The Stone Age had its cavepeople and thyroidal mammals, the Bronze Age its Hoplites and long poems, the Iron Age its hillforts and bog mummies. The Steel Age seldom gets […]
Category: music
Sweet home Chicago
May 11-13, 2016, the publishing industry will descend upon the City of Big Shoulders for the textapalooza that is BookExpo America. BEA, held at Chicago’s McCormick Place this spring, is […]
See ‘The Hayloft Gang’ on screen
The National Barn Dance was the nation’s most popular country music radio show during the 1930s and 1940s, predating the popularity of the Grand Ole Opry and serving as a […]
$2.99 e-book sale to coincide with the International Country Music Conference
For the month of May 2016, in celebration of the International Country Music Conference in Nashville, we are lowering the e-book list price of two titles in the University of Illinois […]
RIP Paul Bierley
Today we received word that noted UIP author Paul Bierley had passed away. For us, Bierley wrote The Incredible Band of John Philip Sousa. He penned other words on Sousa as […]
Throwbacklist Thursday: Workin’ on the Railroad
Though another state calls itself the Crossroads of America, Illinois deserves the title as much as any of the Lower 48, for here the prairie gathers the railroads and interstates to […]
Fiddling Bill’s beautiful music
Word comes from the Library of Congress that twenty-five selections have been added to the National Recording Registry. While the likes of Merle Haggard and the unstoppable Gloria Gaynor will no doubt […]
Alan Harper’s blues odyssey
Alan Harper left his home in England in 1979 on a pilgrimage to find the blues. His journey led him to Chicago where he worked at a sandwich restaurant and […]
Funk the Erotic up for Lambda Award
Funk the Erotic: Transaesthetics and Black Sexual Cultures by L. H. Stallings is a finalist in the 28th Annual Lambda Literary Awards in the LGBT Studies category. The Lambda Literary […]
Throwbacklist Thursday: Furry’s People
“Virtuosity in playing blues licks is like virtuosity in celebrating the Mass, it is empty, it means nothing. Skill—competence—is a necessity, but a true blues player’s virtue lies in his […]
Throwbacklist Thursday: Life Is Old There
Appalachia is one of those words that encompasses a universe and leaves each of us to form our own ideas of what it means. For me, to use one example, […]
Flatfooting on YouTube
In Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics, musician, dancer, and scholar Phil Jamison tells the story behind the square dances, step dances, reels, and other forms of dance practiced in southern Appalachia. […]