Humans have inhabited what is now Missouri for over 12,000 years. The Mississippian Culture that flourished beginning in approximately the 9^th century and created cities and mounds, began to decline in the 14^th century.  French missionaries and fur traders, arriving in the late 1600s, encountered the Osage Nation in the southwest, the Missouria Nation in the northwest, and the Illini Nation in the east.

Frenchmen founded St. Genevieve in 1735 and St. Louis in 1764, settling mostly in towns to the south on the Mississippi River. After a brief period of Spanish rule, the United States bought the Missouri territory from France as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. There were still a few thousand French settlers in the area, but most of those who followed were of English or Scots origin who had arrived by ship and had first settled in Tennessee, Kentucky, or elsewhere in the Southeast United States.

Missouri played a central role in the westward expansion of the United States, as memorialized by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The Pony Express, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail and California Trail all began in Missouri.

In the early years, slaves were brought to the Missouri territory to work in lead mines and on farms, and on the Mississippi riverboats and ferries.  Missouri entered the Union as a slave state in 1821 as part of the Missouri Compromise.

After the Civil War, freed slaves came north looking for work, and during the Great Migration, 1916 to 1970, over six million African Americans from rural areas of the South moved to urban areas in the Northern and Western states, including Missouri.

Immigration from overseas swelled in the 1830s when large numbers of Germans began to settle the farm country west of St. Louis and south of the Missouri River in an area known as the “Missouri Rhineland.”  Beginning in the 1840s, both German and Irish immigrants settled in the larger urban centers as well.

Before rail travel was widely available, the Ohio-Mississippi-Missouri river system was a major means of transport to Missouri.  After 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was completed, immigrants entering the US on the East Coast were more easily able to reach Missouri.  In the 1880s, St. Louis and Kansas City attracted Italians, Greeks, Poles, and other eastern Europeans.  In the 20^th century, people from many parts of the world, including Hispanics, Asians, and Africans came and made Missouri their home.

Early American fiddle music was played by the colonists and the immigrants who brought their native music with them to America, playing on the easily- carried violin or fiddle as it was known by folk musicians. New England fiddle music was influenced by Irish and Scottish music, while Southern styles developed their own traditions. Regional styles developed around the country, drawing from many nationalities as well as music performed by African-American musicians. Fiddle music continues to the present day and has contributed to both country music and bluegrass.

Country music is a genre of popular music that originated in the rural South in the 1920s, with roots in fiddle music, old-time music, blues and various types of folk music. Originally called “hillbilly music” and sometimes called “country and western,” the name “country music” or simply “country” gained popularity in the 1940s. Many recent country artists use elements of pop and rock. Country music often consists in ballads with simple forms and harmonies, accompanied by guitar or banjo with a fiddle. Country bands now often include a steel guitar, bass and drums.

Bluegrass is a genre of American music that began in the mid-1940s with Bill Monroe and his band, the Blue Grass Boys, with a style of roots acoustic music played on mandolin, banjo, guitar, bass and fiddle. Monroe played the mandolin and sang high tenor, often called a “high lonesome sound.” Monroe’s band included banjo great Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt. Bluegrass songs are often ballads and dance tunes played at fast tempos, and typically each member of the band takes a virtuosic solo on each song. Progressive bluegrass utilizes electric instruments and incorporate elements of jazz, rock and world music.

Ragtime preceded jazz and was a popular style of American music from about 1895 to 1917. Ragtime was created by honky-tonk pianists, borrowing from syncopated music played by uneducated musicians from the south who were playing banjo, guitar, mandolin and fiddle, and is known for its steady rhythm in the bass and a syncopated melody, usually in two-four time. Ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin and many other ragtime composer/pianists became a fad and the published sheet music was widely sold throughout the country and also spread to Europe. Scott Joplin, known as the “King of Ragtime,” was the best known ragtime composer and his composition “The Entertainer” caused a revival of ragtime in 1974 when it was used in the popular motion picture “The Sting.”

The blues originated in the rural South of the United States in the late 1800s, drawing from African traditions, work songs and field hollers, spirituals, and narrative folk ballads. The blues employ a call-and-response pattern, blue notes (often a flatted third and seventh) and other bent pitches, and specific chord progressions. A twelve-bar blues (having twelve measures) is a common form. Rural blues musicians performed either without accompaniment or accompanied themselves on guitar or banjo. As African-Americans migrated to the cities in the 1940s, urban blues developed, using electric guitars and other amplified instruments, and led to the development of Rhythm & Blues and Rock and Roll. A Muddy Waters song is entitled “The Blues Had a Baby and Called It Rock and Roll.”

Rhythm and Blues, often called R&B, originated in African-American communities in the 1940s and the term was originally used to describe music marketed to African Americans.  R&B developed from electric blues and incorporated elements of gospel and soul music, and led directly to Rock and Roll.  Commercial R&B bands often consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes back-up vocalists.  The term came to have other meanings in later years and was used to describe many American artists who were not African-American, as well as British bands.

Jazz is a uniquely American music genre that began in New Orleans around 1900, and is characterized by improvisation, strong rhythms including syncopation and other rhythmic invention, and enriched chords and tonal colors.  Early jazz was followed by Dixieland, swing, bebop, fusion, and free jazz.  Piano, brass instruments especially trumpets and trombones, and woodwinds, especially saxophones and clarinets, are often featured soloists.

Many cultures have their “classical music,” meaning music held in the highest esteem with the longest history.  The term often means western or European classical music, almost always written music, rather than music such as folk music that is passed down via the oral tradition, or music such as jazz that is improvised by the performer.  Much music in western classical music is in forms such as symphonies, choral works, concertos, chamber music and operas.

Hip Hop culture emerged on the streets of New York in the 1970s, when African American DJs created a new sound. At block parties, DJs played records two at a time, mixing and scratching the records for effect.  They talked over the top of the music, a style which soon became known as rapping. The new sounds inspired an acrobatic new dance style known as break dancing, and rival gangs held dance-offs, competing in a non-violent way. Hip Hop culture today has four major elements: MCing or rapping, DJing or scratching with turntables, break dancing and graffiti art.

Hip hop music, sometimes called rap music (though rapping is not always a part), usually features a vocal style of speaking or chanting over the rhythmic beats and other music. Hip hop often includes sampling of music from records of other musicians, and it may include beatboxing or synthesized rhythmic beats.

Rock ‘n’ Roll originated in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, combining elements of blues, rhythm and blues, and country music in a style known for a heavy beat and simple melodies. A classic rock band has two electric guitars (one lead and one rhythm), bass and drum kit.  Early jazz led to the classic rock era of the late 1960s, with offshoots including folk rock, country rock, jazz rock, heavy metal, punk rock and alternative rock.