Well, we continue our discussion of main-stream popular music in the period before 1955, the world before rock and roll. In the first two videos, we talked about how the important thing for us to know is that the song's the thing. Not a particular performance of it. And how a lot of songs were marketed via sheet music. And that was one of the most important ways of making money in the publishing business. And publishers are very, very important. They're really sort of driving the bus here. When it comes to the popular music business in this period before 1955. we also talked about how the important role that radio played in creating a national audience for mainstream pop. Now not so much country western and rhythm and blues and we're going to talk about it. In a future video here, coming just up. But for now, mainstream pop, sets up, Radio sets up a national audience for mainstream pop. And then we said a little bit in movies to a certain extent, too. But then we said a little bit about how that, that national audience is going to migrate to television. And it will leave opportunities for rhythm and blues and country and western. In a period after the second world war, after 1945. when it does. So now, what we want to talk about is what the mainstream popular music sound like during these years? This period from say about oh 19, the 1920's into the period leading up to 1955, so I'm going to go through a lot of names here. And remembering that it's going to be up to you to find some of this music and listen to it and I really encourage you to do so. It's really no fun to take a music course if you never hear any music so you really need to go out and look for some of this music. So, I'll run through some of these performance for you and then you can check them out and see what you think for yourself. Plenty of other information about them. Not only in the book, but also on all kinds of sources on the Internet so you want to check this out. Maybe the most important artist we need to mention for the period, the first half of the twentieth century, one of the most successful, one of the most influential, artists in the first half of the twentieth century was Bing Crosby. These days Bing Crosby's maybe a little bit sort of Ignored or forgotten. But he was a fantastic star. A singer who is maybe the first singer at least one of the first singers to really take advantage of the microphone. And that the singers before Bing Crosby's day didn't have the advantage or weren't really trained to use microphones. All their performances were done acoustically. So they have to have voices that cut to the back of the hall. They'd cut over the orchestra, and so you got these really big voices. Not exactly operatic voices, but you get the idea of voices that could really cut through. With the invention of the microphone, it meant that it wasn't so important how loud you sang. You could get the microphone right up next to your mouth. And that allowed for a certain kind of intimacy. A certain amount of Sort of vocal technique that didn't require a big voice but could require other out areas of the voice and Bing Crosby was one of the first crooners to really a develop that technique and that that sense of intimacy now. In Bing Crosby's case the intimacy was never thought of as something that was even remotely romantic in any kind of way. Bing Crosby was more like everybody's favorite uncle. He played golf. He smoked a, smoked a little cigar, I mean a little a little pipe. He always had a nice sort of knit, a knit sweater on. He was absolutely non-threatening. He was he was, just seemed like a really nice old uncle, that kind of guy. Who, you were happy to see at Thanksgiving meals and Christmas time, and when you went on picnics in the, in the summertime. And so that was the image that he, that he fostered. But he was enormously successful. As I said, hosting a. A coast to coast radio show for years, was one of the number one celebrities appearing films and having a whole string of hit records up into the 1940's and 50's. Some of those would be, songs like I've Got A Pocketful of Dreams from 1938 Only Forever from 1940, Swinging on a Star from 1944 and his famous recording of White Christmas which both went to number one on the charts both in 1942. And again in 1945. So Bing Crosby, a very very important figure who characterizes much of what was going on mainstream pop in a period before at least before the second world war. Also in mainstream pop we have to think about the big bands. And the big bands are usually thought of, when we think about the a the history of Jazz music because they were so important Paul White and his band was one of the most important a early instances of that an interesting thing about the big bands is they weren't really about the singing at all. It was about the bands it was about the playing. This is back in the day when a, a bands job like a rock band in a club today, was really to go to a dance and to keep people dancing, right? There job was to keep them keep them on the dance floor. And so this guys, these big bands were often called dance bands. You had Paul Whiteman with a band, virtuoso clarinetist Benny Goodman with a band. Other bands came from Tommy Dorsey Jimmy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller. in the African-American community you had the Duke Ellington Band as well as the Count Basie Band. There was some cross over there but mostly the white bands played the white venues and the black bands played the black venues. We're still talking about a country that's very segregated, during these years. If you want look for a particular example of what the big band sound was like, I would recommend String of Pearls, which is kind of the signature tune for the Glenn Miller Orchestra, was a number one hit in this country in 1942. If you listen to String of Pearls, you'll get kind of an idea of what big band music was about during this period. We also had a lot of singing groups. The Andrews Sisters, three, three singing sisters from Minnesota, singing in harmony vocal with a kind of a debt, some of their vocal, stylings, their harmony vocal stylings almost had debt to big band horn sections, in the ways in which they would harmonize together almost sounded like saxophones or trumpets or trombones in a, in a big band arrangement. Some of their most important tunes were In The Mood, they took this Glenn Miller hit In The Mood and put lyrics with it, so there you really get the connection between the vocals and, and the big band technique and the big band horn technique. But also, from 1938 by Bei Mir bist du Schoen and from 1943 Shoo Shoo Baby and from 1945 Rum and Coca Cola. The Andrews sisters would often appear with Bing Crosby on his radio show and they would do. numbers together one that I could remember particularly vividly is Don't Fancy Me, which features Bing Crosby and the Andrew's sisters together. Another group that would sing with a a Bing Crosby and works slightly different in a different kind of way were the Mills brothers. Four African-American singers who came out of the, out of the black church tradition. And these guys had a tremendous amount of crossover appeal, and by crossover appeal I mean it was relatively rare for black artists to sell a lot of records to white listeners. So to cross over really meant. People thought that you were somebody who was probably because of your skin color, more appropriate to a rhythms and blues audience, and here you were singing to white audiences. But the most, Mills Brothers had tremendous success in 1943 with Paper Doll, and 1944 with You Always Hurt The One You Love with all these tracks as I say I really suggest you seek them out on the Internet and have a listen to them. And if you can get video of them that's great although video's going to be a little bit tough unless they appear in a film singing it. Especially this period before 1945. Now in the period after the second world war after 1945 in Liddington 1955 probably the most important person we have to think about is Frank Sinatra. Even though I was talking about Bing Crosby having a singing career as a soloist and a movie career and [UNKNOWN] and all other kinds of things going on with him a and the Andrew's Sisters and the Mills Brothers. Mostly during this Big Band era of the 1940s where the bands and the instrumentation was the thing. The singers were kind of secondary. It's kind of interesting. Exactly the inverse of what we see in rock and roll tunes. Rock and roll tune is, the songs are mostly sung, and then there'll be a guitar solo for a minute, and the singer will come back in. But with these big band arrangements, they would be mostly played instrumentally. The singer would come in for a minute as kind of a special thing and then go back out again, and Frank Sinatra was one of those singers. In fact, there was a bunch of singers who sang with big bands. And for most of the gig, the singer was on the sideline; the singer would just come out as a kind of featured number as a kind of featured soloist kind of thing. Frank Sinatra was one of those guys. He had sung with The Harry James Band and with the Tommy Dorsey band but in 1943 he launched his career as a solo singer. People thought Frank Sinatra was crazy how could a singer possibly survive if not attached to one of these big bands. Frank Sinatra at that time was a young. attracktive and unlike Bing Crosby who didn't really excite the ladies so much, Frank Sinatra did. The, the girls who used to scream and faint over Frank Sinatra were called the bobby soxers and Frank Sinatra. Was maybe we think when we look at girls sort of screaming over Elvis, or girls screaming over the Beatles later in this course, you'll see that that was happening with Frank Sinatra back in 1943 and 1944 1945. Frank all, always gave a lot of credit to the musicians that he played with in the big bands, saying that his vocal technique came from watching how those guys played, and trying to do with this voice. The expressive things, the guys in the bands were doing with their instrument. but as a star, he was, he was clearly a teen idol there for awhile and some representative tracks from this period are Nancy With the Laughing Face from 1945. There's actually a little story that goes with that one. All Of Me, from 1948 and I've Got a Crush on You from 1948. Think today what would a song be like that said I've got a crush on you, honey pie. These were much more innocent days. Actually Nancy With the Laughing Face is interesting. it was written by some guys who. Whenever they would do a girl's birthday party, would insert whatever the name of that girl was into the into the song to personalize the song. And they did it at a birthday party for Frank Sinatra's daughter, Nancy and, and this is, this is they way the story goes. Sometimes these stories are apocryphal. they, they they insert the name Nancy with a laughing face into the song and Frank Sinatra misunderstood. He thought they've written a song especially for his daughter, who started crying, and said, I have to record that song. And so he did, and it became a hit for him. So, it's interesting how sometimes these things come together. Some of the other singers that that imitated Frank Sinatra, or tried to play on his success. And we talk about Elvis in the 50's, and the Beatles in the 60's. We'll talk about how Elvis and the Beatles both started something going. And once they got it going, other musicians sort of. Other singers and acts sort of came in, trying to capitalize on the success that they had had, sort of ride their coattails in a certain kind of sense. And some of those things happened with Frank Sinatra, too. In 1951, we get Johnny Ray, with his emotional delivery of the song Cry. Tony Bennett in 1953 with Rags to Riches, and Eddie Fisher In 1954 what the song called Oh My Papa. In fact there was a period there in the early 50's where Frank Sinatra was thought to sort of be on the wane and Eddie Fisher was going to be the next teen hearthrob. Other music that was important on the charts to give you an idea of what popular music sounded like. Before rock and roll in 1955, Patti Page's Tennessee Waltz from 1950 was a very big hit. And Les Paul and Mary Ford, How High The Moon, 1951, maybe their most important, maybe their most important single. We'll talk a bit about Les Paul in the next video so just to review a little bit about what we've talked about here are some of the most important artists that you're going to want to think about in this mainstream pop the period from about the 1920's 1930's up to 1955. Bing Crosby the big bands the Andrew Sisters the Mills Brothers. Frank Sinatra, Johnnie Ray, Tony Bennett, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, Les Paul and Mary Ford. In fact, in the next video we'll take especially close look at Les Paul and Mary Ford and some of the great innovations by Les Paul, the guitarist, and so many other things.
