The Stars of Pop Music Before Rock and Roll (1214)

8/9/2019 The Stars of Pop Music Before Rock and Roll (1214)

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-stars-of-pop-music-before-rock-and-roll-1214 1/7

While we continue our discussion ofmainstream popular music in the periodbefore 1955, the world before rock androll.In, the first two videos, we talked abouthow an important thing for us to know isthat the songs that they, not aparticular performance of it.And how a lot of songs were, marketed viasheet music, and that was one of the mostimportant ways of making money in thepublishing business.And publishers are very, very important,they're really, sort of, driving the bushere, when it comes to the popular musicbusiness in this period before 1955.we also talked about how the importantrole that radio played in creating anational audience for mainstream pop.Now not so much country and western andrhythm and blues, and we're going to talkabout that in a future video here comingjust up.

But for now of mainstream pop sets upradio, sets up a national audience formainstream pop.And then we set a little bit, up, inmovies to a certain extent too.But then we said a little about how that,that national audience is going tomigrate to television, and it will leaveopportunities for rhythm and blues andcountry and western, in the period afterthe second world war, after 1945, when itdoes.So now, what we want to talk about is

what did mainstream popular music soundlike during these years, this period fromsay about, oh, 19th to 1920's, into theperiod leading up to 1955.So, I'm going to go through a lot ofnames here.And remembering that it's going to be upto you to find some of this music andlisten to it.And I really encourage you to do so.It's, it's really no fun to take a musiccourse if you never hear any music.So, you really need to go out and look

for some of this.I'll run through some of theseperformance for you, and then you cancheck them out and see what you think foryourself.Plenty of other information about them,not only in the book but also in allkinds of sources in the internet, so youwant to check this out.Maybe the most important artist we need



to mention for the period, the first halfof the 20th century, one of the mostsuccessful, one of the most influentialartists in the first half of the 20thcentury was Bing Crosby.These days Bing Crosby is maybe a littlebit sort of ignored or forgotten.but he was a fantastic star, a singer whois maybe the first singer, or at leastone of the first singer to really takeadvantage of the microphone.And that the singers before Bing Crosbyday didn't have the advantage or weren'treally trained to use microphones.They all their, their performances weredone acoustically, so they had to havevoices that, cut to the back of the hall.They'd cut over the orchestra, and so yougot these really big voices.Not exactly operatic voices, but you getthe idea voices that could really cutthrough.With the invention of the microphone, itmeant that it wasn't so important how

loud you sang, you could get themicrophone right up next to your mouthand then allowed for a certain kind ofintimacy.A certain amount of sort of vocaltechnique that didn't require the bigvoice, but could require other out areasof the voice.And Bing Crosby was one of the firstcrooners to really develop that techniqueand that, that sense of intimacy.Now, in Bing Crosby's case, the intimacywas never thought of as something that

was even remotely romantic in any kind ofway.Bing Crosby was more like everybody'sfavorite uncle.He played golf, he smoke, smoked a littlecigar, I mean, a little a little pipe.He always had a nice, sort of, knitsweater on.He was absolutely non-threatening, he washe was just seemed like a really nice olduncle.The kind of guy who you were happy to seeat Thanksgiving meals, and Christmas

time, and when you went on picnics inthe, in the summertime.And so that was the image that he, thathe fostered, but he was enormouslysuccessful.As I said hosting a, a, a coast to coastradio show for years, was one of thenumber one celebrities appearing in filmsand having a whole string of hit recordsup into the 1940's and 50's.





of their vocal styling their harmonyvocal styling almost had a debt to bigband horn sections.To the ways in which they wouldharmonized together, almost sounded likesaxophones, or trumpets, or trombones ina big band arrangement.Some, their most important tunes were Inthe Mood.They took this Glenn Miller hit In theMood and put lyrics with it.So, there you really get the connectionbetween the vocals and, and the big bandtech, and the big band horn tech.But also from 1938, Bei Mir bist duSchoen, and from 1943, Shoo Shoo Baby,and from 1945, Rum and Coca Cola.The Andrews Sisters would often appearwith Bing Crosby on his radio show andthey would do numbers together, one thatI can remember particularly vividly isDon't Fence Me In, which features BingCrosby and The Andrew Sisters together.Another group that would, that would sing

with Bing Crosby and where it's slightlydifferent, in a different kind of way,were The Mills Brothers, four AfricanAmerican singers who came out of theblack church tradition.And these guys had a tremendous amount ofcrossover appeal.And by crossover appeal, I mean, it wasrelatively rare for black artists to sella lot of records to white listeners.So, to crossover really meant peoplethought that you were somebody whoprobably was because of your skin color,

more appropriate to a rhythm and bluesaudience.And here you were singing to a whiteaudience.But the Mill, the Mills Brothers hadtremendous success in 1943 with PaperDoll, and 1944 with You Always Hurt TheOne You Love.With all these tracks, as I say, I reallysuggest you seek them out on the internetand have a listen to them.If you can get video of them that'sgreat, although video's going to be a

little bit tough unless they appear in afilm, singing it.And especially in this period before1945.Now in the period after the second worldwar, after 1945, and leading to 1955,probably the most important person wehave to think about is Frank Sinatra.Even though ice was, was talking aboutBing Crosby having a singing career as a



soloist, and a movie career, and BonVivant, and all the kinds of things wasgoing on with him.and The Andrews Sisters and The MillsBrothers, mostly during this big band eraof the 1940's where the bands and theinstrumentation was the thing.The singers were kind of secondary, it'skind of interesting.Exactly the inverse of what we see inrock and roll tunes.Rock and roll tunes, the songs are mostlysung, and then there will be a guitarsolo for a minute and the singer willcome back in.These big band arrangements, they wouldbe mostly played instrumentally, thesinger would come in for a minute as kindof a special thing and then go back outagain.And Frank Sinatra was one of thosesingers.In fact there were a bunch of singers whosang with big bands, and for most of the

gig the singer was on the sideline, thesinger would just come out as a kind offeatured number, as a kind of featuredsoloist kind of thing.Frank Sinatra was one of those guys.He had sung with the Harry James Band andwith the Tommy Dorsey Band.But in 1943, he launched his career as asolo singer.People thought Frank Sinatra was crazy.How could a singer possibly survive ifnot attached to one of these big bands.Frank Sinatra at that time was a young,

attractive, and unlike Bing Crosby whodidn't really excite the ladies so much,Frank Sinatra did.The girls who used to scream and faintover Frank Sinatra were called thebobby-soxers.And Frank Sinatra was maybe, we think,when we look at girls sort of screamingover Elvis, or girls screaming over theBeatles later in this course, you'll seethat that was happening with FrankSinatra back in 1943, 1944, 1945.Frank all, always gave a lot of credit to

the musicians he played with in the bigbands, saying his vocal technique camefrom watching how those guys played, andtrying to do with his voice theexpressive things the guys in the bandswere doing with their instrument.but as a star he was, he was clearly ateen idol there for a while and somerepresentative tracks from this periodare Nancy with the Laughing Face from



1945.There's actually a little story that goeswith that one.All of Me from 1948, and I've got a crushon you from 1948.Think today what would a song be like andsaid I've got a crush on you honey pie.These were much more innocent daysactually Nancy with the laughing face isinteresting was written by some guys whowhenever they would do a girl's birthdayparty, would insert whatever the name ofthat girl was into the into the song, topersonalize the song.And they did it at a birthday party forFrank Sinatra's daughter, Nancy, and thisis, this is the way the story goessometimes these stories are apocryphal.they, they they inserted the name Nancywith the laughing face into the song.Frank Sinatra misunderstood, he thoughtthey'd written the song especially forhis daughter who started crying and saidI have to record that song.

And so he did, and it became a hit forhim.So, it's interesting how sometimes thesethings come together.Some of the other singers that thatimitated Frank Sinatra or tried to playon his success, and we talk about Elvisin the 50s, and The Beatles in the 60s.We'll talk about how Elvis and TheBeatles both started something going, andonce they got it going other musicianssort of, other singers and acts sort ofcame in, trying to capitalize on a

success that they, that they had had,sort of ride their coat tails in acertain kind of sense.Some of those things happened with FrankSinatra too.In 1951 we get Johnnie Ray with hisemotional delivery of the song, Cry.Tony Bennett in 1953 with Rags to Riches.And Eddie Fisher in 1954 with the songcalled Oh My Papa.In fact, there was a period there in theearly 50's where Frank Sinatra wasthought to be sort of on the wane and

Eddie Fisher was going to be the nextteen heartthrob.Other music that important on the chartsto give you an idea of what popular musicsounded like before rock and roll in1955.Patti Page's Tennessee Waltz from 1950was a very big hit.And Les Paul and Mary Ford, How High TheMoon, 1951, may be their most important



sing maybe their most important single.We'll talk a bit about Les Paul in thenext video.So, just to review a little bit aboutwhat we've talked about.Here are some of the most importantartists that you're going to want tothink about in this period of mainstreampop, in a period from about the 1920's,1930's up to 1955.Bing Crosby, The Big Bands, The AndrewSisters, The Mills Brothers, FrankSinatra, Johnnie Ray, Tony Bennett, EddieFisher, Patti Page, Les Paul and MaryFord.In fact, in the next video, we'll take aespecially close look at Les Paul andMary Ford and some of the greatinnovations by Les Paul, the guitarist,and so many other things.

Documents

The Stars of Pop Music Before Rock and Roll (1214)