Music evokes history. Songs remind us of a time, a place, a moment. Songs like Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” can take us back to the dark days of segregation, and “We Shall Overcome” recalls Dr.

If you caught the recent Obama inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, you probably saw an overjoyed Pete Seeger leading the audience in a rousing rendition of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your ...