What began on the American mainland in the 1850s, when the first hula dancers were presented to the public and what was promoted by Hawaiian music only a few years later – the promise of paradise on earth, an Eden in endless summer – the Hawaiian way of life, for the vast majority of Americans […]
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Category: B. R. Music
From Flappers to Rappers: The Origins, Evolution, and Demise of Youth Culture by Marcel Danesi (2018...
Even if there already are some titles informing about this “feature” of modernity (youth cultures), the title at hand by Marcel Danesi convinces with a solid introduction of what “the youth,” (“a youth,” “a teenager,” or a person in its “adolescence”) actually is and how the “species” was first, well, discovered by sociologists and how, […]
Selling Folk Music: An Illustrated History by Ronald D. Cohen and David Bonner (2018)
This title was designed to portray the various setups, styles, collages, and the cover art of both scores, books, festival ads, piano rolls, and vinyl that was marketed and sold in packages that related to the musical content of “folk music” in the United States at a certain period. So there is not too much […]
Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media… by N. Bentley, B. Johnson and A. Zieleniec (eds.
With emphasis on “Teenage Dreams,” three loosely designed subdivisions – literary fictions, representations on screen, critical theory and representations in other media – approach the huge body of demonstrations of subcultures in popular culture in the title at hand. Already the very idea of subcultures is strongly connected to modes of narration: “One of the […]
A&R Pioneers: Architects of American Roots Music on Record by Brian Ward and Patrick Huber (2018)
Of the many record companies that existed in the 1930s, only a few big players survived; they did so by smart marketing, competitive prices and most of all by clever artist recording policies. The respective expert in such a recording company usually was the A&R person, short for artist and repertoire. He (as then with […]
Soundies Jukebox Films and the Shift to Small-Screen Culture by Andrea J. Kelley (2018)
During the 1940s about 1,850 “Soundies” were produced in the US, destined to be played on 5,000 special standalone film machines in circulation nationwide. Those 16mm short films with a musical content were presented in coin-operated movie jukeboxes that were known as “Panorams,” which could be found in consumer places or likely in any place […]
Folk Music in Overdrive: A Primer on Traditional Country and Bluegrass Artists by Ivan Tribe (2018)
By now (actually since the 1970s and thanks to a number of folk revivals) it is no secret that the geographical region of the Upland South was actually exploding with musical talent at the beginning of the 1920s. The states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Carolina produced countless masters and some tuneful virtuosi. The artists […]
The British Blues Network: Adoption, Emulation, and Creativity by Andrew Kellett (2017)
After WWII, with the British Empire finally devoid of its former power and importance, young British blues enthusiasts invented their own vision of a new country, they – metaphorically – chose as their preferred home country an idealized (American) life, namely in creating the very personal America with lots of possibilities and adventure. As all […]
Die Trikont-Story: Musik, Krawall & andere schöne Künste by Christof Meueler and Franz Dobler (2017)
Few record labels can look back on a lifetime of 50 years, even fewer can look on the past and find a very unusual history. Trikont, the oldest independent German music label, and, actually, the oldest independent label worldwide, now has reached that age. Those 50 years were worth a long book in the shape […]