Ballad of America preserves and celebrates music from America's diverse cultural history through:
Music Library
Articles and videos with fascinating stories of songs, genres, instruments, people, and more
For Educators
Resources to help teachers, both traditional and homeschool, integrate music and United States history
Sing It
Sing-along videos, recordings, lead sheets, and more to facilitate the singing of American folk songs by people of all ages
Live Events
Multimedia programs that entertain, inspire, and inform people of all ages, delivered in-person and online
Official Partner
America's Music
The music in America today is part of a continuum that reaches back to the Indigenous peoples and stretches across the Atlantic Ocean to the Old World. Music, instruments, and songs tell the story of the ordinary and extraordinary people who have populated the United States and propelled it into the 21st century. The genres of music explored through Ballad of America include traditional folk songs, fiddle tunes, ballads (both Old and New World), sea shanties, railroad and cowboy songs, Appalachian, ragtime, spirituals, work songs, minstrel, blues, jazz, jug band, rhythm and blues, old-time, country and western, Cajun, bluegrass, and rock & roll.
Featured Article
Appalachian music is a story of increasing inclusion. While early ballad hunters ignored instrumental music, record executives eagerly sought out fiddlers and string bands. Although festival organizers excluded newly-composed songs, Appalachian songwriters had a formative influence on the early folk revival. And while collectors of all types neglected Black musical traditions for many years, those traditions were finally documented by the mid-century folk revivalists.
All the same, “Appalachian music” as a public concept is still narrowly bound and governed by long-standing stereotypes. Whole genres of music—especially Black genres, such as blues, jazz, soul, and R&B, as well as Indigenous musical practices—have been largely excluded from the mainstream narrative. Relatedly, Black participation in the genres that are included has long been erased, although there is reason to hope that these injustices are being rectified.