A sharp, nostalgic homage to the golden era of radio, told as both
a memoir and a social history. Nachman, a columnist for the New
York Times syndicate, attempts to explain just how radio came to
define American pop culture from the 1920s to the '40s by examining
the personalities, genres, and behind-the-scenes politics of
network radio productions. As the earliest tycoons (like George
Washington Hill of the American Tobacco Company and barn
broadcaster Dr. Frank Conrad) contributed to radio's availability
and mass-market appeal, a boom began that drew talent of varying
degrees and generated a patriotic hype not unlike that which
surrounds today's information superhighway: radio was to be the
American medium that would bring culture and democracy around the
globe. Instead, it introduced advertising to the country and
created the formats - soap operas, news, sports, variety, sitcom,
and drama - that remain in popular entertainment to this day.
Nachman recalls the 30 remarkable years of radio's reign by
remembering the programs - inspired first by vaudeville, then by
Broadway - that he enjoyed as a child: from the sassy satirist Fred
Allen ("the David Letterman of radio") to the fluffy but arousing
teen-girl dramas like Junior Miss. Mirroring the country's domestic
politics, radio programs of that era attempted to sweeten immigrant
stereotypes and launch antiracist images of blacks (in what Nachman
calls "a rather thin rainbow coalition"): the Italian immigrant
comedy Life with Luigi, the blue-collar characters in The Life of
Riley, and the Jewish family in The Goldbergs all told the
immigrant story with bursts of ethnic humor and staunch American
patriotism. Beulah, a show about a black maid, tried to honor black
culture (while using white actors - a practice that happily died
out early on). Still lovable despite its flaws, network radio
through Nachman's eyes is a treat. A humorous account of a
radiophile's memory and longing for the return of the lost era.
(Kirkus Reviews)
In the late 1920s radio exploded almost overnight into being
America's dominant entertainment, just as television would do
twenty-five years later. Gerald Nachman, himself a product of the
radio years, takes us back to the heyday of radio, bringing to life
the great performers and shows, as well as the not-so-great and
not-great-at-all. Nachman analyzes the many genres that radio
exploited or invented, from the soap opera to the sitcom to the
quiz show, zooming in to study closely key performers like Jack
Benny, Bob Hope, and Fred Allen. Raised on Radio is a generous,
instructive, and sinfully readable salute to an extraordinary
American phenomenon.
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