Bücher der Reihe American Musicspheres

By tracing the dynamic history of the radio show Louisiana Hayride and its sponsoring station, ethnomusicologist Tracey Laird reveals the critical role that this part of northwestern Louisiana played in the development of both country music and rock and roll.

This book addresses the increasingly plural nature of American cultural identity thrugh a study of the thriving contemporary music culture of Chinese America, ranging from traditional opera to Cantonese pop and from storytelling songs about the immigrant experience to the work of academically trained composers.

Holehole bushi, folk songs of Japanese workers in Hawaii's plantations, describe the experiences of this particular group caught in the global movements of capital, empire, and labor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this book author Franklin Odo situates over two hundred of these songs, in translation, in a hitherto largely unexplored historical context.

In this book, Silverman introduces readers to the people and cultures who produce this music, offering a sensitive and incisive analysis of how Romani musicians function successfully within oppressive circumstances.

In Balkan Fascination, ethnomusicologist Mirjana Lausevic, a native of the Balkans, investigates this remarkable phenomenon to explore why so many Americans actively participate in specific Balkan cultural practices to which they have no familial or ethnic connection.