Music: By Subject Subject Guide

African American Music

9 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users  - Open Access

Books about African American Music

General, ML 3556; Blues, ML 3521; Gospel, ML 3187; Jazz, ML 3506-3509; Soul, ML 3537; Rap, ML 3531 (all in General Stacks)

African American Music Reference 

Contains reference texts, biographies, chronologies, sheet music, images, lyrics, liner notes, and discographies chronicling the diverse history and culture of the African American experience through music. Covers blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression. Links to the audio streaming database American Song enable users to listen to music that accompanies the liner notes and album information in the database.

African-American Sheet Music 1850-1920

Collection of 1,305 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850 through 1920. Includes many songs related to blackface minstrelsy, the abolitionist movement, and Uncle Tom's Cabin.

American Song 

More than 100,000 tracks of streaming audio, including songs by and about African Americans, American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Includes songs of the Civil Rights movement, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more. Note: Content from the former African American Song database is now in American Song.

Archives of African American Music and Culture

A repository of research materials at Indiana University, with links to related sites.

Black Grooves

A music review site hosted by the Archives of African-American Music and Culture at Indiana University. Monthly updates on new releases and reissues in all genres of popular music as well as classical music composed or performed by black artists.

Black Thought and Culture 

A digital collection of monographs, essays, articles, speeches, and interviews by leaders within the black community from the earliest times to 1975.

CBMR: Center for Black Music Research

Devoted to research, preservation, and dissemination of information about the history of Black music on a global scale. Links.

Performing Arts Encyclopedia (Library of Congress)

A guide to the performing arts collections and exhibitions at the Library of Congress, including music, dance, and theater. Includes digital collections accessible through the site.

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