Country music's debt to African American music has long been recognized. Black musicians have helped to shape the styles of many of the most important performer

Long a symbol of American culture, the banjo actually originated in Africa before European-Americans adopted it. Karen Linn shows how the banjo--despite design

The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music assembles a broad spectrum of contemporary perspectives on how "sound" functions in an equally wide arra

No other instrument has witnessed such a dramatic rise to popularity--and precipitous decline--as the accordion. Squeeze This! is the first history of the piano

An exploration of the origins and development of American country music in the Piedmont's mill villages celebrates the colorful cast of musicians and considers