Lawrence Levine on the Blues

Produced in association with Visible Knowledge Project

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Lawrence Levine, Professor of History at George Mason University, received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1962. Levine, formerly the Margaret Byrne Professor of History at Berkeley, is an internationally renowned interdisciplinary scholar whose work has focused on American culture. In 1983 he was one of the very first historians to be awarded a MacArthur Prize; most recently he served as President of the Organization of American Historians. Among his many books, probably the best known are Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom, and The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and History.

"Worry Blues" (sung by Jesse Lockett)
(see transcript)

"Two White Horses Standin' in Line" (sung by Smith Cason)
(see transcript)

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