Michael Joseph Budds (June 11, 1947 – November 19, 2020) was an American

musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...

, and longtime professor, at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1821 as the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, Boone County and had a population of 126,254 as recorded in the 2020 United States census, making it the List of cities in Misso ...

. In addition to teaching, he wrote and edited a number of works, including a widely used textbook on American

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

. Also a philanthropist, he established the Budds Center for American Music Studies at the

University of Missouri School of Music The School of Music is an academic division of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Its focus is the study of music, awarding baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral degrees as part of the College of Arts and Science. The instituti ...

where he taught. He was the first musicologist inducted into the

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

Music Hall of Fame. Budds taught at Missouri for 37 years, until his death on November 19, 2020.

Personal life

Budds was born in

Pana, Illinois Pana is a small town in Christian County, Illinois, United States. A small portion is in Shelby County. The population was 5,199 at the 2020 census. History The area around Pana was first organized as Stone Coal Precinct in 1845. The count ...

on June 11, 1947 to Leon “Buddsie” Budds and Helen Kramer Budds. He attended Knox College and obtained his PhD from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

. Budds served in the U.S. Navy during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

and began teaching at the University of Missouri in 1982. His home was in the East Campus Neighborhood of

. Budds was known for his devotion to the music of

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phra ...

. He was buried at the Rosemond Cemetery in Pana, Illinois.

University of Missouri

Budds taught undergraduate and graduate courses in music biography,

music appreciation Music appreciation is a division of musicology that is designed to teach students how to understand and describe the contexts and creative processes involved in music composition. The concept of music appreciation is often taught as a subset of ...

, music history, and research. He taught over 10,000 students at the

. His class on music appreciation entitled Jazz, Pop, & Rock would become the most popular class offered at the University. His research efforts were devoted to the study of American music,

African-American music African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their African-American culture, culture. Its origins are in musical forms that developed as a result of the Slavery in ...

, and music in

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

England. He served as the Area Coordinator of the Musicology &

Ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

Area within the School of Music up until his retirement. In 2019, he donated 4 million dollars to establish the Budds Center for American Music Studies in memory of his family, of which he was the only remaining member.

Honors

In 2000, Budds was named a William T Kemper Fellow for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Missouri and at the time of his retirement was a Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus. In 2019, He was the recipient of the William H. Byler Distinguished Professor Award. Budds was inducted into the Missouri Music Hall of Fame in 2009; he was the first musicologist to be honored so. Budds was an honorary member of the music fraternity

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia (legally Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America, colloquially known as Phi Mu Alpha, PMA, or simply Sinfonia) () is an American collegiate social Fraternities and sororities, fraternity for men with a special interest ...

Works

Budds was a contributor to ''

The New Grove Dictionary of American Music ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

''; ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz''; ''Women & Music: A History''; ''Bleep! Censoring Rock and Rap''; and ''

American National Biography The ''American National Biography'' (ANB) is a 24-volume biographical encyclopedia set that contains about 17,400 entries and 20 million words, first published in 1999 by Oxford University Press under the auspices of the American Council of Lea ...

''. As a member of the College Music Society, he served as editor of the series Monographs and Bibliographies in American Music. He also authored several works, including: Sinquefield Music Center cropped

*''Rock Recall: Annotated Readings in American Popular Music from the Emergence of Rock and Roll to the Demise of the Woodstock Nation'' (1993) *''Jazz in the Sixties'' (1978 and 1990) *''Jazz & the Germans: Essays on the Influence of "Hot" American Idioms on the 20th-century German Music'' (2003) *''100 Years of Music-Making at Mizzou'' (2018) *''200 Memorable Missouri Musical Moments: Commentary, Historical Photographs, & Video Clips'' (in honor of the Missouri Bicentennial, 2020)https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/history/2021/06/11/missouri-bicentennial-mu-mizzou-professor-musical-history-michael-budds-mark-twain-kansas-city/7566442002/ Late Mizzou Professor's bicentennial book chronicles surprising 'tidbits of Missouri music' *''Thematic Catalogue and Performance Chronical of the Music of John Cheetham'' (2021)

References

External links