American Song

"A unique and affordable online music-listening service by a highly regarded vendor. Incredible content. Simply amazing."— Library Journal

With more than 58,000 recordings online in streaming audio, American Song is an aural history of America. Much more than a repository of well known classics, this online collection includes music that relates to almost every walk of American life, every ethnic group, and every time period. You’ll find songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. There are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and anti-war protests. Listening to the music of the American experience brings an entirely new dimension to studies in history, music, literature, diversity, sociology, and related disciplines.

American Song is the definitive source for American roots music and pre-1960 American popular music. It encompasses the great American musical genres including country, folk, bluegrass, Western, old time, American Indian, blues, jazz, gospel, spirituals, and shape note singing with powerful recordings by artists such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peggy Seeger, Si Kahn, Lead Belly, Sleepy LaBeef, the New Lost City Ramblers, Otis Clay, Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, Nanci Griffith, The Lilly Brothers, Merle Travis, and many others.

The collection also includes all of the 17,000 recordings that were originally released in Alexander Street’s African American Song, together with an additional 18,000 recordings of just-added soul, doo-wop, funk and R&B, making this the largest online collection to document forms of black American musical expression and the ideal companion to Alexander Street’s full-text collection, African American Music Reference.

As part of Alexander Street’s Music Online suite of music reference and listening collections, American Song can be cross-searched together with all of your library’s Music Online subscriptions from a single interface. Imagine searching for ragtime and finding relevant recordings from American Song, together with sheet music, biographies, and reference works from African American Music Reference. And now, you can access all your Music Online content via your iPhone or iPod Touch!

• The largest online collection of American music available anywhere—more than 117,000 tracks.
• The highest quality content—the best music labels, artists, and recordings—with specially commissioned recordings of historical songs available only through American Song.
• The most comprehensive coverage with recordings representing every great American genre—from country, folk, bluegrass, and gospel to jazz, old-time, American Indian, children's songs, and more. Coverage includes songs from the pre-colonial period to modern day.
• Online streaming access 24/7 to recordings that don't take up shelf space; can't be stolen, damaged, or lost; never need to be re-shelved; allow multiple users to access simultaneously; and never result in a late fee. Access to the collection costs your library a fraction of what it would cost to purchase the CD's individually.
• Uniquely powerful search and browse capabilities powered by Alexander Street's Semantic Indexing™ let you find music related to important events in American history.
• Fully integrated and cross-searchable together with all of your library's other Music Online collections.
• Playlists and clip-making tools let you organize music listening content for quick access later together with links to any other Music Online content—and content from anywhere else on the Web! Permanent URLs let you share your playlists with other users—use them to organize course assignments, content for future listening or research, and more!
• The best recording quality—increasing to 320 kbps for most recordings
• On-the-go access via your handheld mobile device
• Searchable liner notes
• Affordable! Add American Song to your music holdings for as little as $395 for small libraries or $500 for large libraries (U.S. prices).

*not all content available in all geographic regions

PUBLICATION DETAILS

American Song is available online in streaming audio through annual subscription, works on both Macs and PCs, requires no special software beyond a standard Web browser, and contains over 58,000 recordings.

Contact sales@alexanderstreet.com or your sales representative for more information.