No Gramaphone: No Pop Music?

Subject: No Gramaphone: No Pop Music?
From: Doctor John
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 02:26 PM

This is one of those "what ifs" which is historically unlikely. If sound recording hadn't been invented would there still be pop music? I think most of us feel that traditional folk music is pretty good; folk music presumably was the pop music of its day (or rather contemporary music as pop implies manufactured, commercial, profit orientated) but has improved over the decades by survival of the fittist: the good continues, the moderate improves and the bad is lost. Without sound recording would we still have "Be Bop A Lula" on the radio and would Martin Carthy be singing "Heartbreak Hotel"? Music certainly wouldn't be local as Jack Elliot would have still brought Woody's music across the Atlantic but would it be a better music world? OK ,we couldn't hear Lead Belly etc to our regret but we can't hear Buddy Bolden either now. So called classical music has its own tradition and has been written down and may be considered "elitist" music rather than people's music so I don't think it counts in this discussion. Dr John

Subject: RE: No Gramaphone: No Pop Music?
From: Roger the skiffler
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 03:16 PM

And there may be something in the fact that juke boxes allowed people to play music cheaply even if they didn't have a gramaphone at home, or if what was played at home was their parents' choice not the devil's music!
I've got piano rolls of Presley songs as well as Waller, Tatum,Eubie and Willie the Lion. Would Presley rolls have been cut if no-one knew his recordings?
RtS

Subject: RE: No Gramaphone: No Pop Music?
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 15 Dec 99 - 07:19 PM

'Tis something I have thought about. There was always some form of popular music. Before those damned recordings, sheet music was a popular form of distribution. Good songs sold like hot cakes (or records) . But, yeah, recordings enabled new music to be heard. Music performed by people without a cerebral knowledge of musical theory. It is likely no one would have distributed Lead Belly or Robert Johnson on sheet music. Then there is a pantheon of other folk singers who are gods who would never have been heard from. How about Woody? What of Uncle Dave Macon?

Radio was another from of distribution of music, but would it have been able to sustain interest in a particular song or performance the way recordings can?

I think the pluses outweigh the minuses.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: No Gramaphone: No Pop Music?
From: Nathan in Texas
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 10:07 AM

In some respects, the pluses and minuses are the same. Recordings make it possible for anyone to have access to the best musicians in the world in every genre. A hundred years ago the only music you could ever hear was what was available live locally. That meant that anyone who was willing to sing or who could play an instrument had opportunity to perform and be appreciated. Now days people are unwilling to sing because they don't sound as good as "the best" who are readily available on recordings. That's a minus, but I agree with Roger, the pluses outweigh the minuses and few, if any, would be willing to go back to the pre-recording days.