Admittedly the motley subject of American popular song is a tough
one for academic overview - but this lopsided, often quite
wrongheaded attempt doesn't, finally, even rank as a Good Try.
True, Harem has collected some intriguing data on pre-1900 U.S.
song tastes - tunes from Britain, Germany, Italy - and he does
demonstrate (sketchily) their influence on the period's native
songwriters (the Bellini-esque quality of Foster's "Beautiful
Dreamer," for instance). But by didactically insisting on examining
only the most commercial music, Harem finds himself steeped in poor
songs, and, more crucially, he virtually ignores the period's
non-"popular" (largely black) music - work songs, gospels, etc.
Moreover, Harem's enthusiasm for his research leads him to give
more than half of his book to these curiosities (few of which are
later convincingly shown to be continuing influences). And thus,
when he reaches the 20th-century explosion of quantity and quality,
he has a) severely limited space, and b) no preparation for
discussing the black influence on pop music. So what does he do? He
packs everyone from Charles K. Harris ("After the Ball") to Perry
Como into 70 pages; he vaguely characterizes Tin Pan Alley as a
blend of Anglo-Irish forms with classical European and ethnic
Jewish input (a dubiously limited thesis that surely needs a book
of its own); and he tries hard to minimize the "exaggerated" black
influence on Tin Pan Alley. This is a futile attempt, and Harem is
soon contradicting himself, uncomfortably facing Gershwin and
Arlen, grossly oversimplifying the period. Then - 30 pages, on rock
'n' roll (with a sudden recognition of black musical forms) and on
to the folk/rock '60s and '70s, as Harem endeavors to deny the
continuing presence of "Tin Pan Alley." (To do this, he must ignore
TV, not to mention musak, in computing popularity.) Spots of
insight here and there, and scholars will value the pre-1900
research - but Hamm tries to do too much too haphazardly, an
idiosyncratic hodgepodge of approaches. Add in the totally
misleading subtitle (Hamm doesn't pretend to cover anything but
songs - and most readers will turn to the many specialized volumes
(like Alee Wilder's openly personal American Popular Song) or David
Ewen's bland but even-handed and complete surveys. (Kirkus Reviews)
General
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