Well, the first of the themes I mentioned last time is that music is an art and a business. Rock and roll music, all popular music, is an art form but it's also a money making enterprise. The money making enterprise is what funds the art. Now there are two sides to this part of the story. That of the artist, and that of the record labels. Many, if not most, of the early rock and roll artists came from difficult economic circumstances. They were poor. The blues artists especially came from very poor families, often just a generation or two removed from slavery. Their parent, in many cases, were sharecroppers. Poor dirt farmers who rented land, housing, equipment, even plant seeds from the people who owned the land. And in many cases, those were the same wealthy families who might well have owned slaves, and those slaves might well have been the ancestors of these poor musicians. For these artists, music was not just an artistic expression, it was a way out. It likely began as an escape. An escape from the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a life where work began as soon as it was light enough to see, and work continued until it was too dark to see. For the talented, music became hope. Hope of a permanent escape from this endless morass of work, drought, flood, and death. Debt. The early white artists, were not necessarily much better off than the blacks. Elvis Presley was a laborer. Jerry Lee Lewis's parents were poor farmers in Eastern Louisiana. Carl Perkins was the son of sharecroppers in Tiptonville, Tennessee. For them two, music was a means of escape, a means to attain a better life. And to the companies that recorded the music, these artists were, a commodity. They were just a means of making money. The major labels in particular were much more interested in selling records, than they were in creating art. At least when we discuss popular music. Classical music, so called high art, also had to make money. But there was more room for, for artistic expression. At least in the early days. AM radio was booming in 1930s and 40s. Early radio played a very important role in popularizing popular music. But radio wasn't necessarily very popular with musicians at first. Let me set the stage a little bit. In the 1920s, there were no mass media, at least not really. Most people live their lives in relatively small areas. Newspapers did provide news from other places. But often, weeks after it occurred. As far as music was concerned, 78 rpm was chosen as the standard speed for records. That happened in 1925, and that limited records to about three minutes per side, meaning basically one song on each side of a record, period. In the 1930's, AM radio became a dominant mass media in industrialized nations in the work. In the US, radio did a great deal to aid the spread of popular music. It was the first mass medium. And late at night, it was possible for people in this very regionalized nation, to pick up radio signals from far, far away. You might be able to hear, WSM from Nashville in say, Minneapolis or Des Moines. These adventurous listeners could hear music from other regions from the country. Later in the 30s, the world's first talking, Technicolor movies were released by Warner Brothers. Frequency modulation, or FM radio, was invented in 1939, but it really didn't become very popular until the early 1970's. The 1940's. This was the heyday of big band music, although the 30's were somewhat as well. The 40's, that was a decade of war technology. The first nuclear weapons were invented. Radar was developed. But in the entertainment industry, along came commercial television And most people thought that would spell the end of radio. In 1948, Columbia introduced the 33 1/3 rpm record, meaning you could have five or even six songs on a side. And in 1949, RCA released the first 45 rpm single record, in response to Columbia's 33s. The 1950s were when television reached maturity, at least to the point that the majority of American households owned a television set. The Soviets, launched 124-pound satellite called Sputnik, in 1957. In the first passenger jet airplanes entered service later in the 1950s. Another important thing that happened, the transistor radio came to market. Little more on that later. Now the record industry and the radio industry have been, intertwined from the 1920s on, and just like any other industry, they are profit driven. Radio and the record label have had a symbiotic relationship. They feed off one another, and the rise of radio meant a great deal to the spread of popular music. The nation was so racially polarized, so segregated, that radio provided the first opportunity for whites and blacks to hear each others music. The radio industry was booming in the 1930s and 1940s. So early radio played this huge role in spreading popular music. Interestnly though, musicians weren't very keen on radio in its early years. The reason there are so few recordings of John Philip Sousa, for example, is that he refused to be recorded. There was a not yet a workable royalty system, so most artists saw recording as damaging to their pocket books. They made their money by performing for live audiences, that paid an admission fee. They made money from sheet music sales. But records and radio were something new and different. And they, weren't too sure they wanted to participate. The entertainment business was booming leading up to the early 1950's. After America bounced back from the aftershock of the Great Depression and World War II. The baby boom generation was growing up. TV was born. And the record industry, for the first time, began to focus more on popular music to meet the demands of young people. They saw money to be made in popular music. Now all of these major American labels, started, in this time period for the first time to invest more in popular music than in classical music. And it accelerated the music business. But they did not recognize the potential profits to be made from teenagers. And teenagers had money. And free time for probably the first time in history. Then along came independent labels in the 1950s. They recognized that there was money to be made, from selling rhythm and blues, country and western, and rock and roll music, to several audiences. Rural blacks and whites, who moved to the cities for better jobs, and teenagers who had more free time and more spending money than ever before. These Indie labels focused on rock and roll music, not contemporary pop. Small scale labels produced big names. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, They were indie artists before they moved to major labels. When we come back, we'll talk about the second major theme.
