Music: North America

Links to online resources from the Smithsonian Institution

Reviews of new black music releases hosted by the Indiana University Archives of African American Music and Culture.

Early American music and dance

Resources of all sorts, including Fife and Drum links as well as sheet music.

Maintained by Oberlin College Library and Sing Out! An index of thousands of folk songs throughout the world, with an emphasis on those in the English language.

From an exhibit at the University of Virginia this site presents an historical portrait of music in American life, with selected audio clips from early twentieth century recordings.

Wonderful resources for lyrics and tunes of traditional American folksongs (with many variants), some blues, bluegrass, links to sites with free and legal downloads. Links to a commercial “record” store, where many different interpretations of tunes are available for downloading.

The New York scene 1862-1875.

Part of the Smithsonian group, here are many exhibitions and explanations of Native American cultures.

Maintained by Two Shields, a group of singers and dancers of the Utah Tribes, this site offers wonderful video samples of their performances.

Includes excerpts of books, streaming interviews, performances, daily updates – very current!

Maintained by Yale, this is a living archive of thousands of audio and video recordings of the voices of many major musical figures of our time.

From the same source, this is a channel with a small, but wonderful selection of interviews with musicians from a variety of genres.

Sacred Harp is a uniquely American tradition that brings communities together to sing four-part hymns and anthems.

Index of recordings and resources at UNC Chapel Hill, as well as potentially valuable links. Timely and constantly updated.