Music in America
19th-Century California Sheet Music
Mary Kay Duggan, University of California, Berkeley
A virtual library of some 2,000 pieces of sheet music published in California between 1852 and 1900, together with related materials, including programs, catalogues, songsheets, advertisements, and photographs.
Music Library Association
This website contains links to collections of sheet music available for study online and indexes to collections.
Hispanic Music & Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection
American Memory, Library of Congress
This online presentation is a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. In 1940, Juan Bautista Rael of Stanford University, a native of Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, used disc recording equipment supplied by the Archive of American Folk Song to document alabados (hymns), folk drama, wedding songs and dance tunes. The recordings were made in Alamosa, Manassa, and Antonito, Colorado, and in Cerro and Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. The collection also includes manuscript materials and publications authored by Rael which provide insight into the rich musical heritage and cultural traditions of this region.
Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip
American Memory, Library of Congress
This multiformat ethnographic field collection includes nearly 700 sound recordings, as well as fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States. Beginning in Port Aransas, Texas, on March 31, 1939, and ending at the Library of Congress on June 14, 1939, John Avery Lomax, Honorary Consultant and Curator of the Archive of American Folk Art, and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, recorded approximately 25 hours of folk music from more than 300 performers. These recordings represent a broad spectrum of traditional musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs.
Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection
American Memory, Library of Congress
This multi-format ethnographic field collection features traditional fiddle tunes performed by Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Recorded by folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67, when Reed was over eighty years old, the tunes represent the music and evoke the history and spirit of Virginia's Appalachian frontier. Many of the tunes have passed into circulation during the fiddling revival of the later twentieth century. This online collection incorporates 184 original sound recordings, 10 pages of fieldnotes, and 69 musical transcriptions with descriptive notes on tune histories and musical features; an illustrated essay about Reed's life, art, and influence; a list of related publications; and a glossary of musical terms.
American Memory, Library of Congress
This multiformat ethnographic field collection features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1983 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress.
The Red Hot Jazz Archive: A History of Jazz Before 1830
This searchable website contains text, music, and pictures documenting jazz before 1930.
"Now What A Time": Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943
American Memory, Library of Congress
This collection consists of approximately 100 sound recordings, primary blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now University), Fort Valley, Georgia. The documentation was created by John Wesley Work III in 1941 and by Lewis Joes and Willis Laurence James in March, June, and July 1943. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama by John Work between September 1938 and 1941.