Ballad of America preserves and celebrates music from America's diverse cultural history through:
Music Library
Articles and videos with fascinating stories of songs, genres, instruments, people, and more
For Educators
Resources to help teachers, both traditional and homeschool, integrate music and United States history
Sing It
Sing-along videos, recordings, lead sheets, and more to facilitate the singing of American folk songs by people of all ages
Live Events
Multimedia programs that entertain, inspire, and inform people of all ages, delivered in-person and online
Official Partner
America's Music
The music in America today is part of a continuum that reaches back to the Indigenous peoples and stretches across the Atlantic Ocean to the Old World. Music, instruments, and songs tell the story of the ordinary and extraordinary people who have populated the United States and propelled it into the 21st century. The genres of music explored through Ballad of America include traditional folk songs, fiddle tunes, ballads (both Old and New World), sea shanties, railroad and cowboy songs, Appalachian, ragtime, spirituals, work songs, minstrel, blues, jazz, jug band, rhythm and blues, old-time, country and western, Cajun, bluegrass, and rock & roll.
Featured Article
Cajun music is a distinctive form of American music that blends French Acadian, German, Spanish, African American, Afro-Creole, Scottish, Irish, and English folk traditions. From its roots in 18th-century Acadian music, it developed over generations in southern Louisiana, where people from these cultures interacted. Exposure to radio and records led Cajun musicians to absorb and integrate elements of different forms of American music, resulting in a great deal of variety in Cajun sounds.