IB Music SL Popular Music Early Popular Music of the 20 th Century

Popular Music Part 1 Mainstream before 1955 National audiences National versus regional audiences  Early history of radio  National versus regional styles  Radio networks  NBC and AT&T in 1928  Ethics and recordings  Range of entertainment  Emergence of television  Radio begins to lose audience in late 1940s  National television important for rock

Tin Pan Alley Publishers and songwriters  Centered in Tin Pan Alley (area of NYC)  Tin Pan Alley music follows a formal pattern  Sectional verse-chorus  AABA form (Over The Rainbow)  Marketing  Song verses specific recording  Vehicles for songs  Musicals  Sound films  Radio  Sheet music

Important early singers Singers helped to popularize songs in dance bands  Big band era,  Band leaders were well-known, not singers  Arrangements gave emphasis to band, not singer  Some popular songs had no words  Close relationship existed between big band and jazz  Bing Crosby  Many hit recordings  Film actor  Hosted radio variety show  Andrews Sisters  Mills Brothers Frank Sinatra  Established a new model–the pop-music singer as star  Performed with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey bands  Went solo in 1943  Other big band vocalists followed

Pop in the early 1950s (I’m Sittin On Top…)  Important singers  Patti Page  Eddie Fisher  Tony Bennett  Johnnie Ray  Family audience Transition from pop to early rock  Acknowledgment of generational divide  Singers began to include more emotional performances  Tin Pan Alley caught off guard

Country and Western before 1955 Regional styles Country in the southeast  Folk traditions in Appalachia  Derive in part from British Isles  Ralph Peer  Early artists  "Fiddlin' " John Carson  Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers  Carter Family  Roy Acuff

Western music in the southwest and California  Importance of cowboy films  Music associated with the west  Gene Autry  Patsy Montana  Western swing  Big band with a cowboy twist  Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys  Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies  Jimmie Rodgers  Most important figure in the history of country music  "Blue Yodeler," rustic backporch singer  "Singing Brakeman," roving hobo

National sound for country and western  In the 1930s and 1940s most country and western music was still regional  Important early radio shows  Grand Ole Opry  National Barndance  Wheeling Jamboree  Migration  Impact of WW II on listening habits

 Rise of Nashville  Importance of Grand Ole Opry  Acuff-Rose publishing  Hank Williams (Hey Good Lookin)  Talented songwriter  Louisiana Hayride radio show  Grand Ole Opry  Listeners perceived autobiography in music  Bluegrass  New form of commercial music, 1939  Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys  Virtuosity

Rhythm and Blues before 1955 Rural and urban living Migration and segregation  Blues as pop  W. C. Handy W. C. Handy  Bessie Smith  Memphis  Chicago Regional radio  Importance of advertising and demographics  Radio marketed to the African American community

Independent labels  Regional companies  Sun in Memphis  Chess in Chicago  King in Cincinnati  Atlantic in New York  Major labels of the period had resources  Decca  Mercury  RCA-Victor  Columbia  Capital  MGM  Could function because majors were too big to focus on rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, marketing, and range of style Gospel influence  Singers learned in church  Harmony influenced by church music  Vocal embellishments drawn from gospel Chicago electric blues  Chess (Evil – Is Going On )Evil – Is Going On  Rough-edged emotional directness  Raw, technically unsophisticated record sound  Made few concessions to white, middle-class sensibilities

Atlantic  Worked for more polished pop sound  Followed mainstream practice of focusing on singer and song  Backup arrangements structured and controlled Doo-wop  Emerged from urban neighborhoods after WWII  Group singing contests  Featured solo singer against vocal accompaniment Rhythm and blues as a dangerous influence Stagger Lee and racial stereotypes Hokum blues Sexual double-entendre  "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"Shake, Rattle, and Roll