The ‘30s meet the ‘40s
Another ‘30s innovation, which I point out in the individual song notes, was the radio hit parade. It had been preceded in the ’20s by the listing of popular songs in Talking Machine World. This was soon followed by the first listing of hits in Billboard magazine in July 1940. Individual jukebox playlists were added in 1944 and DJ playlists were added in 1945. Up to this point, lists were of songs, not specific recordings, a song on a chart had often been recorded by a number of different artists. Recordings only really supplanted songs as the measure of hits in the 1950s. If this is the sort of thing you geek out over, like me, check out the online Billboard archives. Founded in 1896, it was originally focused on, yes, billboards and outdoor advertising, but its scope increased over the years. When I started reading Billboard in the 1950s they even covered pinball machines, regularly reviewing the new ones. (I preferred Gottliebs to Williams or Ballys). I once bought a copy from the late ‘30s and found Billboard still had a section for minstrel shows. I had no idea they were still around by then.
The first high-powered radio station to broadcast Country Music was actually a Northern one, the Sears, Roebuck & Company-owned WLS which transmitted National Barn Dance from Chicago. In 1924 Nashville’s WSM followed with its own Barn Dance, changing the name of the program to The Grand Ole Opry in 1927. Over the Texas-Mexican border where station weren’t restricted to a power limit of 50,000 watts, stations like XEPN could carry the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers over a thousand miles. Radio was especially friendly with the sound of close harmony singers like the Delmore Brothers and the Blue Sky Boys. And the Mexican station, which played a variety of music, found that a Country audience was far more responsive to advertisers. Country music will be celebrating a non-stop full century on the radio in 2025.
I started thinking about the degree that ‘20s music and ‘30s music was similar, then wondered if there was another two-decade span of comparative similarity. Perhaps the ‘80s and ‘90s. The ‘30s songs were generally a little more sophisticated than those of the ‘20s. But on the far side of sophistication, we find the novelty song, the most recent development in a century’s-old tradition of nonsense songs. The ‘30s needed a lot of cheering-up. Goofiness tends to be cheerful. Songs like “The Dipsy-Doodle”, “The Music Goes Round And Round” and “The Hut-Sut Song” alleviated Depression depression, if only momentarily. Similarly helpful goofiness was also provided by the animated cartoon, which also offered a powerful connection to Novelty music. There were even Novelty groups, like the Hoosier Hot Shots and Spike Jones. Novelty songs faded as rock ‘n’ roll came in, but streaks of goofiness continue to crop up here and there because there’s no keeping it down––goofiness is eternal. I believe Goofiness is one of the most powerful tools in Personkind’s survival tool kit.
Cab Calloway was a devastating blend of goofy and cool. Those zoot suits he wore! And maybe helped invent! Lordy! They were like a cartoon version of men’s clothes!
A song went:
I want a zoot suit With a reet pleat With a drape shape And a stuff cuff To make my baby fall in love with me
He was also the Big Bang of hip. Only then they said “hep”, as in “hep-cats”. Hep got hip in the ‘50s. You owe it to posterity to show Cab Calloway to your children on YouTube. Fun Fact: My mother’s musical taste is generally conservative (except for me), and the same is true of the mother of my musical collaborator and ex, Antonia. When we asked our moms who were their favorite bands and musicians both replied, “Cab Calloway!” He was to the ‘30s what Louis Armstrong was to the ‘20s.
The similar feel popular music had during the ‘20s and ‘30s continued into the ‘40s. This would be The Great American Songbook era, which is where I came in, approximately 5/7 of the way through. What I heard on the radio in the mid-‘40s, besides what was current, was music from the ‘20s and ‘30s. I thought what I was hearing was mostly new music, but it was really a lot of “older” songs being done by current artists. Generally speaking, the ‘20s songs were done faster than they were being done in the ‘40s, but I wasn’t aware of that distinction yet. When, in 1970, I got hold of my first fakebooks, which covered the first half of the 20th century, I found a number of songs I thought were new in the ‘40s were from the ‘20s. I went through the books with Antonia, who is about my age and looked at the songs we had both especially liked, finding a great similarity. We already knew how close our tastes were. It turned out our first record purchase (separately, but sort of at the same time) had been “Rhapsody In Blue”, when we were 12. I learned, often clumsily, to play the songs we had loved, and found we still loved every single one.
Going through the individual song notes will fill in many historical blanks you might have regarding this period. What else do I want to say about the ‘40s? I can’t possibly have a favorite piece of music. There would have to be at least a Top 10, but in no specific order. One of mine, along with “Rhapsody In Blue”, is “Holiday For Strings”, written by David Rose in 1942. Strangely, although I had been learning songs from the radio since I was at least two, I don’t remember listening to the radio until 1944. To this day, every time I hear “Holiday For Strings” I feel a tinge of the way I felt in 1944. No other piece of music has ever done that to me. That record should have been selected for the Voyager rocket in 1977. That, and “Rhapsody In Blue.” Another composer that’s stuck with me from this era––well, mainly ‘40s and 50s––is Leroy Anderson. His songs––“The Syncopated Clock”, “Blue Tango”, “Belle Of The Ball”, “Trumpeter’s Lullaby”, “Fiddle Faddle”, “Sleigh Ride”, “The Waltzing Cat”––all reflect mid-century America in the best possible Norman Rockwell way (I love Norman Rockwell).
When did the Great American Songbook die? That’s sorta like, when did rock ‘n’ roll start? With the jump band of Louis Jordan in the early 1940s? With the jump bands of Dave Bartholomew in New Orleans, and Johnny Otis in Los Angeles, around 1947? In 1956 when rock ‘n’ roll pinned mainstream music to the ground? It started somewhere in there. I like 1952, because that was then year the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music and Mad comics came out, and it was the first year that there were no lynchings in the US. Picking the year rock ‘n’ roll started is a subjective choice. It has to be, but anyway, somewhere between the early 1940s and 1956 for sure, not earlier or later. When did the Great American Songbook leave us? Is it 1945 when Jerome Kern died? Is it 1950 when Irving Berlin wrote his last good song? Does Guys And Dolls count? My Fair Lady? What was the last entry in The Great American Songbook archive? Responses to these questions would delight me.
As the 1940s draw to a close, how does the music differ from the way it had been when the decade dawned? Many songs were beginning to have more simple constructions. One reason is that by mid-decade more and more Country songs were crossing over to the pop charts after being covered by pop artists. While digging up a list, I found a number of songs I had no idea were actually Country songs. I had become aware of a number of these in the past, like “Bouquet Of Roses”, “Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)”, and “Detour”, but I hadn’t known the actual Country origins of “Shame On You”, “Anytime”, “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You”, “One Has My Name, (The Other Has My Heart)”, “I Love You So Much It Hurts Me”, “Candy Kisses”, “Remember Me, I’m The One Who Loves You”––there are more, but those are enough to give you the idea. I haven’t listed all the Hank Williams songs that crossed over. He’s on an entirely other level. Also on another level is Gene Autry, who, singularly, crossed over throughout the ‘30s, 40s and ‘50s. Why was this suddenly happening? In the ‘40s, Country music was starting to become more influenced by popular music. Country music has since become known for absorbing other musical influences, although often with a time lag. Circa 2000, there was a lot of Eagles influence, which went back about 20 years. In the 2010s, you could hear a lot of ‘90s grunge-style guitar work. Incidentally, listen to any current Country record, and even on the not-so-hot tracks, the guitar break is probably killer. Decades late, hence right on time, a lot of Rap has been showing up in Country music.
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