Robert Carrillo-Thompson, Professor of Music Business & American Popular Music History, PGCC (Largo, MD)

Research Interests: Transnational blues and the "Third Root" (La Tercera Raíz); Mexican and Afro-Caribbean influence on New Orleans and Texas string traditions; American Primitive guitar and the fingerstyle traditions of John Fahey; Weissenborn lap slide performance; Andean folk music and indigenous resistance; and music as a catalyst for social change in the Americas.

Profile: Robert Carrillo-Thompson’s research investigates the hemispheric exchange of musical technologies between the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean, with a focus on the "Latin Tinge" in the development of the American Blues. Specifically, Robert explores how Mexican vaquero string traditions and the maritime trade routes between Veracruz, Havana, and New Orleans provided the rhythmic and technical foundation for early Delta and Texas blues guitarists.

Deeply informed by his Peruvian heritage on his mother’s side, Robert also examines the "aurality of resistance" within Andean folk traditions. He is committed to linguistic and cultural immersion through the study of Spanish and Quechua to better understand how indigenous musical structures function as tools for social survival.

An active performer and recording artist, Robert’s scholarly work is deeply integrated with his dedication to the American Primitive acoustic guitar tradition. Performing regularly in the studio and live, he specializes in the fingerstyle techniques of John Fahey and the resonant, lap-style traditions of the Weissenborn guitar. He views performance as an ethnographic tool, using the physical act of "musicking" to better understand the evolution of stringed instruments across the Americas.

Robert earned a Master of Arts in Music Business from Berklee College of Music, and a Bachelor of Arts in Social Change in the Americas from George Mason University, where he specialized in the study of protest music across the United States, the Caribbean, and South America. His work seeks to bridge the gap between traditional musicology and the sociopolitical history of labor and migration. In his free time, he enjoys researching maritime musical corridors and exploring the archives at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. at UMD