This course surveys the development of popular music in the United States and in a cross-cultural milieu relative to the history and sociology of the last two hundred years. It examines the ethnic mixture that characterizes modern music, how it reflects many rich traditions and styles, and provides a background for understanding the musical vocabulary of current popular music styles.

Guitarist Dale Williams studied blues guitar with Willie Dixon and Phil Upchurch, but doesn't limit himself to the blues. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Sun Ra, George Lewis and LL Cool J. He teaches and lectures, in addition to performing. (24 minutes)

This class surveys the music of the Beatles, from the band’s early years to the break-up of the group, mapping how the Beatle’s musical style changed from skiffle and rock to studio-based experimentation. Cultural influences that helped to shape them, as well as the group’s influence worldwide, will be a continuous theme.

The repercussions of the Great Migration are far-reaching. Today, much of the restlessness and struggle that the Blues helped to articulate in the Migration era remains central in other forms of American music, including Hip Hop. In this lesson, students look to Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf as case studies that illustrate why African Americans left the South in record numbers and how communities came together in new urban environments, often around the sound of the Blues.

Central to this lesson is a comparison of Cliff Richard and the Shadows, as an example of early 1960s British popular music, with the Blues that a young person in the U.K. might have seen at an American Folk Blues Festival. Students will get a chance to consider what the Blues might have meant to musicians like Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner, and Long John Baldry, all key figures in the British Blues explosion.

In this lesson, students will investigate the Stones' early musical development and their burgeoning relationship with American Blues.

In this lesson, students will discuss how the ideals of the Harlem Renaissance and Locke's New Negro were exemplified by the poetry of Langston Hughes. Specifically, they will examine how Hughes incorporated the vernacular tradition of the Blues in his work, and identify the literary techniques Hughes employs to make his poetry so vivid.

This course explores the ways that music is both shaped by and gives shape to the cultural settings in which it is performed, through studying selected musical traditions from around the world. Specific case studies will be examined closely through listening, analysis, and hands-on instruction. The syllabus centers around weekly listening assignments and readings from a textbook with CDs, supplemented by hands-on workshops, lecture/demonstrations and concerts by master musicians from around the world.

Blues and Soul music intersect in Memphis Tennessee.  Southern Soul as it is usually called, originated in Memphis and was greatly influenced by the blues of the city and the Mississippi Delta.