Historical Objects

The core of this presentation consists of "stock" arrangements for bands or small orchestras of popular songs written by African Americans from 1883 to 1923.

The sheet music in this digital collection has been selected from the Sheet Music Collection at the John Hay Library at Brown University. The full collection consists of approximately 500,000 items, of which perhaps 250,000 are currently available for use. Dates from the 18th century to the present day, with the largest concentration of titles in the period 1840-1950.

The filmwork of Alan Lomax is a resource for students, researchers, filmmakers, and fans of America's traditional music and folkways. Shot throughout the American South and Southwest over the course of seven years (1978--1985) in preparation for a PBS series, "American Patchwork," which aired in 1991, these videos consist of performances, interviews, and folkloric scenes culled from 400 hours of raw footage, many of which have never been seen publicly.

Includes music, photographs, essays, and more relating the music from across the 20th century with a focus on the 1940s to 1960s.

This library contains recordings ranging from alternative news programming, to Grateful Dead concerts, to Old Time Radio shows, to book and poetry readings, to original music uploaded by our users.

Offers more than ten thousand songs from the dawn of the modern age.

Includes biographies, reviews, and articles of soul music and artists.

The 1960s-80s is considered the ‘golden age’ of African music, and in East Africa, Tanzania was famed for having one of the most active and vibrant music scenes of them all. Not only was the music catchy, warm, and bright, it was a used consciously as a powerful tool for building national unity, pride, and pan-African solidarity after years of colonialism.

Dig deeper into music by discovering direct connections among over 641,000 songs and 211,000 artists, from Hip-Hop, Rap and R&B via Electronic / Dance through to Rock, Pop, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Jazz, Classical and beyond.

More than 100,000 digital facsimiles of audio, posters, sheet music and more tagged as "blues music."

An essay on the history of Blues with links to LOC collections.

The repository is a service of the University of Mississippi libraries. Includes collections related to blues and more.

Comprised of sheet music published in, or with topical relevance to, Louisiana (with an emphasis on New Orleans). Many important local composers are represented, including Basile Bares, Eugene Chassaignac, Edouard Dejan and Louis Moreau Gottschalk as well as several interesting, but lesser known, nineteenth-century composers. The collection covers 100 years in the history of local publishing (1838-1938) and represents a wide range of styles of popular and vernacular music, including Creole songs, nineteenth-century dance music, Confederate anthems, Mexican and Cuban danzas and danzon, ragtime, blues, and jazz .

"One of the most influential styles of American music, the Blues is a living tradition with multiple regional styles. Have a listen with the Sounds of the American Blues playlist from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, and explore our blues-related collection items." Includes digital facsimiles of Blues-related ephemera, including posters, stamps, and more.

Collection of film predominately from the 1940s, which include performances of "Boogie Woogie Blues" and more.

Consists of approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Jones and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943.

Access to recordings, soundscapes, playlists, and lesson plans related to African American Music, predominately from the 20th century.

The Hiphop Archive and Research Institute's mission is to facilitate and encourage the pursuit of knowledge, art, culture and responsible leadership through Hiphop. Includes timelines and some curated content.

Davey D is a nationally recognized journalist, adjunct professor, Hip Hop historian, syndicated talk show host, radio programmer, producer, deejay, media and community activist. Site includes blog and news on hip hop, present and historical.

Is composed of photographs, audio recordings and musical instruments primarily dealing with traditional New Orleans jazz.

The Institute of Jazz Studies' mission is enhancing access to its collection to foster research in the areas of jazz and music history. The IJS Research Portal provides digital access to selected IJS collections in the Institute of Jazz Studies to further its mission and the mission of the Rutgers University Libraries to the Rutgers community, to scholars, and to the general public.

Illustrates the advent of multimedia “amateur” jazz history. Nonacademic jazz fans have produced most of the extant jazz histories, biographies, and discographies, and now one of them, Scott Alexander, has built a fine and substantial Web site that is not just for aficionados.

A jazz-aged magazine, modeled on the New Yorker, that aimed to portray the city as a cultural hub and counter its image as a place of violence and vice. The magazine contains a wealth of material on the literary, cultural, artistic, athletic and social milieu of Chicago between 1926-1934.

No longer updated, but still a trove of links and recommendations for music.