Revolutions in American Music

December 11, 2023
Broyles (Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music), a musicology professor at Florida State University, explores in this vibrant history how race and technology drove drastic changes in American music during the 1840s, 1920s, and 1950s. According to Broyles, the popularization of minstrelsy in the 1840s marked the growth of the “first popular genre that was distinctly American,” presenting racist depictions of Black Americans that appealed particularly to Irish Americans who were often in competition with free Blacks for work. The development of the phonograph in the late 19th and early 20th centuries proved pivotal to jazz’s surging popularity in the 1920s, Broyles contends, noting that “no sheet music could adequately capture what happened on those records.” In addition to profiling such legends as Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley, Broyles also highlights the contributions of lesser-known figures, suggesting that white proto–rock n’ roller Johnnie Ray’s packaging of Black singing styles for white audiences in the early 1950s paved the way for Presley to do the same later that decade. The trivia captivates (Armstrong played cornet so loudly “he had to stand some fifteen feet behind the band” when recording so he wouldn’t drown them out), and Broyles’s discerning analysis illuminates how complex social and technological factors interacted to shape the course of American music. This hits all the right notes. Photos.

January 1, 2024
A study of three paradigm shifts in American pop and classical music. Broyles, a professor of musicology at Florida State and former music critic for the Baltimore Sun, surmises that the 1840s, 1920s, and 1950s were significant decades, thanks in large part to the intersection of race, technology, and new ways of thinking about and performing music. The 1840s marked the rise of minstrelsy, a product of American racial tensions as well as "the first popular genre that was distinctly American." That decade also saw the arrival of the first serious classical symphonies in a country whose public "did not consider music art." In the 1920s, the explosion of phonograph recordings and commercial radio sparked the growth of jazz, blues, and country music. In the 1950s, the commingling of genres and the rise of car radios meant American teens were drawn to an ever widening crop of R&B and rock artists. In Broyles' estimation, the decade's key transformational rock figure wasn't Elvis Presley but Johnnie Ray, a white crooner who cut his teeth in Black Detroit supper clubs and had a knack for country and R&B styles. In the classical realm, avant-garde works by Pierre Boulez and John Cage set the stage for decades of experiments to come. Though this is a scholarly work, it's highly readable, with plenty of surprising detours. For example, the polka was an enormously influential genre in the 1840s, even if one nabob wished to find its inventor and "scrape him to death with [an] oyster shell." Broyles is skilled at exploring the ways that, from the minstrelsy days on, racial lines often crossed despite labels' and chart-makers' attempts to separate them. Every decade likely could support the author's argument, but these three make for engaging reading. A well-researched and provocative look at the long-term, uneasy connections between race and music.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2024
Musicologist Broyles analyzes three pivotal decades, examining how the forces of technology, race, and culture intertwined to revolutionize American music in ways that still reverberate. The 1840s saw the first "uniquely American popular music," the minstrel show, which owed its rise to a complex blend of factors--racism, Irish immigration, and the development of the railroad and telegraph, new technologies that made touring for performers more feasible. The 1920s were dominated by jazz, a style owing more to Black America than to Europe, and one that exploded in popularity thanks to the phonograph and radio, bringing "Black artistic achievements to the forefront of mainstream America for the first time." In the 1950s, the rise of television and car radios ushered in the era of rock 'n' roll by disseminating new music rapidly, especially to the increasingly eager teenage demographic. Broyles' fresh approach will interest anyone curious about the history of American music, and readers will learn a great deal from his extensive research and insights.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

January 19, 2024

American popular music is always evolving, but Broyles (musicology, Florida State Univ.; Beethoven in America) argues that there were three pivotal decades in which popular music particularly influenced developments in technology and civil rights in the United States. The 1840s saw the frenzy for polka and its faster rhythms, the arrival of European classical music divested of the church, and the massive popularity of minstrelsy, a song and dance combination performed by white musicians as a denigrating parody of Black culture. The 1920s ushered in radio--broadcasting the music of Louis Armstrong, the Grand Ole Opry, and Aaron Copland to millions--and the phonograph, which preserved musical performances for posterity and gave rise to the jukebox. The 1950s introduced television and recording tape, which allowed the preservation of live broadcasts and led to the ascension of Elvis Presley and the mainstream breakthroughs of Black artists such as Little Richard. Post-1955, there was a white backlash against the supposed vulgarity of rock music, with clear elements of racism embedded in the protests, Broyles argues. His book breathes life into popular music's stylistic and technological innovators (T.D. Rice; Philo Farnsworth), alongside better-known musicians, to create a true sense of historical perspective. VERDICT A well-researched and astute look at the evolution of American culture through popular music.--Peter Thornell

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.