calderwood

My final project consists of a database of blues lyrics and a separate site that provides search hints as well as general information about the database and me.  At present, the database contains the lyrics of 66 songs by 21 artists from Race recordings made in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s.  As I indicated on the About Blues Lyrics site, I am painfully aware that my project is still very much under construction.  I found it difficult to leave my project alone this last week, but at least doing so has put me in a better position to assess the strengths and weaknesses of my work so far.

When I first set out to create a searchable collection of blues lyrics, my decision seemed relatively unproblematic.  I have had a longstanding interest in blues, especially blues recordings from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.  Over the years, I have collected some 2000 blues songs from this era, read extensively on the topic, and written several papers that analyzed blues lyrics or employed them as historical evidence.  For all these reasons, I did not have to conduct much additional research on my topic; instead, my research focused on whether there was a need for a searchable collection of blues lyrics and how I could go about creating one.

I soon became convinced that there was, in fact, a need for my project.  Oddly, just as I began to consider creating a searchable collection of blues lyrics, two of my fellow graduate students told me that they had wanted an easy way to find blues lyrics on a certain topic.  After searching the internet, I determined that a large, searchable collection of blue lyrics did not currently exist.  There were, however, several large collections of blues lyrics (without a search function).  These sites, most notably Harry’s Blues Lyrics, seemed to make my job easier, as I could simply copy the lyrics from other collections and add them to my own collection.  By copying the lyrics in other collections, I did not have to transcribe lyrics from the recordings themselves.

Despite the ease with which I could gather lyrics, the process of collecting them posed some challenges right at the outset.  I soon realized that even existing collections as large as Harry’s Blues Lyrics contain only a fraction of the blues songs from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.  (In fact, a few notable artists, such as Furry Lewis, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Leroy Carr, are missing from these collections).  The fact that none of these collections are exhaustive means that, at some point, I would eventually have to begin transcribing lyrics from the CDs I own.  I also noticed that these collections lack metadata regarding the date and the location of the original recordings.  I would have to supply this information myself, but often doing so involved more than simply looking at a CD’s liner notes.  As I looked more at existing collections, I discovered that they contained a surprising amount of errors.  Whenever the lyric in an existing collection did not jive with my memory of the lyric, I listened to the song and made the necessary corrections; nevertheless, by making use of other collections, I expect that I inadvertently introduced errors into my own collection.

An additional challenge arose from my desire to create a searchable collection, as the attempt to accurately reflect a singer’s pronunciation often runs counter to the kind of standardization needed to facilitate searches.  Even though all the lyrics in my database came from other collections, I have edited most of these lyrics in order to better facilitate searches.  Given my time constraints, I had to invent ways to resolve the tension between accuracy and standardization as I went along.  I am not sure that I would make the same choices if I had had more time to deliberate, but at least my About Blues Lyrics site indicates the kinds of decisions I made.  If I decide to stick with these decisions, this site will serve as a reminder of how to continue negotiating the conflict between accuracy and standardization.  On the other hand, if I decide to invent new rules, the information on this site will help me undo the edits I have already made.

Aside from the challenges involved in collecting and editing lyrics, the choice of which search tool to use proved more difficult than I had anticipated.  Early on, I regarded ProQuest, with its ability to perform Boolean searches across a defined number of categories, as a model for my collection.  At first, I hoped that using XML or SQL would allow me to enable the type of searching possible on ProQuest; however, once I realized that learning either would take a considerable amount of time, I ruled both of them out.  Greenstone Digital Library, which is one of the first open source search tools I encountered in this class, did not really enable the type of searching I wanted.  Another tool, PhiloLogic, is closer to what I wanted, but installing it requires more direct access to a server (and more technical knowledge) than I currently have.  Finally, Josh recommended using either Lazybase or Google Base.

After playing around with both, I ruled out using Google Base for a number of reasons.  First, the people at Google review each record uploaded to Google Base before it publishes, which means I would not have complete control over the content of my collection.  Second, even though Google Base would allow visitors to search only the lyrics I uploaded, most visitors would probably search all the content on Google Base and only encounter links to the lyrics that I uploaded somewhere near the bottom of a large list of search results.  Third, unlike Google itself, Google Base does not have any advanced search functions.  Finally, any lyrics that I uploaded on Google Base would attain a relatively high profile, which means that getting angry messages from copyright holders would be all the more likely.

Given all of these considerations, I ultimately settled on using Lazybase.  Fortunately, this decision resulted in several unintended benefits.  I found that I could give my site a memorable public URL, which is lazybase.com/blueslyrics.  I realized that I could create a number of interconnected databases on Lazybase.  This aspect allowed me to define certain data types that link to artists (i.e., Gender, Genre, Region, and Song) and other data types that link to songs (i.e., Artist, Year, and Recording location).  I also discovered that, even though Lazybase provides several advanced search functions, its quick search function is quite useful in that it displays search results by data type.  For example, when I perform a quick search for the word “Georgia,” Lazybase provides a results page that, instead of listing seven undifferentiated results, shows one match in Region, five matches in Song, and one match in Artist.  The fact that Lazybase displays search results listed by data type, and it links various data types together, will help visitors find what they are looking for (and locate related entries) faster.  These two aspects also make Lazybase similar to the Internet Movie Database.

Lazybase, however, proved to be a bit inappropriate for my purposes.  Clearly, it was not intended for containing lyrics or any other large piece of text.  In Lazybase, text fields cannot contain more than a line of text, so, in order to display the lyrics of a song properly, I had to create text fields called Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, and so on.  Then, instead of simply uploading or copying an entire song lyric to Lazybase, I had to copy and paste each line separately.  Entering lyrics into Lazybase is thus a relatively time-consuming process, one that increases the number of opportunities for errors in the transfer of data.  Additionally, when a visitor views All Songs, the display is unusually large and messy because there is no way to hide all the Line fields.

I also discovered that Lazybase was not really suited for any large, constantly growing collection.  By default, it displays entries in the order they have been created.  Although visitors can elect to view the full list of entries in each data type alphabetically or chronologically, the list of links related to one data type (e.g., all the Songs by the Artist “Blind Willie McTell”) will always appear in the order they were created.  Unless I want to start my database all over and add each entry in a carefully planned fashion, each list of links will appear quite disorganized once the database is large enough to contain dozens of links related to each data type.

A final problem with Lazybase, one that I touched on when I mentioned Line fields cannot be hidden, is that there is little I can do to modify the appearance of Lazybase.  Although appearance encompasses the aesthetic look of my site, I am more concerned by my inability to frame the site with explanatory information and search hints.  While I can embed data from Lazybase in a table in another website, I cannot transfer Lazybase’s search functions to the same site.  As a result, I had to create a separate site that provides explanatory information and links to Blues Lyrics.  Unfortunately, it is very likely that a visitor might encounter my Blues Lyrics database without ever knowing there is a separate About Blues Lyrics site.

Now that I have thought more about this issue, I realize that I can add another data type to my Blues Lyrics database called “About Blues Lyrics.”  This data type would consist of a single entry—a link to my About Blues Lyrics site.  Even so, I expect that Lazybase may be too ill-suited for my purposes.  It was fun to play around with Lazybase, especially with its ability to interconnect databases, but I think I will have to look for another search tool as I continue my project.  Hopefully, the next tool that I use will resemble Lazybase in terms of providing a personalized URL, interconnecting databases, and differentiating search results.  At the same time, I want the tool to be better suited for displaying lyrics and supporting a large, constantly growing collection.  A more ideal tool would also allow me to house the search functions and the explanatory information within a single website.

With a little more time and money, I could perhaps learn SQL, rent some server space, and establish a domain name.  I know there are reference books that contain the lyrics and recording information for the same recordings with which I am dealing; with more time, I would consult these books in order to help me transcribe lyrics, to obtain metadata, and to supplement my reliance on other web-based lyrics collections.  Ideally, I would like my website to contain lyrics for more than 40 artists and 750 songs.  I would also like to include a lengthier discussion (perhaps as long as this post-mortem) of the choices I made in transcribing lyrics, as well as my rationale for making these choices.  (I had also considered provide links to other online lyrics collections, but, given the amount of errors on these sites, I am not sure that I want to endorse using them.)

If I ever accomplish all of these goals, then I would consider supplementing the lyrics with explanatory footnotes, including biographies (or links to biographies) for each artists, and providing streaming audio for every song.  These considerations, of course, are a long way off.         

My Blues Lyrics site is now available.  A separate site, on my AU server space, provides information About Blues Lyrics.  Check them both out, and enjoy!

Not long after editing Wikipedia’s article on film noir, I realized that the bibliography still had a glaring omission: Borde and Chaumeton’s A Panorama of American Film Noir was not on the list.  A Panorama of American Film Noir was the first book-length work on film noir, and contemporary writers continue to refer to it when they discuss film noir.  For these reasons, I added it.

To be honest, when I returned to the Wikipedia article today, I half expected that my previous edits would be gone.  When I contribute to Wikipedia, it’s hard to shake the feeling that I am writing in the sand, and that another contributor will erase my efforts.  Contributing to Wikipedia seems to require a certain sense of trust, one that I hope to develop.

I enjoyed reading Roy Rosenzweig’s article on Wikipedia and its implications for professional historians.  I agree with him that Wikipedia is an important model for historians to study. We historians could learn a thing or two about the benefits of voluntary, collaborative work.  As someone who is also a practicing poet, I have in recent years discovered the benefits of collaborative writing.  Writing with another writer, and with that other writer’s habits in mind, not only liberates me from my own idiosyncrasies but also gives me more impetus to write.  I imagine voluntary, collaborative effort would have a similar effect on the historical process.

Whether professional historians like it or not, Wikipedia is an incredibly effective tool for providing historical information to a general audience.  Even though some of the practices of Wikipedians run counter to those of professional historians, I agree with Rosenzweig that we as historians ought to contribute to Wikipedia in the hope of improving it, rather than denounce it for its flaws.

As an alternative to contributing to Wikipedia, many historians are keeping blogs.  I really liked The History Carnival, which mimics the form of a journal; however, instead of including peer-reviewed articles, it contains peer-reviewed blog.  One of the most interesting blogs I found on this site was Rob Macdougall’s Superman I: Secret Origins.  Although not exactly in a journal form, The History Blogosphere also contains links to several peer-reviewed blogs.  One of the most interesting blogs, not only in terms of content but also presentational style, that I found on this site was 1947project.

I was surprised by how many supposedly academic blogs reflect, at leat in part, the same sort of “geek priorties” that Rosenzweig ascribes to Wikipedia.  For example, at Easily Distracted, Timothy Burke’s thought-provoking story about his experience as a discussant in an academic seminar is preceded by a discussion of the computer game Oblivion.  At Break of Day in the Trenches, Esther McCallum-Stewart devotes as much attention to science fiction and computer games as to her primary academic interest, the impact of World War I on popular culture.

I believe scholars like Burke and McCallum-Stewart have every right to a forum in which they can communicate all their personal interests, academic or otherwise.  At the same time, I am left wondering whether the kind of writing they are doing on their blogs is, by purely academic standards, any better than the kind of writing that appears on Wikipedia.  Am I betraying my profession by saying that I sometimes prefer the collaborative writing produced by Wikipedia to the geeky blogs of science fiction-reading, computer game-playing historians? 

I had only heard of Wikipedia a few months ago.  The first and only time I consulted it happened a couple weeks ago, when I was searching for a website that provided a good overview of film noir.  Overall, I would say that Wikipedia’s article on film noir was the best thing I found.

When I reread the article today, I was quite impressed with how nuanced its discussion of film noir is.  It acknowledges the fact that the term, invented by French critics, ”was unknown to the filmmakers and actors [in Hollywood] while they were creating the classic films noirs.”  By desribing what “some critics” vs. “other critics” argue, it also implicity acknowledges the problem of defining film noir.  In addition, the article carefully mentions the European influences on film noir, lists dozens of film noir’s common characteristics, and names a few of the movies whose status as film noir is debatable.

(Interestingly enough, the discussion page demonstrates how nuance can easily devolve into–or emererge from?–hair-splitting.  The majority of the page contain a snarky debate over the plural form of film noir: is it films noirs, films noir, or noir films?)

Encarta’s article on film noir suffers by comparison.  Besides being mucher shorter, it generally fails to acknowledge the problematic nature of the term “film noir.”  In its own flatly-stated way, the Encarta article seems to sidestep the debate, to describe a consensus that doesn’t really exist.  Wikipedia, however, represents a collaborative effort and thus seems to reflect a genuine consensus regarding the term.

Another advantage Wikipedia’s article on film noir has over Encarta’s is that it contains a bibliography.  Of course, as someone who has read much on film noir, I thought the bibliography needed improvement–and so I provided it.  Some of my edits were minor–I corrected mechanical errors in a few places, and I provided the publisher’s name and (where appropriate) the copyright date for Hirsch’s The Dark Side of the Screen and for all the books by Alain Silver.

(My information regarding the publisher and date of Kaplan’s Women in Film Noir differed from what was on Wikipedia, so I “corrected” that as well.  I realize, though, that my information may be for an older edition.  Perhaps, in the process of correcting, I am also introducing a new mistake.)

The biggest change I made was in adding four more books: Keaney’s Film Noir Guide, Lyons’s Death on the Cheap, Selby’s Dark City, Spicer’s Film Noir, and Telotte’s Voices in the Dark.  The first three books are essentially film catalogs that deserve to be read and compared to Silver and Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference.  The fourth book, in my mind, provides the best, most concise overview of film noir and the scholarship surrounding it.  The fifth book is a classic scholarly work on film noir; whether the contributors to this article realize it or not, their discussion of film noir makes use of Telotte’s thesis.

I could have added even more titles to the bibliography, but then I would have started to include critical works that are not necessarily appropriate for a beginning reader.  By this logic, I was inclined to attempt to remove a very scholarly cultural analysis that is currently on the list–Rabinowitz’s Black & White & Noir.  Not wanting to offend the person who put it there, or to seem like I was discouraging anyone from reading it, I did not bother to remove it.

In any case, I think my edits represent an improvement.  I added a classic work and very recent books to the bibliography.  The publisher names and copyright dates that I provided might help potential readers locate these works more easily.  If these readers manage to look at any of the three film catalogs I added, they will find an alternative to the list of films in Silver and Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference.  Hopefully, these additions will lead at least a few people to a greater understanding of film noir.

When reading Chapter 7 of Digital History (”Owning the Past”), I was disheartened at times and encouraged at others.  As a historian, the prospect that so many aspects of our recent history will be off limits or exceedingly difficult to obtain for several generations sickens me.  I understand producers deserve certain rights, but the courts seem to be erring too far on the side of producers at the public’s expense.  Fortunately, the public still has rights when engaging in “fair use” of copyrighted materials.  Cohen and Rosenzweig’s contention that, in the interest of fostering a “creative commons,” historians need to exercise this right encouraged me.  Despite copyright restrictions, historians have a right to do what they do, and they must exersize that right if they hope to keep it.

In their discussion of “fair use” on the web, I think one component was missing.  It seems to me that we can feel reasonably comfortable about digitizing historical materials when there are comparable materials currently available online.  In my case, I feel comfortable making blues lyrics available on the web because there are already many sites that do this sort of thing.  When you add in the fact that my purposes are more clearly academic, and that these purposes entail modifying the lyrics to some extent, I don’t think I need to worry about copyright issues.  In general, I think historians are in a more secure position in presenting material online because they bring a level of critical thinking and educational intent that may be lacking in other comparable sites.

On the subject of fair use, reading Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use made me wonder whether historians have established a similar statement of best practices for their profession.  Then, on second thought, I realized that Chapter 7 of Digital History represents an effort to outline best practices for historians.  If I were to ever be questioned on whether my claims of fair use fell within the standards of my profession, I could always point to this chapter as evidence of those standards.

On a somewhat different aspect of copyright law, the U.S. Copyright Office’s Report on Orphan Works made me think about the different types of users of materials protected by copyright.  Surprisingly, I had not considered the dilemma of institutions (such as archives, libraries, and museum) that want to make materials public but do not know whether these materials are protected by copyright.  This report, to an even greater extent than the other readers, made me realize the number of vagaries that copyright law leaves for both users and copyright holders.

For many years now, I have admired the design of the Internet Movie Database.  Even though advertising and Flash technology surround the edges of the page, these things don’t get in the way of the content.  I like how each search result (e.g. a movie) brings up other data (e.g. the names of the movies cast and crew members), most of which function as a link to other data (e.g. other movies on which the cast or crew member worked).  This kind of structure allows for haphazard exploration and discovery, and the fact that the overall layout of each page doesn’t change brings a comfortable consistency to it all.  Additionally, if the visitor is particularly interested in an entry, there is a list of links along the lefthand margin that leads to further details.

In Ten Reasons to Learn and Use Web Standards, Roger Johanssen provides great reasons for using web standards.  In my own endeavors, reasons 5-8 seem the most important: I want to make my site accessible, improve its search engine rankings, make it easy to maintain, and ensure its future sustainability.

All this begs the question: What exactly are web standards?  After reading Chapter 4 of Digital History (”Designing for the History Web”), I have a sense of what separates good web design from bad.  (As I understand it, it all comes down to making a site as accessible, its content as apparent, and it structure as transparent as possible.)  Still, understanding the effects of good web design is not the same as knowing the standards for good web design.

Fortunately, I have an inkling of what web standards are after following the link from Roger Johanssen’s list to Dave Shea’s A Roadmap to Standards.  Apparently, following web standards means making a website’s code as readable as possible.  It involves consistently closing elements, as well as using techniques like CSS to separate code regarding a site’s presentation from code regarding its content.

These are practices I hope to implement as I design my own website. 

For the final project for this course, I’ve decided to start a website that will enable visitors to search for specific words among a large collection of blues lyrics.  This means that, in addition to designing the site with standard HTML, I’ll have to enable searching by incorporating database software (such as MySQL) or marking up the lyrics using XML.  My ultimate decision on how to enable searching will depend on which process is easiest to learn, which uses less memory, and which will best accommodate ongoing additions to the website.  Whichever process I decide to use, I want it not only to enable Boolean searches for words in the lyrics, but also to limit the searches by the artist, the date of the recording, the musical style (e.g. classic, country, urban, or electric blues), the artist’s gender, and the geographical region with which the artist is associated (e.g. Southwest, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Southeast).  I would also like visitors to be able to view their search results either by relevance or in chronological order.
 

In addition to enabling searches, I want the website to enable browsing by artist, song title, or any of the other categories I mentioned above.  (Perhaps I can list all of these categories in a sidebar.)  I also want the website to present the lyrics in a format that is easily readable (e.g. by clearly indicating stanza breaks and refrains) and printable.  In many cases, a blues lyric will also require annotation so that I can explicate unusual words or expressions, indicate the variations among different recording of the same song, and acknowledge wherever I think my transcription might be inaccurate.
 

My reason for creating this site involves a combination of personal interest and the possibility of future research.  Having previously written on the blues, I have always wanted an internet resource that would allow me to search blues lyrics for specific words.  At the same time, I foresee that this site will appeal to many people interested in the blues, whether they are scholars or members of the general public.  Since this site is primarily a search engine, a resource for others to interpret the past, it will not offer an explicit historical argument.  Even so, in order for the lyrics to appear in a standard, searchable form, I’ll occasionally have to do violence to the lyrics.  (For example, if I want to facilitate searching, I cannot register the aural difference between songs that use “walkin’” and those that use “walking.”)  For this reason, I think my site should include a page that briefly discusses the issues involved and the decisions I made in order to make the lyrics searchable.
 

Finally, I want to point out that I expect this website to continue growing well after this course has ended.  For the purpose of this course, I would like to have a site including more than 100 lyrics that would still fit on the AU server.  After the course is over, I hope to add lyrics, move the website to another server, and (maybe) to include streaming audio to accompany the lyrics.  My first task, however, is to get a search engine with a substantial number of lyrics up and running. 

Since I hope to design a website that contains a collection of blues lyrics from the 1920s and 1930s and allows visitors to search the collection for specific words, I decided to use this week’s assignment to look for other websites that feature collections of blues lyrics.  I conducted my search mainly by exploring the first few dozen results that Google provided when I typed in “blues lyrics.”  Whenever a website featured a large list of links, I also attempted to use these lyrics; unfortunately, more often than not, these links led to sites or pages that no longer existed.

After several hours of searching, I had discovered more than 20 websites that feature a collection of blues lyrics.  None of these sites, however, feature the kind of search capabilities that I imagine for my own website.  Many, in fact, do not feature any search capabilities at all.  For this reason, the website I hope to design will provide a service that, apparently, no other site does.

Even though none of the sites that I found feature extensive search capabilities, it was quite instructive to look the various online collections of blue lyrics.  Here are some of the highlights of my search:

Blues Lyrics On Line:  Google’s first result for “blues lyrics” brought me to Blues Lyrics On Line.  As the “What’s New” page indicates, this site has not been updated since 1999.  The site also has a limited bandwidth, so it became temporarily unavailable just about every other time I tried to visit it.  Despite these limits, I consider it one of the best sites I found.  It contains lyrics to over 500 recorded blues songs.  The songs collected cover just about every time period and musical styles, and they can be browsed by artist or song title. As the homepage indicates, the site’s creator attempted to collect lyrics based on their originality, which means that many obscure songs have been included.

Although the site does not feature any search capabilities, the homepage lists a series of provocative questions such as “Has anybody written a blues song about spaceflight?” and “Is there a blues song that mentions the Kinsey Report?” with a link that leads to the answers.  Aside from to the quality of the collection, I thought these questions (and their answers) were one of the site’s best features.

Harry’s Blues Lyrics & Tabs Online:  Google’s second major result was Harry’s Blues Lyrics & Tabs Online, which contains lyrics to more than 2,500 recorded blues songs.  (Blues Lyrics On Line’s list of links, many of which were no long working, also led me to this site.)  As on Blues Lyrics On Line, the songs collected cover just about every time period and musical style, and they can be browsed by artist or song title.  On this site, however, the collection is, to a great extent, the result of many users’ contributions.  The collection therefore tends to include relatively popular songs, as well as many redundancies resulting from different artists’ recording the same song.  The sheer size of the collection, however, prevents these issues from too much of a drawback.

At the same time, the size of the collection makes browsing a bit more difficult.  On Blues Lyrics On Line allows visitors to view all the songs collected on a single web page, here visitors have to look at several pages.  Still, a much more serious drawback is the amount of advertising connected to the site.  The site is surrounded by advertising and, even worse, my pop-up blocker was constantly blocking pop-up ads as I explored the site.

Despite these drawbacks, Harry’s Blues Lyrics & Tabs Online had several distinctive features to its credit.  In addition to browsing lyrics by artist and song title, visitors can browse by musical style or song topic.  Also, one page contains an extensive glossary of words and phrases in blues lyrics, such as “ball the jack,” “black cat bone,” “jelly roll,” and “riding the blinds.”  Another page contains a list of lyrics and tabs (i.e. musical entablature) that users would like to see.  Site users can contribute to the glossary, request new lyrics and tabs, or supply lyrics and tabs that others have requested.

The Online Blues:  One of the best-looking sites I encountered (mainly because it featured photographs of blues artists along the top of every page) was The Online Blues.  As the updates listed on the homepage indicate, this site has been updated relatively recently.  The size of the collection seems commensurate with Blues Lyrics On Line, but the site focuses on the work of about 30 relatively well-known artists from various time periods and with different musical styles.  On this site, visitors cannot browse by song title; instead, they must click on one of the artists’ names along the left margin of every page to see links to a particular artist’s lyrics.  For most artists, the number of songs for which lyrics are available is less than 20.  The site also contains a form with which visitors can contribute lyrics.

As with Harry’s Blues Lyrics & Tabs Online, the amount of advertising connected to this site represent a major drawback.  Although the site is not surrounded by advertising, it produces pop-up ads and contains links to commercial sites that are in no way related to blues.  (These links are probably the result of the creator’s policy of listing links only to those sites that agree to provide a link to The Online Blues.)  Another drawback is that the lyrics are presented in a kind of single-spaced format that does not give a good sense of stanza breaks.  (This format is probably the result of using a standard form for how lyrics are contributed and presented.)

HarpTab.com:  The “Blues Lyrics” section of HarpTab.com is somewhat similar to The Online Blues.  Like The Online Blues, it contains a list of artist’s links, which in turn lead to links to particular lyrics.  In addition, the lyrics are presented in a format that does not give a good sense of stanza breaks.  HarpTab.com, however, has a couple of advantages over The Online Blues–it features hardly any advertising, and it contains a somewhat larger assortment of artists.

MetroLyrics:  MetroLyrics.com appears to be a kind of clearinghouse for song lyrics.  In other words, the site contains a large database of musical artists, and users can rate particular artists, as well as contribute song lyrics these artists.  Because of the nature of the site, it can only be as good as its users make it.  In the case of its blues section, MetroLyrics is not very good, since the section has received relatively few contributions.

Blues Lyrics and Hoodoo:  From a historian’s standpoint, Blues Lyrics and Hoodoo is the probably the most interesting site I found.  It consists of an online book in progress about African-American folk magic, entitled Hoodoo in Theory and Practice, and a collection of lyrics fore the more than 75 songs to which the book refers.  The site’s creator encourages visitors to contribute lyrics, and includes a list of desired songs to this end.  Of course, since the creator desires lyrics in order to illustrate aspects of African-American folk magic, the thematic range of the songs are relatively limited in scope.  Unlike most of websites I encountered, which are little more than lyrics repositories, the contents on this site reflect a clear and highly fascinating curatorial intention.   

Sites Devoted to Specific Artists:  In addition to the sites list above, I came across several sites devoted to the lyrics of a specific blues artist.  Such sites include A Tribute to Buddy Guy and The Robert Johnson Notebooks. However, since I am more interested in sites that collect the lyrics of multiple artists, I did not look at very many sites in this vein.

Sites Featuring Multiple Musical Genres:  A number of sites feature song lyrics from multiple genres.  MetroLyrics is one example, but other examples include Jazz Lyrics + Blues Lyrics, The Heptune Classical Jazz and Blues Lyrics Page, and Black Cat Rockabilly Europe.  Since the coverage of blues lyrics on these sites tend to be more limited than on sites devoted to blues, I did not look at very many sites in this vein.