Music in the American South – Carleton College

Winter 2026

The American South is a cradle of vibrant music genres. From the soulful cries of the Blues in Mississippi juke joints to the twangy guitars of country music in Nashville, the South’s musical heritage is rich and diverse. Gospel hymns fill churches, while zydeco and Cajun rhythms pulse through Louisiana’s bayous. Rock and roll, a fusion of blues and country, exploded from Southern cities like Memphis, forever changing popular music. The soul and pop of Muscle Shoals and Nashville’s country sounds have reached the world over. This tapestry of sound reflects the South’s complex history and continues to captivate audiences worldwide. We will both experience and critique the musical identities of these southern locales in this program, visiting important sites, experiencing performances in a variety of contexts, creating songs and recordings of our own and seeking to unpack the roles of business, heritage and tourism in our collective understanding of music from these places.

Professor Andrew Flory has taught music history at Carleton since 2011. He is an expert on a variety of twentieth-century American popular music with interests and research ranging from jazz and folk to rock, rhythm and blues and gospel. Professor Flory has published widely on the music of Motown Records and is co-author of the industry-leading history of rock textbook What’s That Sound. He is excited to expose students to the past and present musical cultures of the American South.

Learning Goals

Engage national and regional identities and what might make something seem “American” or “Southern”
Gain experience with a variety of American musical styles and genres
Explore issues of performance practice and recording in popular music through readings, critical discussion, and written analysis
Perform an original song for the class in a “songwriter round”
Create a recording in a historic recording studio
Engage with critical issues of tourism and heritage
Achieve a basic understanding of the popular music business ecosystem
Complete an archival project using local collections

Prerequisites

Applicants should be sophomores, juniors, or seniors in the 2025–26 academic year. Students with strong interests in popular music performance, music industry work, American music history, the American South, “popular” archives and heritage studies should apply. Evidence of relevant interests through course-work or other experiences will constitute one of the criteria for selection.

Course of Study

18 Credits

Students enroll in three courses for a total of 18 credits.

MUSC126: America’s Music (6 Credits)

A survey of American music with particular attention to the interaction of the folk, popular, and classical realms. We will use the course sites as classrooms, studying the past and present of musical activity in New Orleans, the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, Muscle Shoals and Nashville. We will focus on themes like identity and nation, memory, religion, locality, race and nationhood, the body, and technologies. While focusing on the genres, styles and epochs mostassociated in these places, we will also consider the range of musical cultures in and around these locations during the past and present. Students will encounter issues of race and class through often-conservative southern viewpoints; issues surrounding religion and secularization; life in urban and rural areas and migratory patterns and many other topics. Overall, the course will be an immersive journey into the recordings and performances that made these areas such an important part of musical history.
Instructor: Andy Flory

MUSC341: RockLab (6 Credits)

This class combines performance and academic study of rock music. In the first half of the course, we will develop simple songs in small-group coaching sessions with an in-house group performance as a midterm goal. During the second half of the course, we will make recordings of these performances. Throughout the term, we will accompany performance and recording activities with readings and discussion about aesthetics, performance practice in popular music, and mediation of recording techniques. There is a required hands-on laboratory component but no performance experience is needed. The course will accommodate students with a range of experience. There will be many guests throughout the course and students will interact with working professionals to learn about the writing and recording processes.
Instructor: Andy Flory, many guest lecturers and conveners

MUSC233: Music, Heritage, Capitalism (6 Credits)

This course instructs students in the innerworkings of the music, cultural memory, and business. The goals are to expose students to a long history of music business and heritage practices that consider the history of our program sites while also examining the current landscape of music and heritage through economic lenses. Special attention will be given to musical styles and critical topics that are relevant to our host cities. These include musical tourism and cultural legacy building, industry work within the current music business, and ethics and responsibility of record companies, music publishers and other profit-seeking businesses oriented toward musical histories.
Instructor: Andy Flory