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Posted by: Heather Darnell
August 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Hip-Hop, said to have begun in 1973 at a little South-Bronx party hosted by DJ Kool Herc. But years before Herc introduced New York to the breakbeat, African-American music and spoken-word traditions had been brewing in the great social unrest of the 60s and 70s to create a …
Posted in: African American History, Composers, Copyright Deposits, Musicians, Sheet Music
Posted by: Cait Miller
While Walter Kent and Kim Gannon are the only names credited on the original copyright deposit for the Christmas classic, "I'll be home for Christmas," the label on Crosby's recording credits the song to three names: Kent, Gannon, and Buck Ram. Read about the history of the song and its copyright backstory, illustrated in records from the US Copyright Office. Download the original printed sheet music, registered as an unpublished copyright deposit on September 28, 1943.
Posted in: Copyright Deposits, Holidays, Sheet Music
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
Part two of this three part travel series takes - through music - a road trip through the historic sites Chalmette Battlefield, Keweenaw National Historical Park, and National Historic Landmark in Kent, Ohio.
Posted in: Copyright Deposits, Guest bloggers, Holidays
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
Part one of this three part travel series takes - through music - a road trip out west to Death Valley, Lassen Peak, Yellowstone, and Lake Louise.
Posted in: Composers, Copyright Deposits, Holidays, Newly Cataloged, Sheet Music, Sound recordings, Special Collections
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
The concluding part of this two-part survey of music and disease looks at examples that arose from pandemics in the 19th and 20th centuries, including: works by Stephen Foster and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel written in the wake of a series of cholera outbreaks, and the sometimes curiously lighthearted musical response to the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Posted in: Composers, Copyright Deposits, Guest bloggers, Newly Cataloged, Sacred music, Sheet Music, World War I
Posted by: Melissa Wertheimer
The following is a guest post by Reader Services Technician Mary Joy Lamb. While working as a technician in the Library of Congress Music Division I came across Clifford Hayes’s copyright lead sheet for “Bye Bye Blues” from 1928. The yellowed paper, the rushed corrections, and the date caught my eye. I snapped an image …
Posted in: Copyright Deposits, Guest bloggers, Musicians
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
Discusses the numerous Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated manuscript film scores in the Music Division's collections.
Posted in: Composers, Copyright Deposits, Film Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
Discusses the story behind two copyright deposit versions of the theme for Star Trek: The Original Series.
Posted in: Composers, Copyright Deposits, Film Music, Guest bloggers
Posted by: Paul Sommerfeld
Taylor McClaskie is one of the Music Division’s summer 2019 interns. She is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Case Western Reserve University and is currently writing a dissertation on music and environmental activism in 1980s America. During my time in the Music Division I have been helping to process and catalogue unpublished popular music …
Posted in: Composers, Copyright Deposits, Guest bloggers, Newly Cataloged, Women in Music, Women in Theater