Musicians/Songwriters—Their Lives, Times, and Music

This pathfinder will guide you as you search IMC resources for information about musicians who write their own music and/or lyrics.  You will be able to access information about their lives (biography), their music (including song lyrics), and the historical background which influenced their work.

Books         eBooks        Databases         Websites        MLA Guide

Books--
The IMC has a large collection of books about musicians.
Conduct a Power Search for the name of the artist you are researching.  Most will be either in the 780 to 784 range or in the Biography section.

Jersey Cat-- Use Jersey Cat to order books from other libraries in the state.
Need Help? Click here

Ebooks-

Conduct a “power search” for your artist by  typing his or her name of your artist in the search box. This will search the IMC's collection of eBooks from Gale Virtual Reference Library in addition to Discovering Collection and Custom Newspapers

Databases –Click on the links to search for information about the musician and his or her times.

Biographies                                                         
American National Biography Online from Oxford University Press
Biography Collection Complete from Ebsco                                                                         
Biography Resource Center from Gale                                                                                  
Discovering Biography, which is part of the Discovering Collection from Gale 
Oxford Music Online from Oxford University Press           

Historical Information
African American History from Facts on File                                                                                    
American History from ABC-CLIO
American History  from Facts on File
American Women's History from Facts on File
Daily Life Online from Greenwood
Daily Life Through History from Greenwood
Discovering Collection - History from Gale
History Reference Center from Ebsco
History Reference Online from ABC-Clio
History Resource Center-World  from Gale
History Resource Center-US from Gale
SIRS Decades from Proquest
Women's Studies Encyclopedia from Greenwood
World History:  Modern  from ABC-CLIO
World History from Facts on File

Magazines - all of the databases  provide magazine and newspaper articles, but these databases that have complete and  current full-text articles and are archived from 1987. 

MasterFile Premier from Ebsco (for magazine articles and pictures- Contains Rolling Stone and People, among others)
SIRS Researcher from Proquest

Newspapers
InfoTrac Custom Newspapers from Gale
Newspaper Source - from Ebsco
Proquest's Historical Newspapers (1860 to 1997)

Websites – Be careful when using these.  Sometimes they move.

To find song lyrics:

http://www.sing365.com

http://www.elyrics.net

To get further information about the years in which the artists lived:

http://www.historicaltimeline.com/default.htm

http://www.animatedatlas.com/timeline.html

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