tenure ran from Buddy Holly and Bo Diddley to the Doors and Janis Joplin to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. The most notable musical moment in the show's history was the Beatles' appearance on February 9, 1964, which a full-on cultural event credited with sending Beatlemania into high gear in the U.S. The program — a...

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Elvis Presley

(1935 – 1977) Hailed as the “King of Rock and Roll," Elvis Presley is one of the most important cultural icons of the 20th century and is universally credited with breaking Roll and Roll music into the mainstream. Born in Tupelo, Miss., in 1935 and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Elvis was a product of the musical culture of the American South — from the Gospel he heard in church, the Country music he heard on the radio to the black Blues and R&B he heard on Beale Street as a Memphis teenager, Elvis absorbed it all. He began his singing career with...

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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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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...

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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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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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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...

lesson:
The Cassette Tape Offers New Possibilities

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: CTE, Science, Social Studies/History, STEAM

Activities: Role Playing, Visual Analysis

Topics: Media Studies, Technology

How did the cassette tape change the audience’s experience by allowing the listener to record, compile and disseminate music?

people:
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...

lesson:
Learning Rhythm through Gospel

Grades: Elementary 4-6, Middle

Subjects: General Music

Activities: Performance

Topics: Contemporary Music

How can Gospel music help students identify the musical concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation?

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Larry Williams

(1935 – 1980) Larry Williams was an R&B singer and an outsized character whose raucous late 50s recordings would become favorites of many of the young rockers of the 1960s British Invasion. Growing up in New Orleans, Williams learned to play piano as a boy. As a teen he joined a local R&B band in Oakland, Calif., when his parents relocated there. In 1954 he returned to New Orleans and began to work as a chauffer/valet for singer Lloyd Price, eventually becoming pianist for Price as well as R&B singers Roy Brown and Percy Mayfield, who were all recording for Specialty...

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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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Little Richard

(b. 1932) One of Rock and Roll's flashiest performers, Little Richard has often proclaimed, "I am the innovator! I am the originator! I am the architect of Rock and Roll!" Such grandiose statements aren't too far off the mark. The flamboyant piano-pounder's wild, uninhibited mid-to-late-'50s singles are landmarks of the early Rock and Roll era, spotlighting his exuberant vocals and crystallizing his fusion of swinging New Orleans R&B and ecstatic Gospel fervor. Richard Penniman grew up in a poor, religious family in Macon, Ga. He sang Gospel as a child, and began performing secular R&B with various groups in the late...

lesson:
Reagan and the Cold War: A Document-Based Question

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis

Topics: War

Did President Ronald Reagan’s Cold War policies serve to heighten or to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union?

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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...

lesson:
The Civil Rights Movement: A Document-Based Question

Grades: AP/Honors/101, High

Subjects: Civics, Social Studies/History

Activities: Document-Based Questions, Textual Analysis

Topics: Black History, Social Justice Movements

In what ways did the Civil Rights Movement mark a turning point in United States history?

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Pete Seeger

(1919 – 2014) Although he's never made a Rock record, Folk music legend Pete Seeger is nonetheless an important Rock influence. That's partially a result of his songs, which have been widely covered by Rock and Pop acts. But Seeger's stature is more a matter of his uncompromising commitment to his ideals, which has made him a role model for politically committed musicians for multiple generations.  The Manhattan-born son of composer, ethnomusicologist and New Deal administrator Charles Louis Seeger Jr., Pete fell under the spell of Folk music in his teens, while traveling with his father and stepmother in the rural...

people:
Ray Charles

(1930 – 2004) As much as any musician, Ray Charles can be credited for creating what came to be known as Soul music, and laying many of the foundations for what became Rock and Roll. By combining the rhythmic fervor of African-American Gospel with the sound and instrumentation of Jazz and R&B, the singer-pianist made music that was both gritty and sophisticated, and blazed multiple musical trails through the 50s and 60s. In the process, Charles, whose emotion-charged vocals are instantly identifiable, emerged as one of America's most beloved musical icons. Born Ray Charles Robinson in Georgia, the artist lost his...

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White Stripes

The White Stripes made for an unlikely international success story: a husband-and-wife duo who posed as brother and sister, playing raw, Blues-influenced Garage Rock with a bare-bones lineup of guitar and drums. The Stripes nonetheless became one of the most successful bands of the 2000s, selling 4 million copies of their 2003 album Elephant. The duo was formed in Detroit in 1997 by singer-guitarist Jack White, at the time working as an upholsterer, and drummer Meg White. Their early releases came out on the small garage-punk label Sympathy for the Record Industry; released in 1999, their self-titled 1999 debut album won 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...

lesson:
Emo: A Short History

Grades: High, Middle

Subjects: ELA, General Music, Social Studies/History

Activities: Creative Writing, Station Activities, Textual Analysis

Topics: Contemporary Music, Music Business

How did Emo music emerge from Punk to become its own unique genre, and how has Emo influenced a newer generation of artists and audiences?