Brian F. Wright Interview (Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas)

Brian F. Wright is Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of North Texas. His main area of research these days is the electric bass, which he's covered in a few articles as well as an upcoming book. In this excerpt from our interview, Brian explains why the instrument is such a fascinating topic to explore.

How did you get to where you are today, professionally? 

I grew up as a nerdy kid who loved listening to the radio and learning stories about musicians. I probably read too much Rolling Stone and watched too much Behind the Music. As I got older, I read as many books about popular music as I could get my hands on, and during my teen years, I also started playing electric bass and guitar. After high school, I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I ended up splitting my time between taking classes at a local community college and writing and playing music. 

It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I even heard about “musicology.” Basically, what happened was that my best friend at the time convinced me to move in with him in Los Angeles, where he was working on a music degree at UCLA. He knew that I was really interested in music history and he kept telling me about all these great musicology classes he was taking. So eventually he set me up an informal meeting with one of his professors to talk about musicology, and she explained that it was essentially an approach to music history that combined a nuanced understanding of historical context with close attention to the details of the music itself. She even told me that there were musicologists who specifically focused on popular music. It sounded like exactly what I had been interested in my whole life!