Michael T. Bertrand

Michael T. Bertrand is a historian of the American South and the modern United States and teaches at Tennessee State University. He has taught at the University of Memphis, Middle Tennessee State University, and the University of Mississippi, where he worked in the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

Professor Bertrand’s teaching and scholarship focus on the interrelationships between race, class, gender, region, and generations, particularly as they have evolved within the dynamics of popular music, popular culture, memory, and social change from the late 19th through the 20th and 21st centuries.

Bertrand co-founded and moderated H-Southern-Music, and also served as a music editor for the African American National Biography . He has appeared on PBS, Sky Arts, and History Channel documentaries produced by Henry Louis Gates, David Upshal, Bruce Sinofsky, and Michael Rose. He has written for CNN, The Conversation, Southern Cultures, Historically Speaking, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Dr. B has contributed chapters to numerous book projects; his latest, “Old Habits Die Hard: Elvis, or the Burden of a Southern Identity,” will be included in the forthcoming Rethinking Elvis (Oxford University Press). The author of Race, Rock, and Elvis (“Music in American Life” series, University of Illinois Press), Bertrand recently completed Southern History Remixed: On Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Dilemma of Race (“Southern Dissent” series, University Press of Florida).

Race, Rock, and Elvis

"This book is an eye-opener for anyone who wants to understand race, class, and popular culture in the modern South. It is broadly and solidly based in sources, and convincingly and readably argued that rock 'n' roll can be a sound means for recognizing the transformation of the lives of black and white working-class youths in the South of the 1950s and 1960s.

It needs to be read by sociologists, anthropologists, and historians, not only by musicologists." --  Carl N. Degler, past president of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Southern Historical Association

"The outstanding American studies book on Elvis is Michael Bertrand’s Race, Rock and Elvis . With a heavy emphasis on historical research, Bertrand examines rock and roll music as an expression and cause of social change in Southern history from 1945 to 1960, a period of great upheaval including the nascent civil rights movement and Southern urbanization." -- Monica Berger, "Scholarly Monographs on Rock Music: A Bibliographic Essay "

Southern History Remixed: On Rock 'n' Roll and the Dilemma of Race

Michael submitted to several online written interviews concerning Southern History Remixed. Chapter 16, the online journal on books of Humanities Tennessee, published All Shook: An Interview, and focused on "how rock ‘n’ roll united and divided Southerners across the color line." The Author's Corner centered on why Michael became a historian and wrote Southern History Remixed. The Florida Bookshelf blog concentrated on the historical importance of southern music as a representative voice of the region.

"This robust, clear, and pathbreaking study looks at the history of the South and the nation through the lens of popular music, and, more specifically: R&B, country, and rock 'n' roll. The argument and contribution are quite clear and spelled out well...Southern History Remixed is significant for a variety of reasons." -- Randall Stephens, author of The Devil's Music: How Christians Inpsired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll

"Part of the University Press of Florida’s "Southern Dissent Series," Southern History Remixed takes on the formidable task of reconciling race relations in the American South through the course of emerging poplar music styles that eventually led to the rock 'n' roll era. Focused primarily on the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Bertrand’s preface sets the stage for the discussion of gospel, blues, country, rhythm and blues, and jazz as styles that emerged during segregation. However, Bertrand does so with careful attention to crossover (white audiences listening to Black music), and in so doing ties the history of rock 'n' roll to the history of the changing racial climate in the South. Bertrand’s contends that rock 'n' roll influenced some white teenagers in taking a more inclusive view of Black music/culture, and this is irrefutable. From Nat “King” Cole being assaulted on stage in Alabama to Bo Diddley’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, Bertrand never strays from the premise that rock 'n' roll crossover represented racial dissent in the American South. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers." -- Choice

Why Southern Music Matters