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By: Matt Raymond
Did you happen to catch the “CBS Evening News” last night? They featured the latest audio recordings the Library has added to the National Recording Registry, which features everything from Jiminy Cricket and Little Richard to Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Tupac Shakur and a World War II battle. As Katie Couric might say, Anthony Mason …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Pat Padua
Each of the four seasons has inspired its own songs, but none so much as summer. From the cool breeze of Al Green’s “Feels like summer” to the cool pose struck by Pavement’s “Summer babe,” songwriters seem particularly inspired by the onset of heat, humidity, and vacation. While In the Muse cannot approximate the feeling …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Pat Padua
There are songs of yore whose messages may be lost to modern ears, but Harry Castling’s “As His Father Did Before Him” strikes a chord even today. Published in London in 1898, the song paints a picture of desperate times, when the patriarchal model was apparently as likely to be a burglar as a boxer. …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Pat Padua
The Library of Congress Chorale, which draws staff members from all over the library, recently celebrated the birthdays of sundry composers with a lunchtime concert in the Coolidge Auditorium. This was the last concert for their conductor John Saint Amour, who has admirably served his two-year term and awaits a capable successor to arise from …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Pat Padua
The events of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses take place in Dublin on a single day, June 16, 1904. Joyceans the world over celebrate Bloomsday with marathon readings and a pint of Guinness or two. Say yes yes to James Joyce with the Performing Arts Encyclopedia, where you can find manuscripts of Samuel Barber’s “Three Songs,” musical settings …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Jennifer Gavin
Beloved comedian Bob Hope’s legacy has gotten new legs with the opening of the Library of Congress exhibition “Hope for America: Performers, Politics & Pop Culture.” An online preview is available here. “Hope for America” explores the special relationship between comedians and politicians and the way it changed in the century that encompassed Hope’s life and …
Posted in: Timeless
By: Pat Padua
Celebrate Flag Day with songs from the Civil War Sheet Music Collection, and of course our National Anthem, The Star-spangled Banner, in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia.
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Pat Padua
In the United States, Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday in May. The day was first set aside in 1868 “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Pat Padua
Last week we celebrated birthdays of a diverse array of musical luminaries. Pianist Wladziu Valentino was briefly known as Walter Busterkeys before using the name by which we all know him: Liberace was born May 16, 1919. Read about him in the Nevada section of the Local Legacies project in The American Folklife Center. Alexander Warrack’s Scots Dictionary …
Posted in: In The Muse
By: Pat Padua
Modern music lovers with a penchant for the Baroque may assume that the much-loved timbre of the harpsichord has been popular ever since its development in the 15th century. But according to Grove Music Online, the instrument fell almost entirely out of favor by the early 19th century, owing to the emergence of the piano. …
Posted in: In The Muse