Charles Hamm
Charles Edward Hamm (April 21, 1925 – October 16, 2011) was an American musicologist, writer, composer, and music educator. He is credited with being the first music historian to seriously study and write about American popular music. He also was one of the founders of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM).
Also recorded as Charles Edward Hamm
Charles Hamm
- Name
- Charles Edward Hamm
- Born
- 21 April 1925
- Birthplace
- Charlottesville, Virginia
- Died
- 16 October 2011
- Place of death
- Lebanon, New Hampshire
- Education
- University of Virginia
- Occupation
- Musicologist
- Nationality
- United States
- Honours
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- Languages
- English
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q5078733 · wikipedia · Charles Hamm
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Institutions cited
Bibliothèque nationale de France · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
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Biography
Biography
Charles Hamm was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, Hamm graduated from the University of Virginia in 1947 where he was a member of the Virginia Glee Club. Zachary Woolfe wrote in The New York Times that "Mr. Hamm was one of the first scholars to study the history of American popular music with musicological rigor and sensitivity to complex racial and ethnic dynamics, and both oral and written traditions. He traced pop’s history not just to its full recent flowering in the 1950s or to the 19th century and Stephen Foster, but also to the colonial-era compositions that created the context for all that followed." Hamm was a 1967 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. In 2002 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for American Music. He died of pneumonia, leaving three sons.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Charles Edward Hamm • Born — 21 April 1925 • Birthplace — Charlottesville, Virginia • Died — 16 October 2011 • Place of death — Lebanon, New Hampshire • Education — University of Virginia • Occupation — Musicologist
Documentary record
Charles Hamm (21 April 1925 – 16 October 2011) is described as a musicologist in the authority records of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Charles Hamm was born on 21 April 1925 in Charlottesville, Virginia. and died on 16 October 2011 in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
Works
Works
• Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (1979) • Music in the New World (1983) • Putting Popular Music in its Place (1995) • Irving Berlin: Songs From the Melting Pot (1997) • Graceland Revisited
Places
Named by the record
Places
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Charlottesville.
Birth place
Lebanon.
Death place
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Charles Hamm, revision 1364222589 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
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Cited by Wikipedia
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References
Citations
References
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 31 August 2026.
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