The Complete Guide To Vintage Children S Records

"The coverage is mainly of 78rpm records, however a few early 45rpm records are included. Unlike previous price guides, this book attempts to cover all 78rpm kiddie records made in the USA. The dates of coverage range from the 1890s to the 1960s with most listings from the 1940s and 1950s."--Cover back.

Young People's Records and Children's Record Guild were the first commercially significant record clubs in the world. By applying proven book club methods to the field of phonograph records, these two related companies attracted some hundred thousand subscribers at their peak and serviced perhaps a million members in their existence. Revolutionizing Children's Records: The Young People's Records and Children's Record Guild Series, 1946-1977 tells the history of YPR/CRG, explaining how these two labels intersected important developments in the histories of mass marketing, recording technology, educational philosophy, folk music, contemporary composition, and Cold War politics. David Bonner covers in detail the history of YPR/CRG, tracing its influences back to the beginnings of music education in the 19th Century and incorporating the impact of the American folk music revival on music educators. The narrative follows the career paths of the company principals, such as its progressive founder Horace Grenell; the musicians who recorded for him, like American folk music revival pioneer Tom Glazer; and the record industry offshoots they created in the process. Bonner considers advances the club made in recording technology as the first record label devoted exclusively to "unbreakable" vinyl discs and provides a comprehensive summary of record club marketing, including the application of "music appreciation" to phonograph records. He also charts the commercial, critical, and political response to these endeavors, including an historical footnote to the "Red Scare" unavailable in existing Cold War literature. A complete and detailed discography listing every YPR and CRG recording, including all known writers and performers, concludes this excellent reference for scholars, nostalgists, and phonographic fanatics.

Spinning the Child examines music for children on records, radio and television by assessing how ideals of entertainment, education, ‘the child’ and ‘the family’ have been communicated through folk music, the BBC’s children’s radio broadcasting, the children’s songs of Woody Guthrie, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and Bagpuss, the contemporary children’s music industry and other case studies. The book provides the first sustained critical overview of recorded music for children, its production and dissemination. The music, lyrics and sonics of hundreds of recorded songs are analysed with reference to their specific social, historical and technological contexts. The chapters expose the attitudes, morals and desires that adults have communicated both to and about the child through the music that has been created and compiled for children. The musical representations of age, race, class and gender reveal how recordings have both reflected and shaped transformations in discourses of childhood. This book is recommended for scholars in the sociology of childhood, the sociology of music, ethnomusicology, music education, popular musicology, children’s media and related fields. Spinning the Child’s emphasis on the analysis of musical, lyrical and sonic texts in specific contexts suggests its value as both a teaching and research resource.

Rudolph, Frosty, and Captain Kangaroo is a memoir by Judy Gail Krasnow about her father, Hecky Krasnow, the producer of such classic children’s records and holiday tunes as “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas,” “Peter Cottontail,” “Suzy Snowflake,” “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “The Captain Kangaroo March,” “Smokey the Bear,” “Davy Crockett,” “Little Red Monkey,” and “The Little Engine That Could.” The book includes remembrances of Hecky Krasnow’s working relationships with such legendary artists as Gene Autry, Rosemary Clooney, Dinah Shore, Nina Simone, Art Carney, José Ferrer, Burl Ives, Arthur Godfrey, and Captain Kangaroo. In addition to his profound influence on the children’s record industry—an enormous business during the mid-twentieth century—Hecky also produced, wrote, or engineered such adult fare as Rosemary Clooney’s “Come On-a My House” and “Me and My Teddy Bear”; Nina Simone’s classic album The Amazing Nina Simone; and the landmark Chad Mitchell Trio debut, The Chad Mitchell Trio Arrives! Set against the dramatic backdrop of McCarthyism, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the birth of television and rock and roll, Rudolph, Frosty, and Captain Kangaroo is rich in anecdotes about the politics and history of the era, the stars Hecky produced, and an array of talented composers and conductors with whom Hecky collaborated, including Mitch Miller, Johnny Marks, Percy Faith, J. Fred Coots, Tommy Johnson, Sir Thomas Beecham, Rudolph Goehr, André Kostelanetz, and Arthur Fiedler.

Histories of the book often move straight from the codex to the digital screen. Left out is nearly 150 years of audio recordings. Matthew Rubery uncovers this story, from Edison to today’s billion-dollar audiobook industry, and breaks from convention by treating audiobooks as a distinctive art form that has profoundly influenced the way we read.

Ronald D. Lankford has written the definitive history of this iconic and much-loved Christmas character. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was the creation of Robert May, a staff copywriter who wrote the original poem as a Montgomery Ward Christmas giveaway in 1939. More than 2.4 million copies were printed and given away that holiday season. Thus the legend began. Johnny Marks adapted the poem into what would become the Gene Autry hit "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which instantly became - and still remains - one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time. The legend of Rudolph soared even higher with the Rankin/Bass stop-motion television special in 1964, which has gone on to inspire a cottage industry of toys and decorative items. In this festive and informed look at the most famous reindeer of all, Lankford discusses all of Rudolph's iterations, including comic books, sequels, advertising tie-ins, movies, and much more. Lankford has produced the first complete history of Rudolph that both celebrates and explains the undying popularity of Rudolph and his friends. The result is both a glowing tribute and a rigorously researched biography that will appeal to fans and lovers of classic American holiday culture.

Expand your aural and sensory experiences with Extreme Music. An exploration of tomorrow’s sounds (and silences) today. Michael Tau had spent years obsessed by the extremes of musical expression. Extreme Music: Silence to Noise and Everything In Between is the culmination of decades of research into the sounds (and silences) that comprise the outer limits and conceptual expressions that stretch the definition of music. Tau defines and categorizes these recorded sounds into sections that allow fans and newcomers to explore the fascinating world of musicians who defy convention. He explores a wide range of extremes including volume, speed, and vulgarity to packaging, recording methods, unplayable media, outdated technologies, and digital pioneers. He asks and answers the questions: Are all sounds music? Is silence music? Is a plate of rotting food once cataloged, packaged and sold by a distributor qualify as music? Extreme Music includes over 100 interviews with makers and musicians as Tau uses his background in psychiatry to help readers understand what motivates people to create and listen to non-mainstream music. As a fan of multiple avant-garde musical genres, Tau uncovers the pleasures (and sometimes pain and frustration) found at the outré fringes of music. Extreme Music is the ideal guide for curious seekers, die-hard fans, and cultural investigators. Features images and curated links to samples of music.