A Historiography (of sorts)
Inspiration for this Book Soundtrack came from many artists and scholars. It was influenced by historians who have used music to help communicate their work. It is also influenced by musicians who have worked with historical themes and evidence. We think the project offers a new spin on what has come before it, but it is equally fun and important to highlight some of our influences. Without them, this music would never have been possible.
The list that follows is broken down into two main categories: first, scholarly history with musical components, and second, historically based concept albums. It is far from comprehensive!
Scholarly Work with Musical Components
Sowande’ Mustakeem was the first to use of the phrase “book soundtrack” in the way it is used here. Mustakeem’s “Book Soundtrack” is an original musical interpretation of her award-winning book, Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage (University of Illinois Press, 2016), performed by her St. Louis-based percussion band Amalghemy. As Mustakeem put it, her book soundtrack is much more than “a mere ‘playlist.’” Instead, each track “mirrors the feelings, vibrations, and imagination forged in the book.”
Shane White and Graham White’s The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African American History through Songs, Sermons, and Speech (Beacon Press, 2005) includes a 18-track CD compilation that allows readers to hear examples of the music discussed in the text, mostly via renditions of songs performed by formerly enslaved people and their descendants in the 1930s.
Rachel Wheeler and Sarah Eyerly’s William and Mary Quarterly article “Singing Box 331: Re-Sounding Eighteenth-Century Mohican Hymns from the Moravian Archives” (October 2019) was recently published alongside a remarkable digital companion website that makes good on the authors’ goal to “resound” the Native American hymns they study. A roundtable discussion in response to the project also appears in the July 2020 edition of the William and Mary Quarterly.
To mark the 200th anniversary of the composition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” music historian Mark Clague and choral director Jerry Blackstone teamed up with students and faculty from the University of Michigan to create “a 2 CD set of audiophile-quality recordings” that “tells the history of the Banner from broadside ballad to national anthem.” It is called Poets & Patriots. Stream it on Spotify.
Author-compiled playlists are also becoming something of a trend. See, for example: Jack Hamilton’s Spotify playlist for Just around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2016):
Audio playlists are also a key feature (alongside song genealogies, lyrics, and musical notation) of the official companion website to Laura Lohman’s Hail Columbia! American Music and Politics in the Early Nation (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Historically based concept albums
There are many examples of these! This list includes just a handful that happened to impact the Harnessing Harmony Book Soundtrack.
Public Service Broadcasting, The Race for Space (Test Card Recordings, 2015). An album that connects archival sound samples with original compositions to tell the story of the American and Soviet space race between 1957 to 1972: https://open.spotify.com/album/65KwtzkJXw7oT819NFWmEP?si=glblGILJRuioF2n-FQ43c
Jad Abumrad, Suzie Lechtenberg, Julia Longoria, Alex Overington, Kelly Prime, and Sarah Qari eds., 27: The Most Perfect Album (WNYC Studios, 2018). A compilation album comprising 27 originally commissioned songs inspired by each of the 27 amendments to the US Constitution. Each track is matched with an explanatory historical essay provided by the National Constitution Center. “A kind of ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ for the 21st Century,” they call it. Artists range from Dolly Parton to Kevin Morby, Devandra Banhart, and Joey Stylez.: https://project.wnyc.org/themostperfectalbum/
Titus Andronicus, The Monitor (XL Recordings, 2010). An indie rock concept album that ties Civil War themes (and a selection of iconic Civil War era quotes) to the 21st-century.
The Payroll Union, Paris of America (2015). This album from the Sheffield UK-based band, The Payroll Union, was the result of a two-year collaboration between historian Dr. Andrew Heath and songwriter Peter David. It explores a series of personalities, events, and stories from antebellum Philadelphia informed by in-person research at the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: An American Musical (2015). There’s little need for explanation here besides to say that this has become an emblematic combination of music and history.
