(Kyleigh’s Version)

     I have grown up hearing stories about my maternal great grandparents' love of music and the parties they would throw, particularly around Christmas time. Large neighborhood get-togethers, always topped off with plenty of guitars and booze. My grandmother, Debbie, is the oldest of four, and her and her brothers and sisters adore recounting stories of their father’s parties every time they get together, especially to the younger generations. My great grandfather, John Watson was a gifted guitar player and vocalist and music was a bonding element of his friend group. My grandmother most fondly remembers him playing country artists such as Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash. During every one of these Saturday night parties, the children would be tucked away in the back bedrooms, my grandmother, the oldest, naturally tasked with keeping them in check. But of course curiosity would give in and she would stay up into the early hours, peaking around the corner, and listening to t...

Gene Autry   Country music has come a long way since the days of the Carters and Fiddlin’ John Carson. The genre based on Appalachian Folk has been transformed many times over, and through creating a timeline of sub-genres and key events we can understand how Blue Yodel, as shown below, turned into Old Town Road . Victor Records was the first recording company to take on a dedicated country artist– Eck Robertson in 1922. His record was met with minimal success but nonetheless inspired the studio to sign on Jimmie Rodgers, now known as the Father of Country Music, in 1927. This move and the company signing The Carter Family have been identified as the moment country music was born. During this era, the country was headed toward the Great Depression, and many Americans found it easy to bond over their hard times. Key components of this early rendition of country music are yodeling and the fiddle, borrowing from folk music. By the 1930s, Hollywood stars, such as Gene Autry began noti...

Over the last few months, the connection between music and gender has intrigued me. Particularly, the rarity of men frequently listening to female artists. I don't know where this idea came to me, but I asked all my male friends which female artists they listen to, and to my surprise, most of them could not name one they had recently listened to. Even my closest friends, who are exposed to plenty of female artists by me, do not listen to any in their own time, even when they frequently acknowledge that they like certain artists. Women on the other hand listen to a more even gender breakdown, with a bit more women. I, for instance, have flipped between male and female artists as my number one most listened-to artist for years. Obviously, my friends are not representative of the entire world- so I took to statistics.  The Argus , an English newspaper, listed the top ten songs streamed on Spotify in 2022, and only one of them was by a female artist. Shockingly no, it's not by Tayl...

Whether it's a recognized tradition or a subconscious ritual, my family never fails to play our deceased loved one’s favorite music at their funeral services. My family is Protestant Christian and our funeral traditions are in line with the basics of our religion. Our funerals generally follow the same traditional routine, but despite aligning with the traditional religious practices for the events, the music of our funerals is rarely religious. I didn’t notice this factor was unique to my maternal family until I was older and began attending other families' funerals where the music primarily consisted of hymns. Our music for funerals usually consists of our loved one’s favorite songs or at least favorite artists. Since I am from the rural South, that usually consists of a lot of country music, despite how silly that sounds to say aloud. That’s not to say we play no Christian music at any funeral, just that the music reflects the music our loved one listened to in their lifetim...

  Hi everyone! My name is Kyleigh, and I'm a Junior at Converse :) I'm from the coast of SC, specifically Georgetown. I come from a very artistically inclined family but have never had any experience with playing music myself (aside from our extensive recorder curriculum). I grew up in dance and playing soccer, spending the rest of my time drawing or reading.  Currently, my favorite artists are The Growlers, Anna Bates, Indigo de Souza, and Pom Pom Squad. A song that I absolutely cannot get enough of is Last Man on Earth by Anna Bates. I love Bates' music, and this song in particular, primarily because of her timbre and accent. It's sort of this old-school, transatlantic voice that I rarely encounter in modern music. I also love the rhythm and beat of this song. It's one of those songs you can feel and resembles the energy of a powerful monologue in a play. As prefaced by the prompt, this isn't a song that can be related to necessarily; it takes place in this ...