Joe Hines

American Song

Music EN ↓ 58 episodes

America was meant to be a light on the hill — a place others looked to when they needed to find their own way forward. If America has ever truly been that light, it came from its music. From the people who suffered the most and somehow still found something worth singing about. From colonial taverns to protest marches in the Eastern Bloc, from gospel churches to a ghetto in Soweto, American rhythms helped people band together, speak truth, and refuse to quit. Our songs became the world's songs — not because we exported them, but because people who needed hope reached out and claimed them as th...

Author

Joe Hines

Episodes

Country Music Blazes a Trail. 25.04.2021 1:32:24

Get in touch! During the first half of the 1900’s, Country music grew from a small group of naïve country musicians who shared their love of the old songs and the old ways with a country that was coming of age. As even now, the players that created the music Americans loved came from colorful backgrounds, and gave all they had to the music. Along the way, some of them gave too much – guys like H...

The Duality of the Blues; Episode 7 of American Song 05.04.2021 1:25:22

Get in touch! The Blues deals with very personal types of pain. But it doesn’t wallow in self-pity. The blues is about overcoming – like Martin Luther King Jr. used in his marches – “We Shall Overcome”. Great blues is all about a catharsis – a purging – of the things that hurt us so that we can go on living better lives! Nothing captures the Christian sense of death and redemption like the b...

The Classical-Jazz Affair 21.03.2021 1:05:01

Get in touch! By the 1920's, jazz had grown too large for its humble origins in New Orleans and was impacting the musical world, including the greatest classical European musicians and composers, as well as American listeners and fellow jazz musicians. What came next was an explosion of creativity among the musical who's who of the day. The world's stage was filled to capacity with...

The Early Days of Jazz 04.03.2021 34:04

Get in touch! Welcome to episode five in the American Song podcast. The early days of jazz were full of exploration, invention, and creativity. It was a time of fluid exchanges in the music world between blacks and whites, even if it was only seldom happening anywhere else. Jazz rose up from Congo Square in New Orleans, which was a culturally rich gumbo of sounds, rhythms and movement produced by...

The Early Days of Country Music 22.02.2021 37:33

Get in touch! A fusion of blues and mountain music, a reminder of better times for many people, and a host of memorable and gifted musicians. In this episode, we'll discover the following musicians and their music: Jimmie Rogers & Louis Armstrong - Blue Yodel Number Nine DeFord Bailey - Pan American Blues Cotton Eyed Joe - Fiddlin' John Carson Show Intro for the Grand Ol' Opry...

The Roots of Jazz - Ragtime, Stride, Boogie Woogie and the Blues 07.02.2021 37:18

Get in touch! America's original art contribution to the world - jazz. So deep. So rich. But where did it come from? There were at least four different sources; and yet one of these - the blues - is also much more than a contributing art form. The blues is almost mythology itself. Sprung from the earth, like the plantation soil where so many slaves lived and died, the blues at once descr...

The Many Musical Threads in Our National Fabric; Early American Music by Region 30.01.2021 31:28

Get in touch! Hi All, Episode two of “American Song” is an exploration of some of the early regional music from before the 20th century. Like some of the things we listened to in episode one, many of these forms survive and continue to be popular today! In this half-hour episode, we’ll listen to Appalachian and Mountain music, then travel down to Louisiana for a sampling of Cajun music! No trip...

(If World Cultures Were Musical Notes), Early America Was a Ready-Made Symphony. 18.01.2021 58:23

Get in touch! Welcome to American Song. There are few things I love more than music, and America. Both of these worlds have been my home since my earliest days. I've been thinking about producing this podcast for many years now. And now, this is episode one; With this podcast, I want to tell a story about how many cultures have contributed to the music we listen to today, and how the peop...