American History Since 1945 + Music (This post probably won't interest you)

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But for those who just couldn't keep away, I call upon your superior knowledge and interesting ideas to create an essay topic for my history class "American History Since 1945." My professor is allowing us to create our own customized research paper if we want to replace the topic he'll be assigning with something that is of more interesting to us.
I would love to do something involving music but I can't think of anything to write about that would
1) have "legitimate" sources
2) be relevant to the general american culture/society/history or how it affected/was affected by the culture

Y'all seem to know a lot about music : ) what have you found over the years that was particularly interesting that would fit the above criteria and would be fun to explore?

thanks everyone!

― buyabiznatch, Thursday, 5 April 2007 03:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, you can easily link music with history (see: a lot of '60s acts and "We Didn't Start the Fire"). And you could interview pop culture professors. I'm not sure who else...

― Tape Store, Thursday, 5 April 2007 04:55 (seventeen years ago) link

soooo many things you can do. if you're looking for other folks' to kickstart yr own you could do worse than to browse the EMP Pop Conference abstracts for the past few years: http://www.emplive.org/education/index.asp?categoryID=26 has bios/abstracts linked on the right for the past few years.

― Matos W.K., Thursday, 5 April 2007 05:13 (seventeen years ago) link

When I was in college, I wrote a paper on '50s rock and its social impact, racially and sexually. An A!

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Thursday, 5 April 2007 08:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Lazy college kids these days. Books, never heard of 'em. "Legitimate sources"-- oh my, no Wikepedia.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 5 April 2007 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link

the civil rights movement and gospel music; suburbia and exurbia and changes in country music; 70s NYC politics, demographics, and the start of hiphop

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 5 April 2007 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link

i wrote a paper about protest music during the vietnam era for an american studies class. the only problem with topics like this is that they can get a little too big for what may only be a 15-20 page paper. if i had it to write over again i think i'd only focus on a specific genre or year - soul and r&b maybe, or just 1967.

you should write about censorship in american pop music. maybe just focus on the early days, or focus on the 80's and 90's and the PRMC and all that.

― Emily Bjurnhjam, Thursday, 5 April 2007 15:08 (seventeen years ago) link

How about a paper that chronicles major political events and poltical personalities strictly through folk/rock/raps songs

― yoko0no, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Strangely enough one might have though that the British Invasion of the 60s led to the Americans starting to have tea, go down the pub and vote for the Labour Party, but it never happened....

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 6 April 2007 15:20 (seventeen years ago) link

nine years pass...

Wasn't sure where to post this: I saw Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon and other original Freedom Singers perform, 50 some years later, some of their civil rights anthems last night and talk about them, and it was very impressive and inspiring and occasionally sad and depressing(not the quality of the singing, but the subject matter talked about and sung about). The event at the Metropolitan AME Church in W. DC (where Frederick Douglas long ago once spoke) was part of the March on Washington Festival going on this week and next. Ysaye Barnswell, who was once in Sweet Honey in the Rock with Johnson Reagon, later did a version of "Wade in the Water" with "Black Lives Matter" in the lyrics. She can still emote powerfully too.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 14 July 2016 13:57 (eight years ago) link

six years pass...

Six years ago I forgot to mention that original Freedom Singers member Rutha Mae Harris sang with Bernice Johnson Reagon as did original Chuck Neblett, plus Bernice's daughter Toshi. Tonight I saw Rutha Mae Harris backed by some younger vocalists and she can still make the hair on your neck stand up with her powerful delivery of 60 year old songs. Tonight was part of the March on Washington Film Festival also, and they had a panel discussion about the role of lawyers in the movement then and now plus a showing of the film doc The Defenders about civil rights era lawyers.

― curmudgeon, Friday, 30 September 2022 01:29 (one year ago) link

one year passes...

Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon RIP @ 81. I admired her. Her civil rights activism w/ The Freedom Singers ; her role singing & leading Sweet Honey in the Rock; her Wade in the Water series & her work @ Smithsonian. From Georgia to DC she was always fighting the good fight & creating

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/17/1213897036/bernice-johnson-reagon-sweet-honey-in-the-rock-obituary

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 July 2024 12:34 (one month ago) link

When I saw a reunited Freedom Singers vocalize and tell stories at a church in DC where Frederick Douglass had once spoken, their tales of what they endured in the American south brought tears to my eyes and their passionate singing and harmonies made the hair on my neck stand up.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 July 2024 14:59 (one month ago) link

Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon and the Freedom Singers at Obama's White House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhafyI6-Bp0

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 July 2024 16:54 (one month ago) link

The Freedom Singers with Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon in 1963 at the March on Washington perform We Shall Not be Moved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duvoETGVvYU

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 July 2024 17:06 (one month ago) link

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/arts/music/bernice-johnson-reagon-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8k0.E68D.myDjZBayNPrw&smid=url-share

New York Times obit for Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 20 July 2024 16:56 (one month ago) link

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