All The Years Of American Popular Music

Surveys the history of all categories of American popular music from colonial times to the present, with information on the music, composers, performers, and entrepreneurs.

Beginning with the emergence of commercial American music in the nineteenth century, Volume 1 includes essays on the major performers, composers, media, and movements that shaped our musical culture before rock and roll. Articles explore the theoretical dimensions of popular music studies; the music of the nineteenth century; and the role of black Americans in the evolution of popular music. Also included--the music of Tin Pan Alley, ragtime, swing, the blues, the influences of W. S. Gilbert and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and changes in lyric writing styles from the nineteenth century to the rock era.

The Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volumes 1 and 2 covers the full range of popular music recordings with virtually unprecedented breadth and depth. In this 2-volume encyclopedia, Sullivan explores approximately 1,000 song recordings from 1889 to the present, telling the stories behind the songs, recordings, performers, and songwriters. From the Victorian parlor ballad and ragtime hit at the end of the 19th century to today’s rock classics, the Encyclopedia progresses through a parade popular music styles, from jazz to blues to country Western, as well as the important but too often neglected genres of ethnic and world music, gospel, and traditional folk. This book is the ideal research tool for lovers of popular music in all its glorious variety.

Designed as a broad introductory survey, and written by experts in the field, this book examines the rise of American music over the 20th century - the period in which that music came into its own and achieved unprecedented popularity. Beginning with a look at music as a business, 11 essays explore a variety of popular musical genres, including Tin Pan Alley, blues, jazz, country, gospel, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, folk, rap, and Mexican American corridos. Reading these essays, we come to see that the forms created by one group often appeal to, and are in turn influenced by, other groups - across lines of race, ethnicity, class, gender, region and age.

Make music come alive for students in grades 5 and up with American Popular Music! This 96-page book explores how the roots of American music began and developed. From European musical traditions in the seventeenth century to African American music today, this book uncovers a foundation and appreciation of AmericaÕs music. It features genres such as ragtime, blues, Dixieland, swing, big band, musical theater, folk, country western, rock and roll, disco, funk, punk, rap, alternative, and contemporary Christian.

From Tin Pan Alley to grand opera, player-pianos to phonograph records, David Suisman’s Selling Sounds explores the rise of music as big business and the creation of a radically new musical culture. Around the turn of the twentieth century, music entrepreneurs laid the foundation for today’s vast industry, with new products, technologies, and commercial strategies to incorporate music into the daily rhythm of modern life. Popular songs filled the air with a new kind of musical pleasure, phonographs brought opera into the parlor, and celebrity performers like Enrico Caruso captivated the imagination of consumers from coast to coast. Selling Sounds uncovers the origins of the culture industry in music and chronicles how music ignited an auditory explosion that penetrated all aspects of society. It maps the growth of the music business across the social landscape—in homes, theaters, department stores, schools—and analyzes the effect of this development on everything from copyright law to the sensory environment. While music came to resemble other consumer goods, its distinct properties as sound ensured that its commercial growth and social impact would remain unique. Today, the music that surrounds us—from iPods to ring tones to Muzak—accompanies us everywhere from airports to grocery stores. The roots of this modern culture lie in the business of popular song, player-pianos, and phonographs of a century ago. Provocative, original, and lucidly written, Selling Sounds reveals the commercial architecture of America’s musical life.

'Saying It With Songs' considers how the increasing interdependence of Hollywood studios and Tin Pan Alley music publishing firms influenced the commercial and narrative functions of popular songs in a variety of film genres.