Browse Items (23 total)

This song can be used to teach about the Reconstruction-era South racism and the dangerous working conditions found in the building of U.S. railroads. John Henry is an African-American folk hero from Virginia who, according to legend, was victorious…

This song could be used to introduce students to murder ballads, a subgenre of folk music. Like many other Appalachian murder ballads, "Knoxville Girl" is an adaptation of British broadside ballads. Once brought over to the States, these ballads were…

This minstrel song can be used to teach about minstrelsy and antebellum Southern attitudes towards slavery. It was such a popular genre that it effectively was a type of pop music. In the song, the enslaved are mourning the loss of a deceased slave…

Written in direct response to the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama Church bombing which killed 4 African American girls, this song can be used to instruct students on the shifting attitudes surrounding the conversation on race relations and the Civil Rights…

This song can be used to introduce students to the influence that Appalachian music had on modern country music. Many early country songs were based on British ballads and were combined with musical influences from African-American musical traditions…

"Ode to Billie Joe" is an account of how each of the members of a Mississippi family take the news of Billie Joe McAllister's suicide. A number of ambiguous details in the narrative, which emphasizes loss and was released in 1967, lend itself to a…

This song could be used to introduce students to the gradual shift away from the pastoral way of rural southern life that once dominated the region and the New Deal. The south had traditionally been more agrarian than the north and the songwriter Bob…

This rap provides a space for expression about various topics such as race, the Confederates' legacy, amongst other things amidst the generally, more conservative South. The key characteristics of the subgenres of Southern Rap and "Dirty South Rap"…

The song could be used as an example of the loose narrative and supernatural references and/or folk beliefs often found in the blues genre. Though the song lacks a linear narrative, the collection of somewhat unrelated vignettes which included…

“Strange Fruit” describes the picturesque agricultural landscape of the South and contrasts this beauty and bounty with the horrific violence - lynchings in particular - that occurred in that setting.