Dr. Charles L. Hughes is Associate Professor of History and Urban Studies. Dr. Hughes earned his Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in African American Studies. From 2015 to 2024, he was Director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes. His research focuses on popular culture in the United States, most specifically African American music and its relationship to larger historical changes. His courses include Black Music and American History; Disability Histories; The History of Memphis; Beale Street: Past, Present and Future; 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, and in 2021 he published Why Bushwick Bill Matters, a critical biography of the disabled hip-hop star. He is co-editor of the American Music Series at the University of Texas Press, and he also serves on the faculty editorial board for the journal Southern Cultures, where he guest-edited a special issue on disability in the South. He has published numerous essays and given numerous talks for a range of audiences and was a regular contributor to two seasons of the Teaching Hard History podcast produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice project. In 2023, he wrote the liner notes for the 10th-anniversary reissue of Jason Isbell’s celebrated album Southeastern. He is currently working on a book about the history of African Americans and professional wrestling in the United States, as well as articles on disability in popular music. He is the co-founder of the digital music newsletter No Fences Review, and he is a voter for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Selected Publications
- Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, University of North Carolina Press, 2015
- Why Bushwick Bill Matters, University of Texas Press, 2021
- “If You Don’t Like Millie Jackson…,” Oxford American, 2022
- “Three Lessons to Learn from Morgan Wallen’s Racial Reckoning,” Slate, 2022
- “Freedom Songs: Building a Civil Rights Playlist,” in Jeffries, Hasan, ed., Teaching the Civil Rights Movement (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press), 2019
- "I’m The Other One: O.B. McClinton and the Racial Politics of Country Music in the 1970s and 1980s," in Jackson, Mark, ed., The Honky Tonk on the Left: Progressive Country Music (Amherst, MA: University of Massaschusetts Press), 2018
- “‘You Pay One Hell of a Price Being Black’: Rufus Thomas and the Racial Politics of Memphis Music,” in Goudsouzian, Aram/McKinney, Charles, eds., An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky), 2018
- “Country Music and the Recording Industry," in Stimeling, Travis, ed., Oxford Handbook of Country Music (New York: Oxford University Press), 2017
- “Sacrifice a Whole Lot: Memphis and Marco Pave,” New Black Man, 2017
- “ ‘Get In Formation’: Recent Scholarship on Popular Music and American Identities,” American Quarterly, September 2016
- “‘Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky’: The Genius of Allen Toussaint,” New Black Man, 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
- “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
Education
