Song

In 1925, Florida passed a law requiring daily reading of the Bible in public schools. Forty-five thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan marched in Washington, D.C. In July, Tennessee public school teacher John Scopes was placed on trial and convicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. President Coolidge reducedContinue Reading

With the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment and impending national prohibition of alcohol, Tin Pan Alley writers produced a plethora of songs about life devoid of intoxicating beverages. Here is a selection of humorous songs and an appropriately titled instrumental selection. Also featured are two temperance songs robustly sung byContinue Reading

In 1912 came the first publication of that phenomenal song form, the blues. It is an old form that may have preceded the Civil War. Harold Courlander, folklorist and author of the definitive Negro Folk Music U.S.A., says, “ There is no indication that something closely akin to blues wasContinue Reading

Early Tin Pan Alley recordings – see info songs Library of Congress    Between the late 1890s and 1970s New York City’s music publishing district was known as “Tin Pan Alley”—a reference to the continuous sound of pianos emanating from nearly every open window nearby, allegedly causing a remarkContinue Reading

m. Victor Herbert, w. Rida Johnson Young. The music only of this song first appeared in print in the piano-vocal score of the show Naughty Marietta, in the Overture and Entr’acte, published Nov. 7, 1910,^ by M. Witmark & Sons, New York, N.Y., and four other cities. In the firstContinue Reading

In 1909 Shelton Brooks wrote the words and music of a song which was truly a landmark in popular music, perhaps the landmark of the transition era. It was completely unlike most songs of its time. It derived from none of the popular song elements then current. It is aContinue Reading

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Twenty-four days after the release of Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles represented England on the sixhour TV show Our World, a satellite broadcast seen by 400 million. “All You Need Is Love” was the simple message they wanted to send to the world. “It was for love and bloody peace,” RingoContinue Reading