American Popular Music and Its Business: The First Four Hundred Years, 1790-1909 (American Popular Music & Its Business)

Rating:
Summary: A unique look at the music business in America
Review: I read all 3 volumes over several months in 1992. It was the most intense reading experience I've had in American history in a long time, in the sense that the author digested enormous quantities of information and produced a very fact-packed work. The most readable sections are the first two volumes, plus those sections dealing in volume 3 with the technologies that the 20th century brought to American popular music, such as the radio, phonograph, etc. The endless squabbles between the American Society of Composers, Arrangers and Producers and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) could have been covered in less detail, but Mr. Sanjek was an eyewitness to most of this process and therefore felt that he had to include every blow and counterblow by these two weighty organizations. If you want to get a feel for how valuable the information is, check out the section on what Mr. Sanjek calls "the singin'est war," the music of the Civil War. Also, his explanation of shape note hymnody. These are nearly vanished aspects of American musical life that he had the patience to preserve. Why only 4 stars instead of 5? Because illustrations would have been valuable, and there were none throughout 3 long volumes. Some effort should have been made to provide some. From now on, when serious students want to know about the past of American popular music, this is where they will have to come.

Rating:
Summary: A unique look at the music business in America
Review: I read all 3 volumes over several months in 1992. It was the most intense reading experience I've had in American history in a long time, in the sense that the author digested enormous quantities of information and produced a very fact-packed work. The most readable sections are the first two volumes, plus those sections dealing in volume 3 with the technologies that the 20th century brought to American popular music, such as the radio, phonograph, etc. The endless squabbles between the American Society of Composers, Arrangers and Producers and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) could have been covered in less detail, but Mr. Sanjek was an eyewitness to most of this process and therefore felt that he had to include every blow and counterblow by these two weighty organizations. If you want to get a feel for how valuable the information is, check out the section on what Mr. Sanjek calls "the singin'est war," the music of the Civil War. Also, his explanation of shape note hymnody. These are nearly vanished aspects of American musical life that he had the patience to preserve. Why only 4 stars instead of 5? Because illustrations would have been valuable, and there were none throughout 3 long volumes. Some effort should have been made to provide some. From now on, when serious students want to know about the past of American popular music, this is where they will have to come.