Categorizing Sound: Genre and Twentieth-Century Popular Music

385 Pages·2016·14 MB·English

by  David Brackett

Categorizing Sound
Genre and Twentieth-Century
Popular Music
David Brackett
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Categorizing Sound
Th e publisher gratefully acknowledges the Otto Kinkeldey
Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in
part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Categorizing Sound
Genre and Twentieth-Century
Popular Music
David Brackett
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
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University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2016 by Th e Regents of the University of California
A portion of an earlier version of chapter 7 appeared in “Th e Politics and
Musical Practice of ‘Crossover’ in American Popular Music, 1963–65,”
Musical Quarterly 78, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 774–97. A portion of an earlier
version of chapter 8 was published as “(In Search of) Musical Meaning:
Genres, Categories, and Crossover,” in Popular Music Studies: International
Perspectives, ed. David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus (London: Arnold
Publishers, 2002), 65–83. An early version of chapter 1 appeared as
“Popular Music Genres: Aesthetics, Commerce, and Identity,” in Th e Sage
Handbook of Popular Music Studies, ed. Steve Waksman and Andy Bennett
(Los Angeles and London: Sage Publications, 2015), 189–206.
“Pistol Packin’ Mama”
Words and Music by Al Dexter
Copyright@1942, 1943 UNIVERSAL – SONGS OF POLYGRAM
INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Copyright Renewed
All Rights Reserved Used by Permission
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brackett, David, author.
Title: Categorizing sound : genre and twentieth-century popular music /
David Brackett.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2016]
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: lccn 2015046200 (print) | lccn 2015049245 (ebook) | isbn
9780520248717 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780520291614 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
isbn 9780520965317 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Popular music genres—Social aspects—United States. |
Popular music—United States—History and criticism.
Classifi cation: lcc ML3918.P67 B72 2016 (print) | lcc ml3918.p67
(ebook) | ddc 781.64—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046200
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For Lisa

contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tables x
List of Musical Examples xi
Acknowledgments xiii
1. Introduction: Th ey Never Even Knew 1
What Is a Popular Music Genre? 3
Music/Identifi cation 16
Charting Popularity 27
2. Foreign Music and the Emergence of Phonography 41
Sound Recording and New Modes of the Musical Imaginary 43
Category and Genre, ca. 1920: A Special Case 47
Foreign Music: From Race to Ethnicity 53
3. Forward to the Past: Race Music in the 1920s 69
Who Had the Blues Before 1920? 70
Recording the Blues 79
What’s in a Name? Th e Coalescence of Race Music 88
4. Th e Newness of Old-Time Music 113
A Few Early Recordings and a Welter of Names 115
Two Recordings and Two Artists 124
“Hillbilly”: Th e Other Within 136
5. From Jazz to Pop: Swing in the 1940s 149
Jazz History, Popular Music History 150
Popular Music and the Work Concept 153
Two Stops at “Tuxedo Junction” 162
From “Junction” to “Richard” 174
One Door Opens, Another One Closes 181
6. Th e Corny-ness of the Folk 192
One Early Jukebox Hillbilly Hit 193
National Breakthroughs and Cover Tunes 204
From “Mama” to “Smoke!” 216
Where Th ere’s “Smoke!” Th ere’s Fire 221
7. Th e Dictionary of Soul 235
Th e Disappearance 237
Th e Reappearance 254
From R&B to Soul 267
8. Crossover Dreams: From Urban Cowboy to the King of Pop 280
A Brief History of Crossover 281
Urban Cowboy: Crossover and Gender in Early 1980s Country 286
From Soul to Black and Beyond 293
Enter MJ 301
9. Notes Toward a Conclusion 324
Bibliography 335
Index 351
list of figures
1. “Th ey Never Even Knew” 2
2. Diff erent Levels of Genre in Franco Fabbri’s Discussion of the Canzone
d’autore 9
3. “Types of the Races of Man” (1886) 52
4. Vernon Dalhart Performing an Edison Tone Test 136
5. Glenn Miller and Erskine Hawkins, Together Th rough the 1940s 171
6. Th e Circular Logic of Race-Mainstream Crossovers ca. 1940 174
7. Th e Circular Logic of Race-Mainstream Crossovers, ca. 1947 185
8. “America’$ Foremo$t Compo$er$ of Corn” 206
9. Th e Circular Logic of Folk Crossover, ca. 1943 211
10. Diff erent Usages of “Folk” 217
11. Relationships Between Marketing Categories and R&B Subgenres, ca.
1963–64 244
12. Relationships Between Marketing Categories, Radio Formats, and R&B
Subgenres 248
13. Th e Circular Logic of R&B Crossovers, 1965 267
14. Th e Circular Logic of Radio Formats, 1980–83 312
ix