Carter and Ralph Stanley—the Stanley Brothers—are comparable to Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs as important members of the earliest generation of bluegrass musicians. In this first biography of the ...

Alan Lomax (1915-2002) began working for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress in 1936, first as a special and temporary assistant, then as the permanent Assistant in Charge, starting ...

Ken Prouty argues that knowledge of jazz, or more to the point, claims to knowledge of jazz, are the prime movers in forming jazz's identity, its canon, and its community. Every jazz artist, critic, or ...

When Elvis Presley first showed up at Sam Phillips's Memphis-based Sun Records studio, he was a shy teenager in search of a sound. Phillips invited a local guitarist named Scotty Moore to stand in. Scotty ...

Jazz as an instrument of global diplomacy transformed superpower relations in the Cold War era and reshaped democracy's image worldwide. Lisa E. Davenport tells the story of America's program of jazz ...

Association of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence
Best Research in Recorded Jazz Music–Best History (tie) (2011)

Wilbur C. Sweatman (1882-1961) is one of the most important, yet unheralded, ...

In I'm Feeling the Blues Right Now: Blues Tourism and the Mississippi Delta, Stephen A. King reveals the strategies used by blues promoters and organizers in Mississippi, both African American and white, ...

Association of Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence
Best Research in Record Labels–Certificate of Merit (2012)

The Starday Story: The House That Country Music Built is the first book entirely ...

Saved by Song returns to print with its sweeping overview of the history of gospel music. Powerful and incisive, the book traces contemporary Christianity and Christian music to the sixteenth century and ...