This volume begins with Franklin's life history, told in his own words. In an afterword, Jeff Titon reviews the African-American sermon tradition and Franklin's place in it.

Applied studies scholarship has triggered a not-so-quiet revolution in the discipline of ethnomusicology. The current generation of applied ethnomusicologists has moved toward participatory action research, involving themselves in musical communities and working directly on their behalf. The essays in The Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology, edited by Svanibor Pettan and Jeff Todd Titon, theorize applied ethnomusicology, offer histories, and detail practical examples with the goal of stimulating further development in the field.
The essays in the book, all newly...

Hailed as a classic in music studies when it was first published in 1977, Early Downhome Blues is a detailed look at traditional country blues artists and their work.

Combining musical analysis and cultural history approaches, Titon examines the origins of downhome blues in African American society. He also explores what happened to the art form when the blues were commercially recorded and became part of the larger American culture. From forty-seven musical transcriptions, Titon derives a grammar of early downhome blues melody. His book is enriched with the recollections of...