Welcome to the American Music web page. This page is not comprehensive, but is intended as a
starting point to get information on many aspects of American music.
If you would like more information or assistance, you can contact
Cheryl Taranto or
Lamont Downs
at the UNLV Music Library.
Austin, William W.
"Susanna," "Jeanie," and "The Old Folks at Home": The Songs of Stephen Foster from His Time to Ours. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
UNLV Book Stacks ML410.F78 A9 1987
Chase, Gilbert.
America's Music, from the Pilgrims to the Present. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200 .C53A 1955
Crawford, Richard, R. Allen Lott, Carol J. Oja, editors.
A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200 .C44 1990
Floyd, Samuel A.
The Power of Black Music: Interpreting its History from Africa to the United States. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
UNLV Book Stacks ML3556 .F65 1995
Gann, Kyle.
American Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice Hall International, 1997.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200.5 .G36 1997
Gioia, Ted.
The History of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
UNLV Book Stacks ML3506 .G54 1997
Hamm, Charles.
Music in the New World. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 1982.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200 .H17
Hamm, Charles.
Yesterdays: Popular Song in America. New York: Norton, 1979.
UNLV Book Stacks ML3477 .H35
Hitchcock, H. Wiley.
Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200 .H58 2000
Howard, John Tasker.
Our American Music: a Comprehensive History from 1920 to the Present. New York: T.Y.
Crowell, 1965.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200 .H8 1965
Nicholls, David, editor.
The Cambridge History of American Music. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
UNLV Book Stacks ML200 .C36 1998
Southern, Eileen.
The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York: Norton, 1997.
UNLV Book Stacks ML3556 .S74 1997
Stewart, Earl L.
African American Music: An Introduction. New York: Schirmer Books; London: Prentice Hall International, 1998.
UNLV Book Stacks ML3556 .S87 1998
Tirro, Frank.
Jazz: A History. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1993.
UNLV Book Stacks ML3506 .T57 1993
There are several databases to help find journal and magazine articles about aspects of
American Music, listed below:
The full-text databases have entire journal articles online. You need not go to the library
to pull the journal article you need. The indexes will contain citations only. Once you
find articles in the indexes you would like to see, go to the
UNLV library catalog to see if
we own the journal. If so, you will need the call number. You will need to go to
Lied
Library to get the journal volume where the article is located (either on
2nd floor or from
LASR).
If we do not own the journal, you can request the article via
document delivery.
You can access all of these databases by going to the
list of Music Electronic Indexes and Databases.
There are several dictionaries and encyclopedias that may be helpful to you, listed below.
memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/rpbhtml/aasmhome.html
"This collection consists of 1,305 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850 through
1920. The collection includes many songs from the heyday of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the
1850s and from the abolitionist movement of the same period."
Although the collection itself is housed at Brown University, the website is part of the Library of Congress American Memory project.
scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/
"The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University holds a significant collection of 19th and early 20th century American sheet music. The Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of 3042 pieces from the collection, published in the United States between 1850 and 1920."
levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/
"The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music is part of Special Collections at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University. It contains over 29,000 pieces of music and focuses on popular American music spanning the period 1780 to 1960."
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