Jennifer C. Lena
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150765
- eISBN:
- 9781400840458
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150765.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century ...
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Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles—ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States—the book uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. The book discovers four dominant forms—avant-garde, scene-based, industry-based, and traditionalist—and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the government-purposed genre, which the book examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, the book looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.Less
Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? This book explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles—ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States—the book uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. The book discovers four dominant forms—avant-garde, scene-based, industry-based, and traditionalist—and two dominant trajectories that describe how American pop music genres develop. Outside the United States there exists a fifth form: the government-purposed genre, which the book examines in the music of China, Serbia, Nigeria, and Chile. Offering a rare analysis of how music communities operate, the book looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.
Nathan D. Gibson and Don Pierce
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604738308
- eISBN:
- 9781621037620
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604738308.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter explores the decline of the bluegrass music that was popularized by Don Pierce of Starday Records. Despite of the success of Starday financially, the slow decline of bluegrass music ...
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This chapter explores the decline of the bluegrass music that was popularized by Don Pierce of Starday Records. Despite of the success of Starday financially, the slow decline of bluegrass music became apparent to Pierce. In the late 1960s, bluegrass music became identified with anti-Vietnam War protesters, civil rights demonstrators, and homosexuals, which was assumed to have a negative effect on bluegrass music in general. Others did not agree with the sentiment, as some pointed out, that it was Starday itself which was at fault as they stopped producing new material and the record company only repackaged its older material with new album cover art, assuming that it would sell to the public like their past hits did.Less
This chapter explores the decline of the bluegrass music that was popularized by Don Pierce of Starday Records. Despite of the success of Starday financially, the slow decline of bluegrass music became apparent to Pierce. In the late 1960s, bluegrass music became identified with anti-Vietnam War protesters, civil rights demonstrators, and homosexuals, which was assumed to have a negative effect on bluegrass music in general. Others did not agree with the sentiment, as some pointed out, that it was Starday itself which was at fault as they stopped producing new material and the record company only repackaged its older material with new album cover art, assuming that it would sell to the public like their past hits did.
Thomas Goldsmith
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042966
- eISBN:
- 9780252051821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042966.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Earl Scruggs joined the Grand Ole Opry, the high-profile country-music radio show, in December 1945. Although some were skeptical that he’d fit in, Scruggs turned out to be a necessary counterpoint ...
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Earl Scruggs joined the Grand Ole Opry, the high-profile country-music radio show, in December 1945. Although some were skeptical that he’d fit in, Scruggs turned out to be a necessary counterpoint to the approach of mandolinist and singer Bill Monroe, already a star of the show. Also in the band was singer-songwriter Lester Flatt, Scruggs’s eventual co-bandleader for many years. Another prominent figure of the day, singer Mac Wiseman, recalled that Monroe didn’t have a definite sound in mind when assembling the elements of bluegrass but was experimenting with different sounds. In later years, Monroe was to say that Scruggs has benefited more from his work with Monroe than the other way around. But most observers believe that Scruggs was the key element that brought bluegrass together as a style between 1945 and 1948.Less
Earl Scruggs joined the Grand Ole Opry, the high-profile country-music radio show, in December 1945. Although some were skeptical that he’d fit in, Scruggs turned out to be a necessary counterpoint to the approach of mandolinist and singer Bill Monroe, already a star of the show. Also in the band was singer-songwriter Lester Flatt, Scruggs’s eventual co-bandleader for many years. Another prominent figure of the day, singer Mac Wiseman, recalled that Monroe didn’t have a definite sound in mind when assembling the elements of bluegrass but was experimenting with different sounds. In later years, Monroe was to say that Scruggs has benefited more from his work with Monroe than the other way around. But most observers believe that Scruggs was the key element that brought bluegrass together as a style between 1945 and 1948.
Thomas Goldsmith
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042966
- eISBN:
- 9780252051821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042966.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
After joining Bill Monroe in 1945, Earl Scruggs was to became part of a famous ensemble known as the “classic” Blue Grass Boys. Along with Monroe, guitarist-singer Lester Flatt, fiddler Chubby Wise, ...
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After joining Bill Monroe in 1945, Earl Scruggs was to became part of a famous ensemble known as the “classic” Blue Grass Boys. Along with Monroe, guitarist-singer Lester Flatt, fiddler Chubby Wise, and bassist Cedric Rainwater (Howard Watts), Scruggs built the foundation of bluegrass music. The quintet recorded such staples as "Will You Be Loving Another Man," "Mollie and Tenbrooks," "Wicked Path of Sin," and "Little Georgia Rose." Monroe was a highly creative musician but had failings in Scruggs’s opinion, because he wasn’t reliably on time for band departures or even for shows. A long-standing conflict between Monroe and Scruggs involves the authorship of the instrumentals “Blue Grass Breakdown,” credited to Monroe, and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” which bears Scruggs’s name. Each man claimed the other had stolen his composition.Less
After joining Bill Monroe in 1945, Earl Scruggs was to became part of a famous ensemble known as the “classic” Blue Grass Boys. Along with Monroe, guitarist-singer Lester Flatt, fiddler Chubby Wise, and bassist Cedric Rainwater (Howard Watts), Scruggs built the foundation of bluegrass music. The quintet recorded such staples as "Will You Be Loving Another Man," "Mollie and Tenbrooks," "Wicked Path of Sin," and "Little Georgia Rose." Monroe was a highly creative musician but had failings in Scruggs’s opinion, because he wasn’t reliably on time for band departures or even for shows. A long-standing conflict between Monroe and Scruggs involves the authorship of the instrumentals “Blue Grass Breakdown,” credited to Monroe, and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” which bears Scruggs’s name. Each man claimed the other had stolen his composition.
James C. Klotter and Freda C. Klotter
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813124988
- eISBN:
- 9780813135298
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813124988.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
To most people, the word “Kentucky” is likely to inspire thoughts of Derby Day, burley tobacco fields, feuding Appalachian families, coal mines, and Colonel Sanders' famous fried chicken. There is ...
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To most people, the word “Kentucky” is likely to inspire thoughts of Derby Day, burley tobacco fields, feuding Appalachian families, coal mines, and Colonel Sanders' famous fried chicken. There is much more, however, to the Bluegrass State's rich but often unexplored history than mint juleps and the Hatfields and McCoys. This book introduces a captivating story that spans 12,000 years of Kentucky lives, from Native Americans to astronauts. All facets of Kentucky history are explored—geography, government, social structure, culture, education, and the economy—recounting unique historic events such as the deadly frontier wars, the assassination of a governor, and the birth of Bluegrass music. The book features profiles of famous Kentuckians such as Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, Loretta Lynn, and Muhammad Ali, as well as ordinary citizens.Less
To most people, the word “Kentucky” is likely to inspire thoughts of Derby Day, burley tobacco fields, feuding Appalachian families, coal mines, and Colonel Sanders' famous fried chicken. There is much more, however, to the Bluegrass State's rich but often unexplored history than mint juleps and the Hatfields and McCoys. This book introduces a captivating story that spans 12,000 years of Kentucky lives, from Native Americans to astronauts. All facets of Kentucky history are explored—geography, government, social structure, culture, education, and the economy—recounting unique historic events such as the deadly frontier wars, the assassination of a governor, and the birth of Bluegrass music. The book features profiles of famous Kentuckians such as Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, Loretta Lynn, and Muhammad Ali, as well as ordinary citizens.
David W. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617036460
- eISBN:
- 9781617036477
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617036460.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter describes the Stanley Brothers’ contract with Columbia Records, signed in October 1948; their Columbia recordings; the evolution of their high baritone sound and instrumental sound; the ...
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This chapter describes the Stanley Brothers’ contract with Columbia Records, signed in October 1948; their Columbia recordings; the evolution of their high baritone sound and instrumental sound; the economic forces that would drive old-time country and bluegrass acts to stay on the move throughout their careers; and Carter’s songwriting.Less
This chapter describes the Stanley Brothers’ contract with Columbia Records, signed in October 1948; their Columbia recordings; the evolution of their high baritone sound and instrumental sound; the economic forces that would drive old-time country and bluegrass acts to stay on the move throughout their careers; and Carter’s songwriting.
