In many ways, the United States can be mapped by the musical influences of its cities and regions. There’s the Motown Sound of Detroit, the country stylings of Nashville, and the early hip-hop block parties of the Bronx. Elvis Presley, meanwhile, is synonymous with Memphis, Robert Johnson is known as the “King of the Delta Blues,” and both the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane called the San Francisco neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury home during the 1960s.
More importantly, the songs and sounds of those cities also played a role in the history of the country. From the Dust Bowl ballads of Woody Guthrie to the Civil Rights era anthems of Bob Dylan, music has not only reflected the times but influenced it as well.
To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States, the namesake of another songwriting chronicler of his times – the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music at Monmouth University in Long Branch, New Jersey – crafted a special celebration that tied together the music and history of the country to tell a story that was broader in scope than one might typically find at similar festivities.
“Going back to 2023, we wanted to make sure we were well-positioned to celebrate America’s 250th in 2026,” Melissa Kozlowski, director of curatorial affairs at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, explained. “As far as we are concerned, you really can’t tell the story of America without telling the story of its music. From there, Music America grew into different ways of exploring that idea – through exhibits, live music, scholarship, and more.”
The Music America series launched in 2024 with the premier of the Music America: Iconic Objects from America’s Music History exhibit at the LBJ Presidential Library & Museum that contains over one hundred musical artifacts, instruments, and stage costumes. The collection – which has also been featured at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum and the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame in Boston – includes such items as John Coltrane’s saxophone, the original hand-written lyrics for “Fight the Power” by Chuck D of Public Enemy, and the wedding dress worn by Madonna in the “Like a Virgin” music video.
“We wanted objects that were compelling on their own, of course, but more importantly, objects that opened doors into larger stories,” Melissa Kozlowski said of the items selected for the exhibit. “It wasn’t simply about assembling a collection of things that belonged to famous people. The question was always: What can we teach through this object? We also wanted the exhibition to reflect the extraordinary breadth of American music – different genres, eras, regions, communities and experiences. Taken together, the objects demonstrate that American music isn’t one neat, linear story. It’s a collection of traditions that are constantly borrowing from, responding to and influencing one another. The objects become the entry points into those larger connections.”
While perusing an exhibit like Music America: Iconic Objects from America’s Music History is both entertaining and educational, hearing the music performed live can provide a similar experience but on an entirely different level. “A listener doesn’t necessarily need a historian standing beside them explaining why a song matters,” Kozlowski noted. “Sometimes hearing it performed – particularly alongside music from other eras and traditions – allows people to make connections for themselves. And different people are going to make different connections based on their own lives and memories. To me, that isn’t a weakness of using music to interpret history; it’s one of its great strengths.”
The two-night Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us concert that was held at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music in June 2026 featured a vast musical lineup, including Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Kenny Chesney, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Valerie June, Keb’ Mo’, Nils Lofgren, Darlene Love, Public Enemy, Bruce Springsteen, Mavis Staples, and Jimmie Vaughan. The songs performed, meanwhile, were borrowed from the repertoires of such legends as Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Muddy Waters, and Neil Young.
“The title really provides the organizing idea,” Melissa Kozlowski explained. “These are songs that, in one way or another, helped shape us. We wanted music that could represent different eras, genres and experiences, but also songs that could carry some historical weight.”
She then added, “This wasn’t intended to be a definitive list of the ‘greatest American songs.’ That would be impossible – and probably start some fights! Instead, the idea was to use individual songs almost the way we use individual artifacts in an exhibition. Each song gives us an opportunity to explore a larger story, and together they reveal something about the American experience.”
The third component of the Music America series is an upcoming academic conference at Monmouth University during the weekend of October 16, 2026, entitled Music America: The Sounds and Songs that Shaped Us. The conference includes a full array of panels, some centered on specific genres like folk, jazz, and the Motown Sound, others on specific artists like Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, and Billy Joel, and still others explore protest songs and even the musical history of New Jersey. As one might expect, the works of Bruce Springsteen is represented as well.
“What struck me was how naturally many of the submissions reinforced the central premise of Music America – music gives us an extraordinary lens through which to examine much larger questions about American life,” Melissa Kozlowski noted of the conference. “Questions of race, identity, place, politics, protest, gender, technology, community and cultural exchange emerged in different ways. I also think the range of approaches was exciting. We weren’t looking for one particular definition of ‘American music’ or one methodology. The breadth of the submissions demonstrated just how many different histories can be accessed through music.”
Ultimately, it is the ways that music can be used to convey, connect, and interpret history that is most important to Melissa Kozlowski. “Music has documented American history, but it has also helped shape it,” she said. “It has given people a way to celebrate, protest, mourn, organize, worship, escape, challenge authority, build community – really, to make sense of the world around them. And so much of American music comes directly out of the experiences of ordinary people. If you follow the history of American music, you inevitably find yourself talking about race, immigration, war, politics, technology, gender, labor, geography, economics – essentially the history of the country itself.
“I always tell my students that learning history is not about memorizing names and dates and trivia,” she continued. “It’s about understanding people – what they experienced, what they feared, what they hoped for, and how they understood the world around them. Music gives us an incredible way into those conversations. It also makes history feel immediate. You can tell someone about a particular moment in American history, but then you can play them a song created in that moment and suddenly there is an emotional connection that a textbook sometimes simply cannot provide. And, frankly, music is fun! If a song or an artifact gets someone curious enough to ask another question about the past, we’ve done our job.”
In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the United States, the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music created a series of events under the Music America banner that tell the story of the country in a variety of ways. Each can be considered successful in their own right, but taken together, they achieved something truly unique and groundbreaking.
“What I love most about the Music America family is that none of these things exists in isolation,” Melissa Kozlowski explained. “An artifact can lead you to a song. A song can lead you to a historical question. A scholar can give you a completely different way of hearing that song. And then a live performance can make all of that history feel immediate again. That really reflects what we’re trying to do at the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music more broadly. We aren’t interested in music simply as entertainment or nostalgia – although there is certainly room for both! We are interested in what music can tell us about who Americans have been, who we are, and how we got here. And I think Music America is a wonderful demonstration of just how many different ways there are to tell that story.”
A museum exhibit, concert series, and academic conference – the perfect trifecta for exploring the history of Music America.
Anthony Letizia