In this episode of "Music and Politics" we shine a light on Charleston, SC, a city in the Deep South once the largest and richest in Colonial America. Seen from this perspective, the history of America and its musics looks very different: at once dominated by the tyranny of slavery and also much more African. As a centre of Gullah culture, Charleston saw efforts to preserve the spiritual song of slavery and to construct stage art, from a play to an opera, based on the Black Experience. Gullah refers to, an American Creole, a language and a culture that preserved West African traditions, from music to cuisine to handicrafts like nowhere else in the country. In the first half of this episode we examine the meaning and form of the "Spiritual," a text of resistance and communication, denied the use of percussion. We interrogate the particularly perverse project of the descendants of slave owners to preserve and even perform spirituals themselves. In the second half of this episode we share a medley from this past summer's Gospel Gullah Fest and reflect on Gospel as a retrenchment of the sacred, as a response to secular and often erotic popular music. Both speak a similar language of love and ecstasy reflecting the complex layers and multidimensional tradition of America's most propounding and rich musical heritage.

In this episode, we discuss the Jewish politics of pop and punk with conversations about Lou Reed and Brian Epstein that ranges from fashion to the avant garde, drug addiction, the demimonde and gay sexuality in an era of erotic prohibition. We are glad to feature Steven Lee Beeber, the author of "The Heebie Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret Jewish History of Punk," that argues for Punk as the most Jewish of pop musics. Reed, considered the godfather of punk by many, was guided throughout by a New York Jewish sensibility, an affinity for the margins and daring outsiders. We are then joined by Vivek Toward, author of the bestselling graphic novel "The Fifth Beatle," that convincingly argues for Brian Epstein as truly deserving of that moniker as it was he who masterminded the Beatles in the image and format that made them world famous. Epstein, embodied the Jewish experience of the musically minded mediating middle man, who fashioned for the wider world a perfectionist pop presentation of what was to become the biggest group of all time. Stay tuned and thanks for listening! Please don't forget, to rate, like and subscribe and support us on Patreon.

Please tune in for this conversation with cultural historian Dr Jon Gentry on "degenerate music," what it is - what it means and why it matters! Perhaps more familiar as "middle class panic" against "dangerous" popular music like the backlash against Hip Hop in the 90s, this is a history that reaches back to Darwin and the 19th Century. Taking a term from biology, inserting it into politics and then using it to police the arts has had fateful consequences for the evolution of music and popular culture. Don't forget to like and subscribe and please leave any and all comments and feedback!

In this continuation of our deep dive into Wagner, Marx and Meyerbeer which explore maybe first and most total instance of "cancel culture" in music: Wagner's "professional assassination" of Meyerbeer. Wagner shifted a whole climate of public opinion and rendered what had been beloved into something superficial, antiquated, and ultimately forgotten. Yet in a manner way ahead of his time, Meyerbeer dramatised the dangers of fanaticism, fundamentalism and gave pride of place to the outsider, the subaltern and the abused minority. Join us as we listen in and try in some small measure to rectify this historic injustice.

The roots of all modern fantasy series from Star Wars to Lord of the Rings can mostly be found in Wagner and his 16 hour music-dramatic tetralogy "the Ring of the Nibelungen." Join us as we investigate some of this vast work and see the influence of Marxism, nationalism and ultimately the pseudo-science of race on this vast canvas of giants, "dwarfs," magic helmets, swords and gold rings. In this two part lecture, we also explore Wagner's vexed relationship with his musical mentor, the most successful opera composer of his day, Giacomo Meyerbeer. In almost every sense the antithesis of Wagner, Meyerbeer composed in history not myth, education not fantasy, and empathy with the downtrodden rather than heroic triumphalism. Little known today, Meyerbeer was the target of career assassination driven by Wagner, a campaign largely successful until this day. Stay tuned for the second half to the lecture next week and happy listening.

And here continues and concludes the full length lecture on Beethoven and Napoleon. A full transcript should also be available as the discussion continues in the complex performance history and the legacy of Beethoven's Fidelio. From its premiere to an audience of French occupation troops to its use by the Nazis, the shadow side of Beethoven's legacy mirrors that of Napoleon. Bombast and even terror are not seldom heard in the sound world of Beethoven and despite Napoleon's stabilisation of the Republican system his obsessive drive to conquest and battle proved his undoing and marked him as an occupier. Thank you for listening and a follow up full length lecture on Wagner and Meyerbeer will be posted within a week., also in two parts.

This episode is a longer format full length lecture on Beethoven and Napoleon. This episode is part one of two parts. This covers in greater depth Beethoven's only opera Fidelio and his 3rd Symphony or the "Eroica," as well as parallels between his life and the work of Napoleon. Political and philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment and the transition into Romanticism are also discussed. Even today, it is scarcely possible to discuss music or politics without some reference to Beethoven or Napoleon who expanded the possibilities of the conceivable in both realms.

In this episode, we pick up the conversation on theories of modernity with a focus on the "color line" as music from the global African Diaspora makes its way into the European art concert hall. We will confront early European perceptions of jazz and consider the theories of Dubois and Stoddard, and listen to the first "jazz-like" compositions of established European art-composers like Debussy, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. We also meditate on the original aims of Ragtime pioneer Scott Joplin and the legacies of George Gershwin revisiting the debate about cultural appropriation and kitsch.