Although not the point of this thread, I will digress a bit.
Kenney's book is on my shelf and I did read much but not all of it. I may
have missed something, but he seems to divide artists (and their repertory)
into two categories: "The Coney Island Crowd" and the "golden age"
singers of the Met and perhaps similar venues. In doing so he ignores the
trained church/concert singers who appeared on Victor's black but also purple and
blue labels and whose repertory included Tin Pan Alley songs and current
show tunes (sometimes released under pseudonyms) (Olive Kline, Lambert
Murphy, and Reinald Werrenrath please stand and wave), as well as standard and
"art songs" arguably part of the "better music" repertory. I'm not certain
how his failure to deal with the complete range of repertory and training
of performers impacts on his understanding of history of the recording
industry.
Paul Charosh
In a message dated 7/7/2011 11:20:43 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Kenney phrases some of his conclusions in that chapter as though they deal
with the whole of the early history of commercial recorded sound, but I
just
took a quick look through the relevant citations, and they appear to be
limited to 1918-1923 -- a fairly narrow window of time, and perhaps even an
outcome of home front conditions during the First World War. I'd be
hesitant to extend his conclusions to "early sound recordings (before
1929)"
in general without seeing more evidence from earlier periods. The
impression I've got in passing from sources such as the *Edison Phonograph
Monthly *is that retailers at least were predominantly male during the
nineteen-oughts, when many records like those you're asking about were
marketed.
- Patrick
On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 7:49 PM, Eric Byron <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> From what I understand, it was primarily saleswomen who pitched early
sound
> recordings (before 1929) to mostly female customers. Does anybody know
> whether this kind of exchange also occurred in the sale of humorous
sketches
> made by and for immigrants? I have the same question for the recordings
> that played on the stereotypical antics of ethnic, racial and country
people
> and were marketed to the general American public.
>
> I'm am talking about sales direct to retail customers and the customers
> themselves. Most of the information comes from "The Gendered Phonograph:
> Women and Recorded Sound, 1890-1930" in Recorded Music in American Life:
> The Phonograph and Popular Memory, 1890-1945 by William Howland Kenney.
>
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