When record men first traveled from Chicago or invited musicians
to studios in New York, these entrepreneurs had no conception how
their technology would change the dynamics of what constituted a
musical performance. "78 Blues: Folksongs and Phonographs in the
American South" covers a revolution in artist performance and
audience perception through close examination of hundreds of key
"hillbilly" and "race" records released between the 1920s and World
War II.
In the postwar period, regional strains recorded on pioneering
78 r.p.m. discs exploded into urban blues and R&B, honky-tonk
and western swing, gospel, soul, and rock 'n' roll. These old-time
records preserve the work of some of America's greatest musical
geniuses such as Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, Charlie Poole, and
Blind Lemon Jefferson. They are also crucial mile markers in the
course of American popular music and the growth of the modern
recording industry.
When these records first circulated, the very notion of recorded
music was still a novelty. All music had been created live and tied
to particular, intimate occasions. How were listeners to understand
an impersonal technology like the phonograph record as a musical
event? How could they reconcile firsthand interactions and
traditional customs with technological innovations and mass media?
The records themselves, several hundred of which are explored fully
in this book, offer answers in scores of spoken commentaries and
skits, in song lyrics and monologues, or other more subtle
means.
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