African American Song (Requires Headphones) 
Access: On-Site Access Only
Description: Covering jazz, blues, gospel, and other forms of African American musical expression, African American Music brings 50,000 tracks of music online to document the history of African American music in sound. The collection contains a diverse range of genres such as jazz, blues, gospel, ragtime, folk songs, and narratives, among others.
The collection includes recordings by the top names in the history of black American music. Premier artists such as Ma Rainey, Lead Belly, Mahalia Jackson, Alberta Hunter, Tampa Red, and William “Bunk” Johnson are showcased. The entire available catalog of Document Records, the world’s largest collection of rare and vintage blues, jazz, gospel, spiritual, boogie-woogie, and country recordings, is available. From the earliest recordings of Afro-American music made in the late 19th century (including the Fisk Jubilee Singers, recorded at the turn of the century for Victor Records) to performances of the mid-1970s, in most instances the full recorded works of each artist are presented. There are more than 2,300 performers spanning more than a hundred years—Duke Ellington, Sophie Tucker, Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Sarah Vaughn, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Big Joe Williams, Memphis Jug Band, Roosevelt Sykes, Dizzy Gillespie, Chicago River Kings, Muddy Waters, Skip James, Blind Willie McTell, Lonnie Johnson, Alberta Jones, Johnny Shines, Memphis Minnie, and hundreds of others.
Through arrangement with Rounder Records, a major independent label specializing in blues, folk, gospel, jazz, reggae, roots, and soul music, African American Music delivers online access to the Alan Lomax Collection. An unrivaled assemblage of international field recordings by folklorist Alan Lomax from the 1930s through the 1960s, the collection includes the Jelly Roll Morton series (complete Library of Congress recordings), the Lead Belly series, and great artists and ensembles such as Son House, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Irma Thomas, Bessie Jones, Etta Baker, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers.
Chicago-based Delmark Records, a major jazz and blues label, delivers the recordings of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, Little Brother Montgomery, Speckled Red, Edith Wilson, Earl Hines, and other notable artists. Another great label from Chicago is Nessa Records, started by Chuck Nessa in 1967, whose catalog includes jazz and blues from such artists as Eddie Johnson, Bobby Bradford, Roscoe Mitchell, and Wadada Leo Smith, among others.
African American Song also includes the Herbert Halpert New York City Collection (1938-1939), with field recordings of spirituals, farming and labor songs, war songs, drinking songs, children’s songs, and more. Listeners will also find field recordings from Haiti, the Caribbean, and the American South, as recorded by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnacle, whose expeditions meticulously documented traditional culture and musical expression, including traditional folk songs, spirituals, ceremonial songs, and political songs.
Coverage: Various Dates
Subject(s)
Gender, Minority Studies & Anthropology
Music, Film & Performing Arts
Subscription Database List
Related Databases
American Song (Requires Headphones)
Classical Music Library (Requires Headphones)
Contemporary World Music (Requires Headphones)
Music Index
Oxford African American Studies Center
Oxford Music Online
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Smithsonian Global Sound (Requires Headphones)
