The "Journal of Research in Music Education" ("JRME") is the longest running serial dedicated to music education research, and its articles are widely considered exemplars in the field worldwide. This is a bibliometric study of the sources cited in articles published in the "JRME" from its inception in 1953 to 2015. We extracted 31,679 references from 1,341 the "JRME" articles; rank-ordered those frequently cited journals, articles, and authors; investigated the interdisciplinarity of cited journals; observed the age density of cited sources; and studied the proportional distribution of reference types. Results were then compared across 10-year spans, except for the first, which was 12 years, and discussed in light of known parameters for research in other fields. These analyses have revealed several interesting trends reflecting the evolution and maturation of the journal and music education research.