The roots of this haphazard history of American popular music originally started about a year earlier and at least one music blog before this one. The former timeline started with the 1820s - when the United States as we (sort of) know it was just over 30 years old - and continued up to the 1920s. It introduced a multiplicity of themes and pathways, among them: the homesickness genre, a product of the Industrial Age and families scattered as wide as they’ve been in human history; the interaction between popular music and waves of immigration; the bloodthirsty/God-is-on-our-side anthems of America’s wars, both civil and others; the massive, popular, semi-utopian “Jubilee” concerts that followed; the noteworthy spasm of Christmas carols that bloomed alongside the commercialization of that holiday; the odd devotional number; marching bands and the arrival of modern brass instruments; the maudlin borderline hackery of the late Victorian era; the establishment and growth of Tin Pan Alley and its remarkable marketing machinery; and, perhaps more important than any of them in terms of what came later, minstrelsy. No less significant: literally all of that moved about the country by way of sheet music, the first conduit for the mass marketing of popular music.
All of that both informed and laid the foundation for much of what followed, but it also existed and operated in a vastly different and slower world. I think citizens of the 21st century can conceptualize, even appreciate those times, but actually wrapping one’s head around all that silence requires more imagination that most of us have. So, I took down those posts (twice, in fact) and restarted this follow-up project from a different foundation: the dawn of recorded sound, aka, the beginnings of a time when people could hear music without having friends who knew how to play it and, by the same devices, listen to a song until it either inspired them or made them puke.
Recordings existed well before the 1920s - singers ranging from John McCormack and Eddie Murray to the famous tenor Enrico Caruso (who recorded for one label's “high-class series”) - but I decided to start with the 1920s for several reasons. The ability to record sound came several decades before (by memory, the mid-1870s), but even 40 years later the sound remained limited - e.g., the recordings literally could not pick up pitches on the high end and some instruments all together - and, therefore, terrible. It took a decade or five for all the tinniness/recording-in-a-bucket-inside-a-box to the leech out, but recording and records (it’s all still 78 rpm at this point) reached the lofty heights of reasonable listening experience as early as the mid-1920s and continued to improve into the 1930s. Once film and radio arrived, they opened avenues for musical artists to spread their presence and influence across multiple mediums - i.e., the essence of modern stardom. That brings the story to the beginning of the modern era, at least in my mind. That said, keep in mind that the entire concept and culture of radio belongs to the 1930s - i.e., a time when the collapse of the consumer market made something one owns and turns on for entertainment the thriftier choice over something one buys and collects. As you’ll see if you read the posts below, a lot of them end with the Great Depression.
That gets ahead of the story, so, pulling back ten years, people call the 1920s the Jazz Age, but that does a real disservice to proliferation of genres that started and blossomed in jazz’s shadow. While none of them actually started in the 1920s, the way communications shrunk the world made once regional sounds available to a national audience - and one with resources to burn. That included the beginnings of country music - which, incidentally, came from the folk traditions of the 19th century - and at least three kinds of blues - e.g., 1) the female royalty of the early 20s, 2) the lone, often haunted blues men of the late 20s, and 3), at the tail-end, boogie-woogie. To back up even further, all of those borrowed something from ragtime - aka, the first “scary” (read: black) music to spook establishment white audiences - and Tin Pan Alley blended all that with popular sounds and themes from earlier eras, and that’s what the 1920s sounded like. Innovation meets mass-marketing, basically; strip away technologies that forever expand availability and accessibility and it’s not so different today.
All of that both informed and laid the foundation for much of what followed, but it also existed and operated in a vastly different and slower world. I think citizens of the 21st century can conceptualize, even appreciate those times, but actually wrapping one’s head around all that silence requires more imagination that most of us have. So, I took down those posts (twice, in fact) and restarted this follow-up project from a different foundation: the dawn of recorded sound, aka, the beginnings of a time when people could hear music without having friends who knew how to play it and, by the same devices, listen to a song until it either inspired them or made them puke.
Recordings existed well before the 1920s - singers ranging from John McCormack and Eddie Murray to the famous tenor Enrico Caruso (who recorded for one label's “high-class series”) - but I decided to start with the 1920s for several reasons. The ability to record sound came several decades before (by memory, the mid-1870s), but even 40 years later the sound remained limited - e.g., the recordings literally could not pick up pitches on the high end and some instruments all together - and, therefore, terrible. It took a decade or five for all the tinniness/recording-in-a-bucket-inside-a-box to the leech out, but recording and records (it’s all still 78 rpm at this point) reached the lofty heights of reasonable listening experience as early as the mid-1920s and continued to improve into the 1930s. Once film and radio arrived, they opened avenues for musical artists to spread their presence and influence across multiple mediums - i.e., the essence of modern stardom. That brings the story to the beginning of the modern era, at least in my mind. That said, keep in mind that the entire concept and culture of radio belongs to the 1930s - i.e., a time when the collapse of the consumer market made something one owns and turns on for entertainment the thriftier choice over something one buys and collects. As you’ll see if you read the posts below, a lot of them end with the Great Depression.
That gets ahead of the story, so, pulling back ten years, people call the 1920s the Jazz Age, but that does a real disservice to proliferation of genres that started and blossomed in jazz’s shadow. While none of them actually started in the 1920s, the way communications shrunk the world made once regional sounds available to a national audience - and one with resources to burn. That included the beginnings of country music - which, incidentally, came from the folk traditions of the 19th century - and at least three kinds of blues - e.g., 1) the female royalty of the early 20s, 2) the lone, often haunted blues men of the late 20s, and 3), at the tail-end, boogie-woogie. To back up even further, all of those borrowed something from ragtime - aka, the first “scary” (read: black) music to spook establishment white audiences - and Tin Pan Alley blended all that with popular sounds and themes from earlier eras, and that’s what the 1920s sounded like. Innovation meets mass-marketing, basically; strip away technologies that forever expand availability and accessibility and it’s not so different today.
All those trends continued into the 1930s, but with a crucial difference: the proliferation of radio within American households made musical artists into truly national stars. With their signals boosted by massive clear-channel stations, Americans across the country started tuning into the exact same programs and at the same time. Moreover, because recorded sound hadn't reached a point where it could play over the airwaves, not to mention the reality that most households couldn't afford to splurge on records, radio wasn't just the dominant medium for music of the 1930s, it was the only one that mattered. And yet, all that happened just as Hollywood's Golden Age took shape. As the decade progressed, radio stars became movie stars and, for the really lucky ones, household names. The various genres continued to evolve, though none so much as jazz. In a quest for new, bigger and richer sound, a new generation of bandleaders added members and instruments - often two or three of the same kind - until the original five-to-seven piece jazz orchestras boomed into big bands with as many as 30 musicians. Though the sweeter tones took over, the crowds somehow got wilder, especially toward the end of the 1930s. Last but not least, great leaps in microphone technology made it possible for the most famous vocalists of the era to step in front of those big orchestras. And, once they got there, they never looked back.
When I started this series, I didn’t put in the work to organize the posts into anything coherent, never mind chronological or even logical. Also, I skipped ragtime, despite researching it twice, due to the fact that virtually all of it predates worthwhile recorded sound; the fact that, rare occasions aside (some of them surprising), one simply can’t hear those songs performed by the people who wrote them and/or made them famous puts them outside this project. Stumbles and omissions aside, I touched on all the 20th-century genres noted above in the 37 posts included in this index. I thought it’d be nice to get them all in one place as a kind of foundation before this series pivots into a completely different format, one built less around individual artists, but of the popular and important sings of each passing year. As much as I'll miss really digging into each musical artist, that'll keep the histories from getting a decade or three ahead of the times; I've stumbled into the 1950s, even the 1960s, too many times to count at this point.
At any rate, if everything below looks like a bunch of names to you, they looked the same to me going in. Anyway, feel free to either dig in or bounce around as the spirit moves you. All the posts linked to below tell one aspect of the same story.
No. 1: Introduction to the 1920s, When Everything Was Okeh
A more detailed and focused overview of music in the 1920s, with a sidebar on Okeh Records, one of the first, and among the most small-d democratic, recording labels. Very influential.
No. 2: Ma Rainey, Her Black Bottom & More
The story of the first prominent woman in “urban blues,” who I’ve come to think of as the Godmother of the Blues, what she and her lifestyle represented at the time, and notes on how black musicians toured in the 1910s-1920s (not easily; Ma Rainey's acronym for T.O.B.A. is delightful).
No. 3: Bessie Smith, a “Rough,” Brilliant, Damned Tragic Woman
About another member of blues royalty, Smith had a wildly successful career, bookended by tragedy on either side and with betrayal in the middle of it.
No. 4: Jelly Roll Morton: Which Was as Dirty as It Sounds
The life and career of an innovator and a fabulist, who also happened to be among the first to formally compose jazz and lead a fairly large, ensemble jazz orchestra, thereby prefiguring the big bands of the 1930s.
No. 5: Blind Lemon Jefferson Lays the Foundation
Notes on the life of one of the first “man with his guitar” blues legends, a true businessman who was truly blind and yet still found a way to busk across eastern Texas.
No. 6: Jimmie Rodgers, Tuberculosis & YOLO
The story of “The Singing Brakeman,” a man present at country music’s “big bang” in Bristol, TN, and one of that genre’s first stars. By all accounts, he was one hell of a nice, open-minded guy (among the first to break the race barrier).
No. 7, Al Jolson & His Various Demons
Unquestionably an egomaniac, but that only made him a prototype for the modern rock star, Al Jolson dominated popular music from the 1910s and to the end of the 1920s. His greatest sin was the way he treated the people around him, especially those closest to him.
No. 8: Ethel Waters’ Succession of Hard Times
A tough woman who lived a harder life, a survivor. In a few ways, Waters traces a representative history of black America, both in pop culture and real culture.
No. 9: OG Jass & a Few of Its Pioneers
Quick and dirty notes on the origins of jazz and the mechanics of the Dixieland sound, with short little bios on three of its originators: the Original Dixieland Jass Band, Kid Ory and King Oliver (who, naturally all have some connection to Louis Armstrong).
No. 10: The Carter Family & Uncle Dave Macon, Intro to First Gen Country
An introduction to the genre (slightly biased) and the cultural context it grew up in, as explained via the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon.
No. 11: Barn Dances, Oprys & Three Western Gals
Notes on the three early channels for spreading the country music gospel - the National Barn Dance, the Grand Ole Opry and the clear-channel radio signals that blasted both across the half the nation’s airwaves. Also, notes on country’s founding female artists: Patsy Montana and Girls of the Golden West.
No. 12: Roy Acuff & Bob Wills: A Pair of Kings
Short, yet fairly thorough histories of two of the biggest acts in second-generation country, Roy Acuff and Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys. I didn’t plan it, but those stories carry country music into the 1950s at least.
No. 13: The Blues, Blind Willie McTell & the Father of the Guitar Solo
The latter refers to the elegant Lonnie Johnson, but Willie McTell also has one hell of a story to tell. Also covered in the post: the origins, growth and geography of one branch of the “urban blues.”
No. 14: The Blues, from the Delta (Son House) to Chicago (Tampa Red)
An introduction to “Chicago blues” that uses one artist who stayed in the Delta (Son House) and one who joined the Great Migration (Tampa Red) to underscore the contrast between the Delta and Chicago varieties. What Tampa Red did serves as a plausible bridge to the rock ‘n’ roll era.
No. 15: Big Bill Broonzy’s Achingly Slow Climb to Blues Royalty
A short history of an unreliable narrator who dreamed big and never stopped chasing the main chance. Broonzy actually hit his peak in the late 1930s (e.g., From Spirituals to Swing) and again in the early 1950s, which gets at how long he took to catch on.
No. 16: Robert Johnson, the Devil’s Own
The story returns to the Delta with this chapter (and carries into the 1930s) and perhaps the most legendary blues man of the bunch. Myth and reality do a lot of dancing in this one.
No. 17: Lead Belly, the Man Who Sang His Way to Freedom
Notes on Hudie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and his convoluted, conflicted relationship with famous music folklorist, Alan Lomax. Lead Belly had legal troubles like few others - a murder or two will do that - but he would land a second act on his own with the folk revival of the early 1950s.
No. 18: Boogie-Woogie in the Pinetops
Notes on the (early) origins of boogie-woogie, aka, the blues’ “dancing cousin” and a short bio of one of it pioneers, Pinetop Smith.
No. 19: Fats Waller, the “Son of Stride Piano”(?)
The story of a prolific, profligate composer and the man who brought stride piano - also introduced in the post - to mass audiences. Another man done in by his demons…
No. 20: Bix Beiderbecke, Davenport, Iowa’s Hippest (Drunkest) Son
A story that shows how wide jazz fanaticism traveled in the 1920s - e.g., to Iowa - Bix Beiderbecke rated as one of the top cornetists of the day and the genre. Notes on his short, tumultuous life.
No. 21: The (Paul) Whiteman Cometh
A profile of the man who led the most popular large - and constantly-expanding - jazz orchestras of the 1920s. Though accused of excess formalism that went against jazz’s improvisational soul, Paul Whiteman had a great eye for talent. And he collected it to build something big.
No. 22: Louis Armstrong’s “Hot” Sessions
The beginning of one of American music’s biggest careers including his early struggles, the people who helped him find his way, and the four years’ worth of recording sessions that made Louis Armstrong a household name.
No. 1: Introduction to the 1920s, When Everything Was Okeh
A more detailed and focused overview of music in the 1920s, with a sidebar on Okeh Records, one of the first, and among the most small-d democratic, recording labels. Very influential.
No. 2: Ma Rainey, Her Black Bottom & More
The story of the first prominent woman in “urban blues,” who I’ve come to think of as the Godmother of the Blues, what she and her lifestyle represented at the time, and notes on how black musicians toured in the 1910s-1920s (not easily; Ma Rainey's acronym for T.O.B.A. is delightful).
No. 3: Bessie Smith, a “Rough,” Brilliant, Damned Tragic Woman
About another member of blues royalty, Smith had a wildly successful career, bookended by tragedy on either side and with betrayal in the middle of it.
No. 4: Jelly Roll Morton: Which Was as Dirty as It Sounds
The life and career of an innovator and a fabulist, who also happened to be among the first to formally compose jazz and lead a fairly large, ensemble jazz orchestra, thereby prefiguring the big bands of the 1930s.
No. 5: Blind Lemon Jefferson Lays the Foundation
Notes on the life of one of the first “man with his guitar” blues legends, a true businessman who was truly blind and yet still found a way to busk across eastern Texas.
No. 6: Jimmie Rodgers, Tuberculosis & YOLO
The story of “The Singing Brakeman,” a man present at country music’s “big bang” in Bristol, TN, and one of that genre’s first stars. By all accounts, he was one hell of a nice, open-minded guy (among the first to break the race barrier).
No. 7, Al Jolson & His Various Demons
Unquestionably an egomaniac, but that only made him a prototype for the modern rock star, Al Jolson dominated popular music from the 1910s and to the end of the 1920s. His greatest sin was the way he treated the people around him, especially those closest to him.
No. 8: Ethel Waters’ Succession of Hard Times
A tough woman who lived a harder life, a survivor. In a few ways, Waters traces a representative history of black America, both in pop culture and real culture.
No. 9: OG Jass & a Few of Its Pioneers
Quick and dirty notes on the origins of jazz and the mechanics of the Dixieland sound, with short little bios on three of its originators: the Original Dixieland Jass Band, Kid Ory and King Oliver (who, naturally all have some connection to Louis Armstrong).
No. 10: The Carter Family & Uncle Dave Macon, Intro to First Gen Country
An introduction to the genre (slightly biased) and the cultural context it grew up in, as explained via the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon.
No. 11: Barn Dances, Oprys & Three Western Gals
Notes on the three early channels for spreading the country music gospel - the National Barn Dance, the Grand Ole Opry and the clear-channel radio signals that blasted both across the half the nation’s airwaves. Also, notes on country’s founding female artists: Patsy Montana and Girls of the Golden West.
No. 12: Roy Acuff & Bob Wills: A Pair of Kings
Short, yet fairly thorough histories of two of the biggest acts in second-generation country, Roy Acuff and Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys. I didn’t plan it, but those stories carry country music into the 1950s at least.
No. 13: The Blues, Blind Willie McTell & the Father of the Guitar Solo
The latter refers to the elegant Lonnie Johnson, but Willie McTell also has one hell of a story to tell. Also covered in the post: the origins, growth and geography of one branch of the “urban blues.”
No. 14: The Blues, from the Delta (Son House) to Chicago (Tampa Red)
An introduction to “Chicago blues” that uses one artist who stayed in the Delta (Son House) and one who joined the Great Migration (Tampa Red) to underscore the contrast between the Delta and Chicago varieties. What Tampa Red did serves as a plausible bridge to the rock ‘n’ roll era.
No. 15: Big Bill Broonzy’s Achingly Slow Climb to Blues Royalty
A short history of an unreliable narrator who dreamed big and never stopped chasing the main chance. Broonzy actually hit his peak in the late 1930s (e.g., From Spirituals to Swing) and again in the early 1950s, which gets at how long he took to catch on.
No. 16: Robert Johnson, the Devil’s Own
The story returns to the Delta with this chapter (and carries into the 1930s) and perhaps the most legendary blues man of the bunch. Myth and reality do a lot of dancing in this one.
No. 17: Lead Belly, the Man Who Sang His Way to Freedom
Notes on Hudie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and his convoluted, conflicted relationship with famous music folklorist, Alan Lomax. Lead Belly had legal troubles like few others - a murder or two will do that - but he would land a second act on his own with the folk revival of the early 1950s.
No. 18: Boogie-Woogie in the Pinetops
Notes on the (early) origins of boogie-woogie, aka, the blues’ “dancing cousin” and a short bio of one of it pioneers, Pinetop Smith.
No. 19: Fats Waller, the “Son of Stride Piano”(?)
The story of a prolific, profligate composer and the man who brought stride piano - also introduced in the post - to mass audiences. Another man done in by his demons…
No. 20: Bix Beiderbecke, Davenport, Iowa’s Hippest (Drunkest) Son
A story that shows how wide jazz fanaticism traveled in the 1920s - e.g., to Iowa - Bix Beiderbecke rated as one of the top cornetists of the day and the genre. Notes on his short, tumultuous life.
No. 21: The (Paul) Whiteman Cometh
A profile of the man who led the most popular large - and constantly-expanding - jazz orchestras of the 1920s. Though accused of excess formalism that went against jazz’s improvisational soul, Paul Whiteman had a great eye for talent. And he collected it to build something big.
No. 22: Louis Armstrong’s “Hot” Sessions
The beginning of one of American music’s biggest careers including his early struggles, the people who helped him find his way, and the four years’ worth of recording sessions that made Louis Armstrong a household name.
An introduction to the musical trends of America's Depression Decade.
Notes on the first part of Duke Ellington's long, transformational career, and a short history of the complicated Harlem night club where he and so many others made their mark.
The history of one of black America's earliest multi-media stars. Emcee extraordinaire, author, trend-setter, author of the first jive dictionary, and so on: Cab Calloway told America what was hip from the heart of American pop culture.
She found fame before her younger brother, Cab, and opened all kinds of doors for him in the business. One of the first female bandleaders and a trendsetter in her own right.
One of the biggest bandleaders from the American Midwest, Bennie Moten mentored several future bandleaders and laid down the sound that dominated American jazz through the 1940s.
A short history of one of America's lesser known big bandleaders. Kemp hailed from the South and gave a platform to Bunny Berigan, one of the greatest (and, tragically, drunkest) trumpet players on the 1930s.
His mother raised him to be a gentleman and his peers responded by naming him a member of American jazz's royal court. Count Basie took Moten's sound and conquered New York with it - then the world.
Ella Fitzgerald grew up rough, but the dimunitive drumming bandleader of the 1930s, Chick Webb, saw her potential. Even if it took him a couple looks, he ran one of New York's hottest bands and made her a star.
Had to step out of the timeline a bit for this one - the Boswell's mostly came up in the 1920s - but they all but created the close harmony act and reveled in their license to rearrange any song they could get their hands on.
Also from the close harmony genre, but from a completely different planet. The Mills Brothers found fame by letting their voices make the music, and with only a guitar for accompaniment.
When Vallee sang, the ladies swooned. The story of a driven, arrogant singer who benefitted enormously from the seductive intimacy of the 1930's much-improved microphones.
A tiny history of the quadruple threat who dominated American pop culture for nearly three(!) decades. He also recorded the most-listened to song in American popular music.
He gets credit for officially kicking off the big band era, but even he didn't know he'd done it at the time. The story of an infamously demanding bandleader who literallly came up with the rest of the Swing Era's household names.
Possibly the first-ever session band organized by a record label, and almost certainly the first to become stars in their own right. Also, one of the first bands to openly promote the counter-culture in popular music.
He wanted to become a star, but had to settle for opening a restaurant/venue...where he set his band up as the house band. A pioneer of the Western sound and the made who slipped the words "honky tonk" into American pop culture.
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