The first in-depth history of the involvement of African Americans
in the early recording industry, this book examines the first three
decades of sound recording in the United States, charting the
vigorous and varied roles black artists played in the period
leading up to the Jazz Age. Applying more than thirty years of
scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black artists who recorded
commercially in a wide range of genres and provides illuminating
biographies of some forty of these audio pioneers. Brooks assesses
the careers and impacts, as well as analyzing the recordings, of
figures including George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker,
Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy,
James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland
Hayes, Booker T. Washington, and boxing champion Jack Johnson, as
well as a host of lesser-known voices. Because they were viewed as
"novelty" or "folk" artists, nearly all of these African Americans
were allowed to record commercially in their own distinctive
styles, and in practically every genre: popular music, ragtime,
jazz, cabaret, classical, spoken word, politics, poetry, and more.
The sounds they preserved reflect the actual emerging black culture
of that tumultuous and creative period. The stories gathered here
give a previously unavailable insight into the early history of the
recording industry, as well as the racially complex landscape of
post-Civil War society at large. Lost Sounds also includes Brooks's
selected discography of CD reissues, and an appendix from Dick
Spottswood describing early recordings by black artists in the
Caribbean and South America.
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