the faux bohemian

Posts tagged american history

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Rock ‘n’ roll is to 21st-century America what the Wild West was to 20th-century America: a closed frontier, ripe for mass mythology….Exciting new music still thrives in the subgenres, but modern musicians draw increasing amounts of inspiration from tradition, not originality. The sexagenarian Rolling Stones do serial victory laps around the world, just as an aging Buffalo Bill toured America and Europe in the 1880s and 90s, performing rope and horse tricks alongside Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull.

Closed Frontier: Is rock over? (Vice, via Metafilter)

Woaaaaaah. I’m seeing this.

Filed under rock and roll music american history American West vice american culture

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nprmusic:

‘Why?’: Remembering Nina Simone’s Tribute To The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Three days after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, performer Nina Simone and her band played at the Westbury Music Festival on Long Island, N.Y. They performed “Why? (The King of Love is Dead),” a song they had just learned, written by their bass player Gene Taylor in reaction to King’s death.

How is it I never heard this song until today? I think every American History course covering the 1960s should include it as required reading.

Filed under nina simone martin luther king jr. 1960s 1968 westbury music festival american history music

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Kudos to Sarah Lohman of Four Pounds Flour for posting this graph “from The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition by W.J. Rorabaugh, an analysis of how totally trashed we were in Colonial times”. Sometimes the past was more fun. FIVE GALLONS! By the way, I will be keeping an eye on her blog tomorrow, and you should too: “Tomorrow, I plan to drink  the quantity of alcohol commonly consumed during the course of an average day in Colonial America.  I plan to imbibe  beverages appropriate to the time period: bitters, hard cider, brandy, whiskey and rum; served up in period appropriate drinks.  And I’m going to follow the schedule of a Colonial drinker, from an “eye-opener” before breakfast, to a tankard of hard cider beside the fire at night.”

Kudos to Sarah Lohman of Four Pounds Flour for posting this graph “from The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition by W.J. Rorabaugh, an analysis of how totally trashed we were in Colonial times”. Sometimes the past was more fun. FIVE GALLONS!

By the way, I will be keeping an eye on her blog tomorrow, and you should too:

“Tomorrow, I plan to drink  the quantity of alcohol commonly consumed during the course of an average day in Colonial America.  I plan to imbibe  beverages appropriate to the time period: bitters, hard cider, brandy, whiskey and rum; served up in period appropriate drinks.  And I’m going to follow the schedule of a Colonial drinker, from an “eye-opener” before breakfast, to a tankard of hard cider beside the fire at night.”

Filed under drink american history alcohol graph sarah lohman four pounds flour food history

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smithsonianmag: Sound Recordings Heard for the First Time Ever Pioneers Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Emile Berliner donated the recordings and other documentation to the Smithsonian in the late 19th century. Using equipment housed at the Library of Congress, those recordings are able to be heard for the first time. This is awesome! Now I just need to get a grant to do this with some of the sounds film in Photo History…

smithsonianmag:

Sound Recordings Heard for the First Time Ever

Pioneers Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Emile Berliner donated the recordings and other documentation to the Smithsonian in the late 19th century. Using equipment housed at the Library of Congress, those recordings are able to be heard for the first time.

This is awesome! Now I just need to get a grant to do this with some of the sounds film in Photo History…

(via americanroutes)

Filed under National Museum of American History smithsonian sound recording library of congress american history