John Marks’ Bookshelf for Lovers of Recordings #4

A DOZEN BOOKS REVIEWED, ONE A WEEK FOR THE NEXT TWELVE

Here are notes on a selection from my favorite books on the history of recording technology, the history of the record business, and the interactions between recording technology, the record business, and the art of music. One example of what I mean by all that is, in the late 1920s, piezoelectric “crystal” microphones supplanted carbon microphones for radio broadcasting. 

Crystal microphones had a better signal-to-noise ratio than carbon microphones. Therefore, the live singers on radio could sing more quietly and intimately. They no longer had to shout to be heard. However, the quartz, mica, or other crystal elements were also more fragile than had been the carbon microphones. So, “shouters” like Al Jolson were out; and “crooners” like Rudy Vallee were in. (Trivia bit: Rudy Vallee graduated from Yale, with a degree in Philosophy.)

This list will be presented as a series of weekly installments. Rather than attempt to rank such diverse books from “Best” to “Somewhat Less Best,” this list is organized both chronologically and categorically. JM

The Bookshelf:

 1. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877-1977

2. The Label: The Story of Columbia Records

3. Do Not Sell at Any Price

4. The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and the Rebirth of the Great American Song

5. Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation

6. Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977

7. Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios

8. Goodnight, L.A.: The Rise and Fall of Classic Rock -- The Untold Story from inside the Legendary Recording Studios

9. Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album

10. Backstory in Blue: Ellington at Newport ‘56

11. A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album

12. The Vinyl Frontier: The Story of NASA s Interstellar Mixtape

4. The B Side: The Death of Tin Pan Alley and

the Rebirth of the Great American Song

by Ben Yagoda

New York: Riverhead Books; reprint edition 2015. Softcover, 336 pp. ISBN: 1594634092.

This book starts with the hard-to-argue-with premise that the body of work of composers and lyricists such as Irving Berlin, the Gershwin brothers, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, known as the “Great American Songbook,” was a hugely important cultural achievement of lasting value.

Ben Yagoda then tries to figure out why the period from the climax of the Great American Songbook era (circa 1945) to the advent of Rock and Roll (1955) was such a Musical Hazardous-Waste Dump (my words not his). The prime example being the fact that “[How Much Is That] Doggie in the Window” spent eight weeks at the top of the Billboard pop chart.

The answers for the most part are not pretty: Illegal conspiracies in restraint of trade; kickbacks; personal vendettas; and Payola. Who knew that Frank Sinatra and Mitch Miller were not just competitors, but mortal enemies? Also, sometimes there is just a lack of talented people who are willing to “face the fastball” (or, the beanball). Furthermore, the societal impacts of major geopolitical events such as the Second World War are not to be discounted. The bottom line being, every now and then, there is a fallow period, between the periods of greatness.

Ben Yagoda is a cultural historian as well as a professor of Journalism. He writes fluently about matters of Sociology and Musicology, and he keeps his sense of humor. Describing the post-WWII, 1945-1946 flameout of nearly all the Big Bands, Yagoda writes:

In an uncanny process, jazz was being surgically removed from popular music. Popular music, for its part, did not seem to mind.

Highly recommended.