John Troutman is a curator and scholar, whose research expertise spans the cultural history and politics of late 19th-20th century U.S. popular music. His research fields include U.S. music and cultural history, as well as Native American and Indigenous Studies. His most recent book,
Kīkā Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music, won five book awards including
Organization of American Historians' Lawrence W. Levine Award for the "
Best Book in American Cultural History," the IASPM-US Woody Guthrie Award for the "most outstanding book on popular music," and the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture Award. His first book,
Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music, 1879-1934, won the Western History Association's biennial 2011 W. Turrentine Jackson Prize for a first book on any aspect of the American West. Troutman's essays have been featured in several anthologies, magazines, and journals. He is currently editing a manuscript on blues legend Robert Johnson, as well as the catalog for the NMAH's upcoming permanent exhibition,
Entertaining Nation.