Full transcript
0:01Hello,
0:02welcome
0:04to history of rock and roll.
0:07This is the first lecture, well the
0:11second video but the first lecture in
0:14the kind of chronological
0:17uh order of the class kind of. You'll
0:21see we jump around a little bit. One of
0:23the reasons we jump around a little bit
0:24is that we have to a establish something
0:26upfront here, which we'll get into in a
0:29second, kind of the formation of popular
0:32culture in America or the codification
0:35of popular culture in America. And then
0:37we're going to kind of go back and forth
0:39a little bit in time when discussing
0:41different genres and different
0:43movements. Um, by the time we get to,
0:46you know, like the blues and jazz, we're
0:48kind of in in a more linear fashion.
0:50We'll be moving through, you know, the
0:5120th century in a in a more linear
0:53fashion, but right now we're going to be
0:55jumping around a little bit. Um, I'm in
0:59my home. Keen observers would say, "Oh,
1:01Mr. Turner,
1:03it looks like you're wearing the same
1:05clothes that you did in your other
1:07video."
1:09And uh, to that I say, I don't judge
1:12you. You don't judge me. Um, yeah. So,
1:17I'm uh uh going to just do a lecture
1:19here. A couple things where this would
1:21differ if this was in person is uh of
1:24course you'd you know you'd have my
1:25incredible uh wit and humor.
1:29Um but you'd also like you'd see that
1:31the classes are kind of long like our
1:33our rock and roll history class the one
1:35that I teach at least you know it meets
1:37like once a week for three hours and I
1:39lecture for about two hours and 40
1:42minutes you know like it's a pretty
1:43lengthy stretch. Again, this goes back
1:46to probably the way I was encoded for
1:49for for being a professor. Um, I think
1:52that lectures are cool. I like them. I I
1:56am probably an outlier in thinking that
1:58lectures are cool. Um, but it is
2:01something that I believe in. I believe
2:02that this is still a way to to to have
2:04language or to have information kind of
2:06passed on. It was it's never a closed
2:09circuit though. It's always open for
2:10discussion and I have discussions and
2:12all that other stuff. So here it's just
2:14me talking for a little bit. This is not
2:16going to be three hours. I'm really
2:18trying hard to kind of condense these
2:20lectures a bit and hit some of the the
2:21major points. Again, what I want you to
2:23do when I mention things in my lecture
2:26here, when I mention songs, I'd love you
2:28to listen to that song that's in the
2:30playlist. You'll see a playlist with a
2:32trillion, you know, YouTube links. Um, I
2:35would love to find a better way to do
2:36this. Somebody once suggested using a
2:39Spotify playlist, but I can't stand
2:41Spotify. I think it's an evil awful
2:44corporation. And um so I'm not going to
2:46do that. And and I've never used
2:47Spotify. I don't know, you know, what
2:49that I don't even know what that is.
2:52That's like my sort of hay seed uh North
2:54Dakota redneck response. I know what it
2:57is. I understand how it works. All that
2:59stuff. I just never used it. If you want
3:02to make your own playlist, by all means,
3:04that's awesome. That's super rad. I I
3:06mean, that's you. You do you. That'd be
3:07fantastic. Uh but for right now, I've
3:09just got these YouTube links. So, so
3:12I've got my my tea in my British Sea
3:14Power Cup.
3:17Fantastic band from England. Um, I've
3:20got my reward
3:22at the end. Tim Tams,
3:25Australia's
3:26finest. I have no connection to
3:28Australia. My wife is uh part Kiwi New
3:31Zealander, but I'm I'm not yet. Uh I'm
3:34in my home.
3:36So, uh you know, welcome. I cleaned up.
3:39All right. We're going to start with
3:40something called the tin pan alley.
3:43Okay, this can be seen as a cotification
3:48of sorts of a nent version of popular
3:53culture in America. And what we're
3:55really talking about in this entire
3:56class is pop music. Right? Pop music is
4:00it encompasses, as I've probably said
4:02before and we'll definitely say again,
4:04all of the genres that we're going to be
4:05discussing here, unless I call a out a
4:09specific genre or if you ask me a
4:10question about a specific genre, you
4:12know, via email or whatever. Um, and in
4:15America, by the time the the the time
4:17frame that we're starting with here is
4:20around the 1870s and 1880s, and as you
4:23know, America's really really young at
4:26that point. the the the formation of the
4:29uh America, the American experiment. Um
4:32we know that people have been living on
4:34the what we call America the North
4:36American continent, you know, for for
4:37millennia. You know, this is this is
4:39land that was and I I would hope I don't
4:42have to say this too much. I hope that
4:44most people know this by now, but of
4:46course, America is is built on land that
4:49was stolen outright, that was stolen
4:52from from people who lived here, from
4:54indigenous people who lived here, who
4:56had a vast and vibrant connection uh uh
4:59uh amongst each other's trade routes
5:02that went all over. Some of our
5:04interstates that we drive on in America
5:06today are built on the trade routes that
5:09happened in for for for thousands of
5:12years.
5:14people who would migrate to and forth,
5:16people who lived in different different
5:17ways from what our modern society was or
5:20or from what European society was when
5:22the Europeans came over to America in um
5:26well, I mean, you know, 1492 is the the
5:28Columbus thing. 1519 is sort of seen as
5:31a big date for the American experiment
5:34in many ways. If I'm not mistaken, I
5:36thought that was the first date that
5:38they took um well, I mean, we had we had
5:41Puritans here at that time. Um we
5:43started to um bring people over um
5:47enslaved people over from West Africa uh
5:49starting around that time and moving
5:51forward. That could be 1619 too. I
5:54apologize. 1519 or 1619. I know 100
5:56years is a huge difference. The end goal
5:59is that that experiment of of
6:01experiment, what a disgusting way to say
6:03it. that um economic decision of
6:06bringing human beings over um to the
6:09North American continent and as well as
6:11South American continent and the and
6:12what we call the West Indies the
6:14Caribbean that really is a major lynch
6:17lynch pin in the formation of the
6:19American uh you know country. Um why is
6:23that? Well, because now we have you know
6:25chatt slaves. It's a terrible, terrible,
6:28terrible way to talk about human beings,
6:29enslaved people, um, who are put to work
6:32and they are put to what they call stoop
6:35labor. That is literally picking up
6:36cotton or picking up tobacco or picking
6:38up peanuts. And out of that, we get this
6:42massive amount of tariff money that is
6:46able to be raised from exports. Not a
6:49lot of imports coming in, but a lot of
6:51exports going out. And there are taxes
6:53and tariffs that are raised. And again,
6:55uh, a tariff is a very charged term in
6:582026. Again, um, I think a lot of people
7:00maybe don't understand the the the root
7:03nature of it. In many ways though, this
7:05is what was allowed or allowed us to
7:07build our country, to build our roads,
7:09to build our cities, to build our
7:10infrastructure, to continue to move west
7:12and take over the lands from indigenous
7:14people. Um, these these cultures will
7:16figure into the history of rock and roll
7:17a little bit later in our in our class.
7:19We talk about that. But just note that's
7:21going on. By the 1870s and 80s though,
7:24we have a uniquely cottified um country
7:27that is is is thriving and people are
7:30flocking to our country as a promise of
7:33new life. And by say by people here, I
7:34mean Europeans almost exclusively.
7:37However, there's a lot of people from
7:38Asia who are moving to America too for a
7:41similar reason. Many of whom are moving
7:42to the west coast. They help to build
7:44the railroad connections in the west
7:46coast. I was reading about this thing
7:48the other day actually. I found a really
7:49interesting uh um a partic particularity
7:52in in an old law. There was a time where
7:56they wanted to kick out all of the
7:58people who were um who they called
7:59Chinese uh people who either born in
8:01China or or come come from areas near
8:04China who were just sort of locked in
8:06with all of the the Chinese immigrants.
8:08Many of these individuals ran obviously
8:10as as we we may know they they helped to
8:12build our railroad system in America and
8:16they were starting to send many of them
8:18back. Not unlike the ICE raids that are
8:20happening in America today where an
8:23immigration service will go into a town
8:25and like uh go to a daycare in Chicago
8:28and try to deport people.
8:31Uh you you follow your own heart on that
8:34one, my friends. um in the 19th century
8:37they're doing the same thing. However,
8:39there's an interesting loophole. If a
8:41person of Chinese descent would open
8:44either a laundry a laundromat like a
8:46service of doing laundry or a food
8:49service thing, they could stay in
8:51America. So, this is where we start to
8:53see this huge explosion of Chinese food
8:57um and uh uh andies being run by people
9:00of of Chinese descent. It's really kind
9:02of an amazing thing. If they were able
9:04to prove that they opened those, then
9:06they get to they get to stay. There's
9:07this really old Chinese restaurant in
9:09Montana that dates back to like the oh
9:12good lord like the 1870s or something
9:14that stayed because of that. And
9:15apparently they have similar recipes
9:17that they used at that time uh to this
9:19day. Uh anyway, a little tangent, but
9:21that's where we're at. What we're
9:22talking about here is the Tinpan Alley.
9:24Tinpan Alley is an actual physical
9:26location in New York City and it's a
9:29physical location um that is in what
9:32what is now modernday West 28th between
9:35Broadway and uh uh 6th between Broadway
9:38and Sixth, sorry. If you spend any time
9:39in New York, you might know where that
9:40is in in Manhattan. Uh side note, I love
9:42New York. I think it's fantastic. I love
9:44going there. I'm not from there,
9:45obviously. I'm from middle of nowhere,
9:47but every time I go to New York, I have
9:48a blast. And if you ever can kind of
9:50walk down in that area there, that sort
9:52of West Broadway area, it's kind of fun
9:53to see like, oh, this is where it is.
9:55You know, you can go Google that on your
9:57own what it would have looked like at
9:58the time. You're going to see some
9:59familiar names. The Warner Brothers,
10:02right? You know, um, there's that
10:03company that still represents people to
10:05this day. Um, oh my goodness gracious,
10:08it's escaping me. It'll come back to me,
10:09though. But it's a representation
10:11company, like an ad company. What this
10:13place was this huge building or big, you
10:15know, kind of old old style uh 19th
10:18century building was a place where they
10:19had a bunch of rooms like warehouse
10:21rooms and they filled all these rooms
10:23with pianos and what they would have is
10:24they'd have people in there writing
10:26songs all the time. What they're doing,
10:28what they're trying to sell here is
10:30sheet music. Sheet music is the main
10:33sellable form of music in the 19th
10:35century and into the 20th century a
10:37little bit as well. This is of course
10:39usurped by the um uh the record, you
10:42know, the photograph record which we'll
10:43talk about today too. But this is sheet
10:44music. Up to this point, the only
10:46American artist who's selling like a lot
10:48of sheet music in a major way is a guy
10:51named Steven Foster. He's kind of often
10:53called the father of American music or
10:56the grandfather of American song. This
10:58guy is writing in the middle part of the
11:0019th century. He's dead by uh the time
11:03the Civil War ends, 1864. He he didn't
11:05live to be a very old guy at all. I
11:07think he was 36 or 37 when he died. But
11:11this is a dude who wrote over two to 300
11:14songs, many of whom you still know
11:16today. You know, oh Susanna, oh won't
11:18you cry for me, you know, that kind of
11:19thing. And um and just many many many
11:22others. That guy kind of was a backbone
11:24of American song for a great deal of the
11:2719th century. And he was also one of the
11:29people who was one of the only few who
11:30was like selling a lot of sheet music.
11:32You know, he was selling a major m a
11:34major amount. Who's buying this stuff?
11:36Well, funny you should ask because this
11:38is where we get into an interesting
11:39story. Sheet music is being bought by,
11:41of course, people who want to play music
11:43in their homes. What they would call
11:45their parlor, right? You know, the
11:46parlor trick. Maybe you've heard this
11:48term. This, you know, but long before
11:50televisions and YOUR NETFLIXES AND ALL
11:53THAT, you know, all that kind of stuff.
11:55They had parlors, right? You'd have a
11:57parlor in your house. Uh kind of like a
11:59front room or mud room or something.
12:00Well, not a mud room, but a front room.
12:02And every kid in a family, obviously
12:04families were a lot bigger back then
12:06because you needed a workforce if you
12:07lived on a farm or something like that
12:09or for religious reasons. And in these
12:12parlors, um, people would have like on a
12:14Saturday afternoon or Friday night,
12:16every person in the family would have to
12:18quote learn a parlor trick. And that
12:19could either be reciting a poem or
12:21singing a song or playing a piano.
12:23Pianos were widely sold at this time.
12:25And this is of course the the birth of
12:27the American middle class in the latter
12:29part of the 19th century where larger
12:32cities were becoming more important and
12:34the middle class was starting to assert
12:36itself. Um people are making a little
12:38bit more money. The economy is kind of
12:40going a little bit on the ascendancy
12:42there. We haven't really figured out how
12:43to negotiate with bosses yet. So we have
12:47this sort of robber baron um you know
12:50kind of gross boss behavior that's going
12:52to be coming in a little bit. But unions
12:54start to assert themselves by the early
12:5520th century. That union stuff really
12:58begins in the late 19th century, too.
13:00What I'm saying is then the parlor here,
13:02you've got people families have a little
13:04bit more money so they can afford a
13:05piano. So, we're selling pianos.
13:07Pianists are sold at a pretty ridiculous
13:09rate. I think there's like 45,000 pianos
13:11sold in 1880 alone or something. Some
13:14wild amount. And you'd learn a song on
13:17the piano. Well, how would you learn
13:17something? You get the sheet music.
13:19Okay. Another reason that people were
13:21selling sheet music or to whom they're
13:22selling are vaudeville shows. These
13:24shows that were kind of like carnivals
13:26or or um you know out in the sticks
13:29they'd be called carnivals. If they're
13:30in a more urban area they'd be called
13:32vaudeville tradition or they would have
13:34a thing that would come to your town and
13:36in the afternoon they'd have things for
13:37kids and clowns and all that kind of
13:39stuff. And then as the night went on
13:40they'd have more ribbled uh
13:42entertainment, what we'd call blue
13:44entertainment that would be for adults.
13:46And you can kind of imagine what that
13:47entertainment was like. Um, very very
13:50interesting. Those things all needed
13:51sheet music for every for the bands. All
13:53the bands that they have, they'd have
13:54these pit bands to learn all the music,
13:56right? The pit pit band could be 20 or
13:5830 or it could be 10 or five and they
14:00would all need the same sheet music. So,
14:01Tinpan Alley would write these songs.
14:04They produce the sheet music, they'd
14:05publish it there, and then you'd buy it
14:06from them. That became the locust of
14:10American pop music in the latter part of
14:12the 19th century. Really kind of the
14:13birth of it in a big way. Um, maybe you
14:15could say it's conceived with Steven
14:17Foster, but then with the Tim Panelli,
14:18boom, we get a whole bunch of uh
14:20individuals. Look up Irving Berlin on
14:23the list of songs there and listen to
14:25some of the songs I have listed. And
14:26that's where we get into an interesting
14:28little story there in in in my opinion.
14:30Um, Irving Berlin is indicative of the
14:33type of person who was employed by the
14:36Tinpan Alley. That type of person was
14:38often an Eastern European Jew. These
14:41Eastern European Jews uh came from uh uh
14:44parts that were at the time were called
14:45the Empire of Russia, Russian Empire.
14:48Many of whom or their families were
14:49conscripted by Zar Nicholas II. And they
14:52got the hell out of there because a they
14:55didn't want to fight or b they were sent
14:57to live out in Siberia to move quote
14:59beyond the pale. This is at a time for
15:01of course kind of rampant anti-semitism
15:04um where you know where where Jews were
15:06kicked out of countries. This is of
15:08course leading up to a big apex of
15:10anti-semitism that happens obviously
15:12less than 100 years later in America. A
15:14lot of these people move to America.
15:15Where did they settle? New York. They
15:17moved to New York. They're moving there
15:18from Lithuania, Poland. All of the stuff
15:20was called the Russian Empire, but they
15:22were moving to New York there. Hungary.
15:24Many, many, many people. Why is that
15:26interesting? Why is that unique? Well,
15:28why it's interesting? I can't tell you.
15:29That's that's for you to decide.
15:32I think all sorts of stuff is
15:34interesting that uh that my family
15:37doesn't.
15:39All right. Tea break.
15:43Turmeric tea.
15:46Um I think it's interesting because
15:49these dudes, and it was all dudes, this
15:51is a this is a brodio. This is a all
15:55bros.
15:57These dudes were often educated. Um,
15:59that's unique to know at the time. At
16:01the time, uh, classes were much more
16:03clearly divided. We didn't really have a
16:06codified universal education system in
16:08America quite yet. And I wonder if we
16:10will going forward, seeing as the
16:12Department of Education has been uh,
16:14dissolved at the United States federal
16:15level in 2025 going into 2026. That's
16:19cool. Um what we see also though going
16:23forward here is that these guys come
16:25with literacy which they learned in
16:27Hebrew school which they learned at the
16:28at at temple. Um lots of uh uh people
16:32from Jewish backgrounds and Jewish
16:33tradition. I don't want to you know
16:34paint with a a broad stroke at all but
16:37lots of people valued education in a
16:39really big way. These people also
16:41learned to read and write music too. So
16:44they're coming in loaded for bear.
16:45They're ready to go and they have this
16:47big musical tradition. Irving Berlin in
16:49particular. Very interesting. That guy
16:51gets his start living on the streets.
16:53Well, okay. Moves over in like 1888. Uh
16:56his dad was a a butcher, like a specific
16:58uh uh Hebrew butcher or Jewish butcher.
17:01There's a particular way in which you
17:03know animals have to be killed and blood
17:04has to be dealt with and stuff. And
17:06maybe you know like the uh you know
17:08can't consume pork and and you can't
17:10consume shellfish and there's a
17:11particular way that like chickens have
17:12to killed. That's what the dad did, you
17:15know, for people who were uh um for
17:17people who are acidic or were were more
17:20uh fundamentalist.
17:22And his dad dies when he was pretty
17:23young. And this guy just kind of like
17:24freaks out. His mom lays a heavy trip on
17:26him when he's like 11. His mom's like,
17:28"Okay, you're the man of the house." And
17:30he's just like, and he uh he just bolts.
17:33He goes and lives on the street for a
17:35while. He doesn't want to take care of
17:36his sisters and his mom. And when he's
17:38on the street, by this time he's
17:39already, you know, he's already uh um uh
17:42literate and he can write music and he's
17:44running numbers for gangsters. He's
17:47doing like selling papers like, "Hey,
17:49get your paper." You know, like think of
17:50those old news reels and stuff like
17:52that. And he is also a waiter at a at a
17:56at a restaurant where he was like,
17:57"Serve you your food, but then he'll
17:59sing you a song if you give him an extra
18:00penny." And he's doing that. He's just
18:02kind of honing his skills. Gets a little
18:04older and he comes back home. He's like,
18:05"Hey, mom. I'm sorry. I'll take care of
18:06the family and he makes good on that and
18:09then he starts writing songs and he
18:11starts writing songs for the tin pan
18:12alley and this tin pan alley era in
18:15these individuals they start writing
18:17what becomes the backbone of American
18:19you know song in the 20th century it's
18:22really really incredible um Irving
18:24Berlin himself has written many many
18:26many songs that you know and this guy's
18:27been dead for a while he died he lived
18:29to be 100 years old he died like uh uh
18:321989 um and he wrote you know God Bless
18:34America and White Christmas and uh the
18:37Easter parade song and I mean the the
18:40list goes on and on. One we used to sing
18:41to our our babies when they were little
18:44a song called Blue Skies Blue Sky
18:46Smiling at Me and why that's important
18:48the you know mentioning these songs is
18:50that he would embed in these songs
18:52Hebrew caner music like little moves
18:54that he got from Hebrew caner music just
18:57a huge backbone from Jewish religious
18:59tradition that's in American song. Um,
19:02so this Tim Panali thing, they're just
19:03going great guns, you know? I mean,
19:04songs like Take Me Out to the Ball Game
19:06and uh and all sorts of stuff. Uh,
19:08they're they're these are huge songs
19:10that people are buying and they're
19:11disseminating them when these carnivals
19:13and these vaudeville places they move
19:15around the country and they're playing a
19:17song. You know, they'll they'll come
19:18from New York, but then their next show
19:20will be in some place in Pennsylvania
19:22and then Ohio and then Michigan. They're
19:23playing the same song everywhere. Oh,
19:25that's a great song. Where did you get
19:26it? Oh, yeah. I got this from the Warner
19:28Brothers and Tim Panel. It's right to
19:30them. they'll send you some. You know,
19:32there's all of these kind of things that
19:33happen. That's how these songs get
19:34disseminated. Then, of course, we know
19:36the dissemination process changes into
19:38radio, which we get into later. Um, I
19:41don't know what it is now. I think maybe
19:42probably Tik Tok or, you know, Instagram
19:45reels or whatever social media platform
19:47people use. I think that's how people
19:48learn about songs now. You guys may know
19:50when you're scrolling these things, you
19:51hear the same songs over and over and
19:53over again or a mishmash of songs, you
19:55know. Um, anyway, uh, that's a pretty
19:58important part there. That tin penal.
19:59two things very briefly. We've got
20:01culture that we're really gonna we're
20:03really going to reduce down right now to
20:04two two elements. One is folk culture um
20:08and then the other is what they would
20:10call classic culture. Um folk culture is
20:13of course often not predicated on um
20:16literacy. This is the type of song that
20:19is is shared amongst people word of
20:22mouth. You know it doesn't have to be
20:24written down. So this would be the blues
20:26tradition old folk songs. what we call
20:28the blues was just called folk music for
20:30many years and then it gets it gets a
20:32little shift and changed to uh being
20:34called the blues later on. Um if you had
20:37classic culture that means you had
20:38education of money for education.
20:41Education used to used to have to have
20:43money to be an educated individual. It's
20:45not the case anymore. You can take card
20:47you can take uh advantage of public
20:49school system and get an education and
20:52even if you don't have money you can
20:53parlay that into a college education if
20:55you uh put the work in. I suppose there
20:58are lots of hurdles to that though,
21:00okay? Do not mistake me. I'm not I'm not
21:03discounting any type of privilege uh
21:05basis on the basis of ethnicity or or or
21:08race or anything. But it is possible to
21:10take advantage of the system and I say
21:12that in a good way and and uh and
21:14advance um through education as we know
21:17and I probably don't have to tell you
21:18guys this. You guys are all college
21:19students. If you advance education
21:21oftentimes that means you advance
21:22financially. You can be stable. People
21:24are figuring that out at the time, but
21:25there's still a huge vast amount of
21:26individuals who are involved in folk
21:28culture, right? These songs weren't
21:30written down. That's one thing that
21:31Tinpan Alley did really well. It was
21:34songs that were written down. These are
21:35songs that are, you know, they have
21:36their pen and paper and they'd be
21:38plugging it out. Oh, got it named Tinpan
21:40Alley because it sounded like when you'd
21:41walk past it on any given workday, it
21:44sounded like someone throwing a bunch of
21:45tin pans down an alley because they'd
21:47have these tac pianos that they'd be
21:49playing on and it' be like kind of the
21:50sound be caruming off of uh the the the
21:53buildings there. Uh New York's
21:54incredible by the way. I I still love
21:56that that you can kind of have
21:58similarish experiences there of just
22:00weird stuff.
22:03Um, Tea Break.
22:07If you're interested in the band British
22:08Sea Power, check out their record called
22:11Do You Like Rock Music.
22:14I think it's a pretty good rock record.
22:16I'm into it. Um, they had Oh, the the
22:19song structures of the Tin Penelli had
22:21slightly more advanced song structures,
22:23which is cool. You know, these
22:25individuals were a little bit more
22:27sophisticated in their tempo shifts and
22:29key changes and things like that. and
22:32we're just really kind of waiting for
22:33popular culture and then this new
22:36technologically driven culture that's
22:38ascending to kind of meet with each
22:40other. This is and what I mean by that
22:42is that we're starting to get sort of
22:43break you know we're starting to break
22:44down the walls of what I will basically
22:46call telecommunications the early
22:48version uh of telecommunications the
22:51telegraph you know
22:53you can tell it send telegraphs you can
22:55now send telegraphs around the world um
22:57telephone communication is starting to
22:59be developed by this point by you know
23:01Alexander Graanbell talking into a a
23:04phone receiver and then that then your
23:05your voice being transmitted hundreds of
23:07miles away you know we we're closing um
23:10the ranks on our country really in a big
23:13way. What's wild is that we also still
23:15have a whole vast amount of the west
23:16that's like, you know, virtually
23:18untouched. I I think that's amazing. You
23:20know, I I still love going out west
23:22because it feels very very different and
23:23very uh it just feels like very very
23:26different uh experience within our own
23:28country yet it's still within our own
23:31country. Um you know, for instance, I
23:32grew up in a place that was incredibly
23:34isolated, 120 mi from the nearest
23:36stoplight, you know, 120 mi from a
23:38McDonald's. you know, that's a pretty
23:40different experience than around here
23:41where we're two hours from Chicago, you
23:44know, like that's pretty wild. Um, where
23:47we start to see this this breaking down
23:49further in in terms of uh the barriers
23:51in culture is with like small little
23:54incremental changes. One of those is the
23:56development of the record, you know, the
23:58phonograph record. Phonograph record.
24:00And I hope you guys are into records
24:01yourselves. Uh, records are great. You
24:04know, vinyl records are awesome. I mean,
24:05music's awesome no matter how you listen
24:07to it. Don't Don't let good be the enemy
24:09of great. No, no, no, no. Don't let
24:12great be the enemy of good. That's the
24:14word I like to or the phrase I like to
24:15to say. I heard that recently when
24:17someone was describing seeing a movie
24:19and they had to see it in 70 millimeter
24:21or it wasn't going to be good. So then
24:23they didn't see the movie if they didn't
24:24see it in 70 millimeter where there was
24:26only two places in America you could go
24:28see it in 70 millimeter. So then you
24:30just didn't get to see the movie. Like
24:31what? That sounds crazy to me. A big
24:33screen film is a big screen film. Just
24:34go watch it, you know? Anyway, um
24:37photograph records by 1880, we have this
24:40uh phonograph record that's that is uh
24:42uh being being developed and sold and um
24:46these phonograph records are are not
24:48good. They don't sound good. They sound
24:50kind of crappy. They they pick up low
24:51tones well. They pick up high tones
24:53well. They were used as a dictation
24:54device to kind of get um they wanted to
24:56get rid of administrative assistance and
24:58have just have this photograph record
24:59like you know you talk into it and it
25:01takes down your words, but it was just
25:03poor for that. People figured out though
25:05that once by about 1887
25:07um that this photograph technology had
25:09been kind of transferred to a zinccoated
25:13uh or a wax coated zinc disc and you
25:15could cut Hill andale grooves in it. You
25:17could listen to music on this. So they
25:19started to make these records for with
25:20music. By the 1890s we already have
25:23these uh uh uh entertainment cylinders
25:26they were called. uh a guy named Louis
25:28Glass had them uh um set up and these
25:30entertainment cylinders were set up in
25:34bars and pubs and you could go there and
25:36for a kind of high price of about 5
25:38cents you could listen to a song and
25:40these songs that you're listening to
25:41were uh very low baritone singers that
25:44were often African-American dudes
25:47singing in a low voice that had a
25:48terribly racist name like and the name
25:50may be in your notes. I'm not going to
25:52say it here because it's a really awful
25:53name, but this was in the minstrel show
25:56era where racism was the coin of the
25:57realm. People were super racist all the
26:01time uh openly. Um you'd think that that
26:04would be gone or or elided from our
26:06culture, but man uh spend about five
26:09minutes on Twitter or playing uh Call of
26:12Duty and then uh you'll you'll see that
26:13that's not the case. Um and and this
26:16this guy this guy's name is Louis Glass.
26:18He's these entertainment cylinders be
26:19starting to become jukeboxes. He's the
26:21father of the jukebox in a big way. And
26:23then um we also have these individuals
26:25who starting to wanted to sell these
26:28record players in their stores. And
26:30that's where I think it's a a really a
26:31really cool kind of shift that happens
26:34there. People wanting to sell these
26:36record players in their stores become
26:38very important because these stores
26:40themselves end up being uh or these
26:43record players themselves end up being
26:45sold in these stores that are um like
26:48furniture stores. So, you could go into
26:50pretty much any furniture store at all
26:53in the early part of the 20th century in
26:55a larger urban area and you could buy a
26:58record player. Um, that's pretty
26:59incredible if you ask me that we've got
27:01this kind of notion of something going
27:03on here, right? Um, one last little note
27:06here and then I will wrap this up. I'm
27:08trying to keep these under a half an
27:09hour. Um, I've been told that attention
27:11spans are more like suited for that, but
27:14I just tuned out and I didn't listen
27:16when they told me.
27:18Um really got to note another really big
27:21name from the latter part of the uh 19th
27:23century into the 20th century is a guy
27:26who's the king of the rag times or
27:28ragtime uh uh songs. The king of the
27:30rags they called it. Uh and that is a
27:32dude named Scott Joplain. This guy was
27:34an individual who was just really
27:36incredible. He wrote hundreds and
27:38hundreds of rags they called them. If he
27:40was paid properly for all the songs that
27:42he wrote, he would have been a multi
27:44multi multi multi-millionaire. But he
27:46was completely ripped off by the system.
27:48people would uh publish his songs, sell
27:50them uh in form of both record and in
27:53the form of of course sheet music. And
27:54he was never paid properly for any of
27:56that stuff. He dies pennials. He dies
27:58penniless in a gutter. Like literally
28:00it's like, "Oh man, that guy's on the
28:01street." You're like, it's it's pretty
28:02gnarly. Um and yet again, for the amount
28:05of uh entertainment he gave American
28:08culture, um it's immeasurable. You know,
28:10he should have been a multi-millionaire
28:12over many, many times, but he wasn't. um
28:15possibly died of syphilis too. This is
28:18at a time where of course those types of
28:20of diseases which are easily fixed now
28:22were not easily fixed. So okay, that's
28:25just a little bit about where we're at.
28:26When I come back uh to you next lecture
28:29that you have, we're going to be talking
28:31about the jazz and the blues and the
28:33early part of the 20th century up to
28:34like the advent of the radio. So just be
28:37prepared for that. Please listen to some
28:38of these songs from this uh week's
28:40chapter in a week one or part one
28:43chapter in on the playlist. Just get a
28:46sense of what this music sounded like
28:48and where we're going. And uh I want to
28:50thank you for being in class. We'll see
28:52you later.