Podcasts & interviews created by first-year students in their first semester of coursework, from two sections of Dr. Sophie Abramowitz’s fall 2019 “American Roots Music†Writing & Rhetoric course at the University of Virginia (UVa). In the fall and winter of 2019, students in the Writing & Rhetoric course “American Roots Music†spent weeks researching, writing, narrating, producing, editing, and publishing original podcasts that told a story about a 20th century song of their choice. The parameters of the project were loose: any kind of song, and any kind of story. In response, students produced a diverse and brilliant array of stories about the sounds and histories of different kinds of songs. Each podcast is searching and exploratory, putting deft sonic descriptions into conversation with analyses that are creative and careful, historical and cultural, political and personal. Appended to the end of ten of these ten to fifteen-minute podcasts are interviews with each podcaster, conducted by Dr. Abramowitz. Interviews were recorded in February 2020, in-studio, by Mary Garner McGehee, the Project & Communications Coordinator at WTJU 91.1 FM Charlottesville. In these interviews, podcasters discuss their processes, dig deeper into their research and conclusions, and propose future directions for their skills in research, writing, and production. In alphabetical order, the podcasters are: Sharon Ahn, Carina Anderson, Grace Bassett, Jasmine Cao, Ana Cordova, Lukas Esser, Zoë Fields, Riley Fitzmaurice, Megan Hack, Danyele Heier, Rebecca Herzog, Daeja Hopkins, Bogdan Ion, Payton Jager, Maia Kantorowski, Miriam Mindel, and Ahana Rosha. The “Song Stories†podcast project is indebted to former UVa Music Research Librarian Abby Flanigan’s interactive research demonstrations; to WTJU 91.1 FM Station Manager Nathan Moore’s guest lecture on “writing for the earâ€; and to UVa Multimedia Teaching & Learning Librarian Josh Thorud and UVa Educational Technologist Fang Yi, for their collaboration and their guidance with production technology. Sophie Abramowitz adapted the podcast assignment from a prompt written by Dr. Annie Galvin. The ten accompanying interviews with student podcasters were produced by Sophie Abramowitz, Aaryan Balu, Sarah Howorth, Mary Garner McGehee, and WTJU 91.1 FM. Mary Garner McGehee produced the on-air radio promos for the project. Sophie Abramowitz introduced the program in the recordings and wrote the individual podcast descriptions. Our logo was designed by the talented Zoë Fields, whose podcast is also a part of this project.
American Roots Music, UVa Fall 2019
In focusing on U2's “Red Hill Mining Town,” Miriam Mindel's rigorous and exploratory podcast integrates two mutually-informing analysis: in it, Miriam builds the history of labor abuse in Appalachia alongside her granular sonic and lyrical analysis of the song itself. Listening to what she calls “U2's America,” Miriam expands the possibilities of the song and questions the possibilities of our future. At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
In her podcast, Grace Bassett places “Gimme Shelter” at the center of the anti-war and Civil Rights movements as a song that, in her words, “somehow captured the feelings of impending doom felt by many Americans” in 1969. Using the lens of apocalypse to analyze the song's lyrical and sonic chaos, the anxiety and righteous anger of the moment, and the biography of Merry Clayton (whose fiery vocals elevate the song's power), Grace delves deeply into the song's social overtones and brings them into the present. At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
Ana Cordova is interested in the relationship between music and emotions, and spends the duration of her podcast discussing these connections through the intersecting and diverging lenses of listener and artist. Strikingly, she does this through a mix of personal anecdote, close-listening, and scientific research, focusing on Eric Clapton's “Tears in Heaven”; his song about the death of his four-year-old son.At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
In her podcast, Payton Jager gives a brilliant and encompassing listen not just to Pete Seeger's version of “We Shall Overcome,” but to the folk song in its myriad versions from slavery through labor strikes, the Highlander Folk School, the Civil Rights Era, and into the present. Asking what made the song so conspicuous and prevalent in the 1960s, Payton analyzes its musical qualities, its lyrics, and its cultural moment, situating it among other “freedom songs” and exploring the song's political resonance today.
Daeja Hopkins's podcast on Mariah Carey's mega-hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is generous and upbeat, honing in on the sounds of Carey's “Christmas-y chords” and “cozy core sequence” as well as on her masterful vocal style. Beginning by asking why the song has had such enduring success, Daeja's podcast is a paean to its music, to the holiday season, and to Mariah Carey herself.
Where biographical writing often follows a chronological progression, Carina Anderson's brilliant podcast approaches the question of how Jackson expresses himself through his music by focusing closely on specific lyrics, sounds, and instruments as vehicles for her complex and engaging discussions of the frenetic line that Jackson walks in his relationship to his race, gender, childhood, and sociality.
With caressing care and striking depth of description, Ahana Rosha creates her podcast in order to describe the sonic, lyrical, social, and personal value that she believes makes Elvis Presley's “Can't Help Falling In Love” so enduring.
In her podcast, Maia Kantorowski melds biographical elements with scientific and ethnomusicological research to tie together the nonsense sounds, joyful lyrics, and endless cyclicality of Earth, Wind & Fire's “September.” Maia takes an exploratory approach to what she calls the song's “timelessness,” leading the listener close to an answer to the timeless musical question: what makes you groove?
In response to the question of why Eminem's “Lose Yourself” evokes such intense emotions from its listeners, Bogdan's answer brings his listener into his own physical and psychological responses to the song. In a podcast that grapples with experiential listening through intimate and thoughtful instrumental and lyrical analysis, Bogdan's analysis of “Lose Yourself” is a visceral response to the song, to the artist, and to the genre of rap music.
Rebecca Herzog's podcast on The Spice Girls' “Wannabe” puts the song into rigorous and expansive conversation with the third-wave feminist movement (which overlapped with the 1996 hit). Beginning with the premise that both song and movement pushed to redefine social standards, Rebecca guides the listener with humor, insight, and plenty of song clips, through three analytic themes: unity while maintaining independence, ambiguity, and of course, girl power. At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
In her celebration of the song “Brenda's Got A Baby,” Danyele Heier describes 2Pac's musical activism by contextualizing the song's lyrics in their socio-cultural moment. Danyele's podcast is engrossing for her sharp analytic ear and careful research, and important for her goals: to show that rap music can serve as a vehicle for community-building in spite of both the racist social structures that affect urban black communities and the racist cultural structures that provoke criticism of the genre.At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
In her podcast, Megan Hack excavates the autobiographical elements to Matchbox 20's hit “3AM”: Rob Thomas's mom was fighting cancer at the time the song was written. Listening closely and incorporating her own experiences as a listener into her analysis, Megan asks (and begins to answer): “if a person has not experienced a situation talked about in a song, how are they able to feel emotion from it?”At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
In her podcast, Riley Fitzmaurice wanders through The Eagles' classic “Hotel California,” masterfully drawing together its ambient music and wide-eyed lyrics to describe the song's ear to temptation, rebellion, and what she calls “the glitz and glam side of Hollywood.” At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
Zoë Fields focuses on teen angst, catharsis, and rebellion in her sonic, lyrical, cultural, and personal analysis of Marilyn Manson's “Irresponsible Hate Anthem.” Drawing on what she finds to be the most controversial and anti-conformist elements of the anthem and analyzing Manson's persona, Zoë skillfully places the song in the context of valid, youthful desires for critique, disobedience, and catharsis.At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
In his podcast, Lukas Esser listens peripatetically to Lou Reed's “Walk On The Wild Side,” telling the story of Reed's social milieu and the queer subcultures that were, and are, so important to rock ‘n' roll history. Lukas analyzes the song's lyrics chronologically, listens closely to the music, and brings the song's characters to life.At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where he digs deeper into his podcast research, conclusions, and production process.
Jasmine Cao's podcast begins with the premise that Earth, Wind & Fire's “September” is still wildly popular over forty years after its original release. Her answer brims over with humor and personality; in her podcast, she discloses her own relationship to music alongside YouTube comment sections and music criticism to tell a story of nostalgia, ubiquity, and different ways of listening in the twenty-first century.At the end of this podcast, you'll be able to hear an interview with its creator, where she digs deeper into her podcast research, conclusions, and production process."
Beginning with the premise that Kendrick Lamar “embraces music as a medium for storytelling,” Sharon Ahn tells the story of his song, “The Art of Peer Pressure.” With deft lyrical and sonic analysis that moves chronologically through Lamar's piece, Sharon parses the artist's multiple positions in the song's narrative, counterposing what she calls his “self-conflict” to the ways that he creates community through shared experiences in his song.
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