Dr. Charles L. Hughes is the Director of the Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College, where he designs courses, programs, and partnerships. Dr. Hughes received his Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012, and previously served as the Turley Memphis Center's Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow. His recent course offerings include The History of Memphis; Beale Street: The Past, Present and Future; Elvis Presley and America; and The Music of the American South. His acclaimed first book, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, was named one of the Best Music Books of 2015 by Rolling Stone and No Depression, one of Paste Magazine’s Best Nonfiction Books of the Year, and one of Slate’s “Overlooked Books” of 2015. He has published essays and given numerous talks in front of a range of audiences, including featured engagements at the Center for Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library & Archives. He is currently working on a book about the history of African-Americans and professional wrestling in the United States, as well as several articles. He is a voter for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a participant in the Nashville Scene’s Year-End Country Music Poll.
Selected Publications:
- Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, University of North Carolina Press, 2015
- “‘Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky’: The Genius of Allen Toussaint,” New Black Man, 2015
- Review of Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll by Peter Guralnick, Washington Post, 2015
- “Cotton interweaves Memphis’s complex story,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, 2015
- “Country music’s next star is a young black woman. That’s not as ‘Crazy’ as it sounds,” Post Everything/Washington Post.com, 2015
- “A Cornerstone of American Soul: Remembering Ben E. King,” New Black Man, 2015
- “Percy Sledge and the Southern Soul Revolution,” The Rock Hall Blog, 2015
- “Creating ‘The Muscle Shoals Sound’,” in Alabama Heritage, University of Alabama Press, Fall 2014
- “You’re My Soul Song: How Southern Soul Changed Country Music,” in Pecknold, ed., Hidden In The Mix: The African-American Experience In Country Music, Duke University Press, 2013
- “Allowed To Be Free: Bob Dylan And The Black Freedom Movement,” in Sheehy, and Swiss, editors, Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan’s Road From Minnesota To The World, University of Minnesota Press, 2009
- “The Boogie Woogie Rumble: An Obituary For Bo Diddley,” Popular Music & Society, Northern Illinois University Press, Vol. 32, Issue 1, February 2009
- "Rebuilding The 'Wall Of Sound': Bruce Springsteen and Early 1960s American Pop Music" in Womack, editor, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, Penn State University Press, Vol. 9, No. 1, Fall 2007
Education
