Music America

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Music runs through the veins of America. Since the nation’s inception two and a half centuries ago, music has informed our national identity, interpreted it, and inspired it. Whether sacred or secular, urban or rural, folk or pop, classical or experimental, it all adds up to the soundtrack of our American story.

MUSIC AMERICA tells the complex story of American music through instruments, hand-written lyrics, books, photographs, costumes, and other objects from major artists across genres and generations. Featuring more than 100 legendary artifacts from artists ranging from Public Enemy to Elvis Presley, the exhibit showcases stage outfits worn by Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Boston’s Tom Scholz, and Elvis, Chuck D’s handwritten “Fight the Power” lyrics, and items from Bo Diddley, Ella Fitzgerald, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and more.

This exhibit is curated by and presented in partnership with the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music.

The Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music preserves the legacy of Bruce Springsteen and celebrates the history of American music and its diversity of artists and genres. Our mission is two-fold. The Springsteen Archives serves as the official repository for materials related to Springsteen and the E Street Band, including photographs, historic memorabilia, oral histories, and more. The Center for American Music explores American music more broadly. We accomplish this by producing exhibitions, concerts, and educational programming that explores and honors the cultural impact of American music past, present, and future. For further information, please visit www.springsteenarchives.org.