American Music in the 1930s
The Great Depression “Popular Music” – identifier for any music in any genre from a select time frame that aspired to and achieved popularity with a particular artist Popular music in the 1930s can be used as a lens to better understand the collective memory of Americans during a decade marked by Depression, emerging technologies, and a surge in urbanization Over the course of the decade, American taste in music changed dramatically
Shifting Trends in the 1930s In the mainstream, the “sweet” sounds of the late Jazz Age dance bands like Guy Lombardo gave way to the more rhythmically involved and aggressive horn arrangements of Swing Era bandleaders like Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey “Vernacular” performances were recorded during an initial wave of interest in “race records,” “hillbilly,” and “ethnic” music generating interest in Robert Johnson, Jimmie Rogers, Roy Acuff, Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills The origins of emerging modern music was seen in the fine-tuning of jazz rhythm and blues by Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie
Guy Lombardo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW-ejksVpbA Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, “Love Me or Leave Me” (Walter Donaldson, 1929)
Swing Band Era Benny Goodman Tommy Dorsey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S1I_ien6A Benny Goodman Orchestra, “Sing, Sing, Sing” (Louis Prima, 1935)
Vernacular Robert Johnson Jimmie Rogers
Listening Guide 14.1a: Walking Blues” ROBERT JOHNSON An Introduction to America’s Music, 2nd Edition Copyright © 2013, W.W. Norton & Company 9
Listening Guide 14.1b: Walking Blues” ROBERT JOHNSON An Introduction to America’s Music, 2nd Edition Copyright © 2013, W.W. Norton & Company 10
Vernacular Roy Acuff The Carter Family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRbfQrKcVjg Roy Acuff, “Great Speckled Bird” (Acuff, 1938) To the southern traditional tune “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes”
Vernacular/Underground Bob Wills Bill Monroe
Bob Wills (with fiddle) leads his Texas Playboys Bob Wills (with fiddle) leads his Texas Playboys. Visible are alto and tenor saxes, clarinet, bass, and electric guitar (an amplified hollow-body instrument rather than the solid-body guitar popularized since the 1950s). An Introduction to America’s Music, 2nd Edition Copyright © 2013, W.W. Norton & Company 14
Listening Guide 14.3: “Corrine, Corrina” BOB WILLS AND HIS TEXAS PLAYBOYS An Introduction to America’s Music, 2nd Edition Copyright © 2013, W.W. Norton & Company 15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C08jmN1sM8 Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, “San Antonio Rose” (Wills, 1938/40)
Jazz with Rhythm and Blues? Duke Ellington Count Basie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojamSYmjEs0 Duke Ellington, “Mood Indigo” ( Ellington and Barney Bigard, 1930)
Rhythm and Blues Torch Singers Ella Fitzgerald Billie Holiday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDF4_qVgbFU Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, “Summertime” (George Gershwin, 1935 for the opera Porgy & Bess) This recording for the 1957 movie of Porgy & Bess
Shifting Trends Tin Pan Alley hit makers/composers like George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter provided hits for Broadway and musical stars like Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, and Judy Garland The Glen Miller Orchestra provided a generation a soundtrack with “Moonlight Serenade”
George and Ira Gershwin Tin Pan Alley George and Ira Gershwin Irving Berlin
Tin Pan Cole Porter Fred Astaire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV5e7mWcQJE Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, “Night and Day” (Cole Porter, 1934 from the musical The Gay Divorcee)
Cross-Over Bing Crosby Judy Garland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9QLn7gM-hY Bing Crosby, “White Christmas” (Irving Berlin, 1940)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSZxmZmBfnU Judy Garland, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, 1939)
Glen Miller Orchestra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPXwkWVEIIw&list=PL6258003AD8D971F9 Glen Miller Orchestra, “In the Mood” (Joe Garland and Andy Razaf, 1938)
Technological Trends The radio, the movie musical, the phonograph, and the jukebox all coalesced to make recorded music more readily available for all Americans The recording industry and the radio helped to foment a cross-pollination of styles, and opened the listening audience up to a greater variety of genres The jukebox is the perfect model for the systematic commoditization of music
Radio
Movie Musical
Phonograph
Jukebox