Topic: Early American Pop Music

[craigmulcahy]

Looking to dive a little more into this style. If anyone has some good recommendations for artists, records, books and music theory that'd be awesome.

Cheers,

Craig

[Rivers]

Hi Craig,

Perhaps you could describe what you mean by the term Early American Pop Music. It covers a lot of ground.

[Pan]

Jazzstandards.com is a site for popular songs of all periods:

http://www.jazzstandards.com/history/history-1.htm

Cheers

Pan

[craigmulcahy]

I guess I'm referring more to Tin Pan ally pop-blues/jazz stuff. Just wanting to learn a little more about it.

[Rivers]

I think it's all about the composers and their origins, influences and amazing talent. Irving Berlin, George & Ira Gershwin traced their roots to Eastern Europe and absorbed jazz, blues and ragtime in their new home. So if you want to get into Tin Pan Alley go back further and listen to Eastern European folk songs, particularly klezmer, and see how they fit in.

There were outliers as well, Hoagy Carmichael and Bix Beiderbeck spring to mind. All possessed very solid compositional skills, to say the least.

Maybe cherry-picking repertoire tunes would be a good angle. Hoag's Baltimore Oriole works great on acoustic guitar as a solo fingerpicking piece in D minor. Gershwin's Summertime,  a lot of people play it but not everyone plays it right. Berlin's Russian Lullaby and Blue Skies. I like Brother Can You Spare A Dime.

All are minor-ish tunes, slightly Eastern-sounding, and work great on acoustic instruments in a small combo or solo.

[dj]

If you're looking for recorded music from the 1890s through the end of the acoustic era, check out Archeophone's Phonographic Yearbook series.  They try to cover the most popular songs/recordings of each year, and in the teens you start to see blues and jazz slip into the mix.

For a deeper exploration of the first quarter of the 20th century, there's The National Jukebox at the Library of Congress.  It's got a good search function, and you can build your own playlists.

[Stumblin]

You might find Peter Muir's Long Lost Blues, or David Wondrich's Stomp and Swerve useful, both provide a generous helping of historical information about the surrounding musical environment in which early blues evolved.

[dj]

Is there a British equivalent of The Library Of Congress' National Jukebox?

[craigmulcahy]

Thanks for all the tips guys.

[Mr.OMuck]

Folkways records, now Smithsonian records where records NEVER go out of print, actually had quite a few titles in the vein of Popular songs of the 1870's and such. I would check out their catalogue.

[Stumblin]

Is there a British equivalent of The Library Of Congress' National Jukebox?

There's the British Library's sound collection, which has a lot of music, including some field recordings. I guess this is the UK's nearest equivalent to the Library of Congress recording archives.

[dj]

Cool, thanks!

[Johnm]

Hi Craig,
I was wondering how early the music you were looking to find out about/hear was.  It sounds like you might not be interested in music prior to the first couple of decades of the 20th century.  Is that correct?
All best,
Johnm