The Blue Book of Tin Pan Alley; A Human Interest Anthology of American Popular Music

Notes ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
H. Stephenson Smith ◽  
Jack Burton
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Human Interest ◽  
Blue Book ◽  
Tin Pan Alley ◽  
American Popular Music

Popular modernism? The ‘urban’ style of interwar Tin Pan Alley

Popular Music ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Lindberg
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
The Self ◽  
Popular Song ◽  
Internal Logic ◽  
Tin Pan Alley ◽  
Cultural Terms ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Song Writing ◽  
High Literature ◽  
Emotional Style

The approach of this article complements those of previous critics that account for the rise of the ‘mature’ style of Tin Pan Alley chiefly in terms of the internal logic of the field of American popular music. It suggests that the so-called golden age of the Alley (ca. 1920–1940) should be considered in broader cultural terms, provided by modernisation and especially the growth of a ‘cool’, urban sensibility, representing a crucial reassessment of Victorian emotional style. In their contributions to this reassessment, the Alley greats stretched the conventions of popular song-writing in a number of ways, usually described vaguely in terms of ‘wit’, ‘sophistication’ and the like. Qualifying these concepts by lyrical analysis, the article suggests that the self-reflexive use of irony, linguistic play and ‘realist’ imperatives makes a number of songs approach contemporary ‘high’ literature in such a way that it makes sense to speak of a popular modernism.

The Polish Tin Pan Alley, a Jewish Street

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-164
Author(s):  
Robert A. Rothstein
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Tin Pan Alley ◽  
Music Publishers ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Popular Music Industry ◽  
Jewish Composers

This chapter highlights the 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan, that became the home of several music publishers. It looks into the various accounts of how 28th Street came to be called “Tin Pan Alley,” pointing out the observation that the pianos played by song “pluggers” produced a cacophony reminiscent of the clatter of tin pans. It also mentions how the name “Tin Pan Alley” was eventually used as a metonym for the American popular-music industry. The chapter explores the pre-eminent role of Jewish composers, poets, songwriters, and performers in the Polish popular music industry of the 1920s and 1930s. It also focuses on Adam Aston, who was credited with popularizing the first Polish rumba, and Mieczysław Fogg, the most popular Polish singer of the twentieth century.

The origins of syncopation in American popular music

Popular Music ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-41
Author(s):  
David Temperley
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Piano Music ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Fourth Position

AbstractThe origins of syncopation in 20th-century American popular music have been a source of controversy. I offer a new account of this historical process. I distinguish between second-position syncopation, an accent on the second quarter of a half-note or quarter-note unit, and fourth-position syncopation, an accent on the fourth quarter of such a unit. Unlike second-position syncopation, fourth-position syncopation tends to have an anticipatory character. In an earlier study I presented evidence suggesting British roots for second-position syncopation. in contrast, fourth-position syncopation – the focus of the current study – seems to have had no presence in published 19th-century vocal music, British or American. It first appears in notation in ragtime songs and piano music at the very end of the 19th century; it was also used in recordings by African-American singers before it was widely notated.

Step It Up and Go

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Menconi
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
The State ◽  
College Town ◽  
American Idol ◽  
Recorded Music ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
The Many ◽  
Nina Simone

This book is a love letter to the artists, scenes, and sounds defining North Carolina’s extraordinary contributions to American popular music. David Menconi spent three decades immersed in the state’s music, where traditions run deep but the energy expands in countless directions. Menconi shows how working-class roots and rebellion tie North Carolina’s Piedmont blues, jazz, and bluegrass to beach music, rock, hip-hop, and more. From mill towns and mountain coves to college-town clubs and the stage of American Idol, Blind Boy Fuller and Doc Watson to Nina Simone and Superchunk, Step It Up and Go celebrates homegrown music just as essential to the state as barbecue and basketball. Spanning a century of history from the dawn of recorded music to the present, and with sidebars and photos that help reveal the many-splendored glory of North Carolina’s sonic landscape, this is a must-read for every music lover.

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