The Archives of African American Music and Culture (AAAMC) is a repository for materials covering a wide range of African American musical idioms and cultural expressions from the post-World War II era. Highlights include interviews, researcher documentation, and publicity materials featuring Black performers, artists, radio personalities, and music industry executives.
Six photographs from the 1950s, representing the Regals as well as the new Orioles group formed in 1955 by the merger of the Regals with the original Orioles, and featuring Al "Diz" Russell who remained with the group until 2016.
Indiana University, Bloomington. Archives of African American Music and Culture
Video recording of an interview with the legendary gospel music pioneer Al Hobbs by Keith McCutchen and Fredara Hadley at Hobbs' Indianapolis home in June of 2007.
A collection consisting primarily of programs, newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs, awards, correspondence, memorabilia, audio recordings and video related to Angela Brown's career.
The collection consists primarily of contracts and correspondence between Arizona Dranes and the Consolidated Music Publishing House (owner of the Chicago OKeh Records franchise) from 1926-1929. Contracts for Nov. 15, 1926, include one song not commercially released (and possibly not recorded), "He's Got Better Things for You." Also included are articles about Dranes and this collection by the donor, Malcolm Shaw, and gospel historian Dr. Daniel E. Walker.
The collection consists primarily of interviews and articles regarding radio stations and music in New Orleans, including information about the first African American deejays in New Orleans and the Poppa Stoppa radio program.
Indiana University, Bloomington. Archives of African American Music and Culture
Press releases and administrative materials pertaining to the AAAMC website Black Grooves. The majority of material in this collection and on the website pertain to recordings in the AAAMC's general collections.
Production materials documenting Smithsonian's thirteen-part program on the role of radio in transforming the African American community in the twentieth century. The program was produced in 1996 by Jacquie Gales Webb for Smithsonian Productions, with assistance from the AAAMC. The collection contains over 400 hours of interviews and historical aircheck tapes in addition to articles, research files, program scripts, and transcripts. The audio interviews feature conversations with over 150 well-known disc jockeys, radio professionals, record company executives, journalists, and scholars. The historical airchecks include station identifications and jingles, radio interviews with prominent Black figures, coverage of historical events, and programs highlighting or influenced by the contributions of Black performers, disc jockeys, and other important persons in radio.
This collection consists of gospel song books and sheet music, song texts, photographs, and other ephemeral material related to Blondell Hill's participation with choirs in Richmond, Indiana, Petoskey, Michigan, and Harbor Springs, Michigan.
The collection consists primarily of awards received by gospel music artist and television host Bobby Jones. Also included in collection are various articles and programs associated with Jones.
The Brian Lassiter Southern Rap Collection contains 3 series made up of various promotional materials, magazines and various media types related to the topic of Southern Rap music.
This collection documents the careers of the Calloway family including brothers Reggie, Vincent, and Gregory and their mother Gloria Calloway Larson, who variously formed and/or managed the groups Sunchild, Midnight Star, Calloway and Sharp. Included are personal papers, correspondence, business and financial records, tour itineraries, publicity materials, press clippings, programs, photographs, and time-based media in both published and unpublished audio and video formats.
The materials in this collection relate to Carl MaultsBy's activities as a composer, arranger, conductor, organist, keyboardist, singer, author and former music industry executive. Included are scores and recordings of his compositions as well as concert programs, photographs, notated music, sound recordings, videos and information about his performances and recordings.
Periodicals covering popular and rhythm & blues musicians and recordings, but primarily collected for their articles focusing on vocal harmony groups and quartettes of the 1950s-1960s. Also included are articles by Tancredi and airchecks from his internet radio program, "Work With Me Annie."
This collection consists of printed and manuscript scores of music by Charles Coleman, including sacred and secular choral works, as well as ephemeral materials related to the composer.
Materials documenting the period Charles Connor, known as "Little Richard's original drummer," spent on the road with Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Dee Clark, Larry Williams, Chuck Willis, and others. Included are more recent articles, interviews, and audio recordings of Connor and an unpublished book manuscript.
Research on the Motown Record Corp., including photographs, Motown-related videos and television programs, and audio and video interviews with vocalists, instrumentalists, arrangers, songwriters, producers, technical staff, management, and consumers. Interviews include Thomas "Beans" Bowles (saxophonist and first road manager of the Motor Town Revue), Maxwell Powell (image specialist at Motown's Division of Artist Development), Bobby Rogers and Ronald White (vocalists with the Miracles), Sylvia Moy (songwriter), and Michael McLean (audio technician).
The collection consists of articles, clippings, and interviews compiled during research for Seymour's book, Luther: The Life and Longing of Luther Vandross (2004), and subsequent research on topics related to R&B musicians, black music genres, the black gay community and gay musicians. Also included are audiocassettes containing interviews conducted by Seymour with Luther Vandross, various R&B musicians and record company personnel, as well as a large collection of mixtapes and commercial CDs.