John Troutman

John W. Troutman is curator of music and musical instruments at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. His book Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934 (2009), won the Western History Association's biennial W. Turrentine Jackson Prize for a first book on any aspect of the American West. His book K?k? Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music (2016) won five book awards, including the Organization of American Historians' Lawrence W. Levine Award for the "Best Book in American Cultural History" and the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture Award. He is the lead curator of the National Museum of American History's exhibition Entertainment Nation and co-editor of its catalog, as well as the editor of Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey (2023), by Robert "Mack" McCormick. On pedal steel he has performed onstage with CC Adcock, Elvis Costello, Jockey Etienne, Dr. John, Lazy Lester, Robert Plant, Lil' Buck Sinegal, Florence Welch, and more.