Salzburg [ENA] To paraphrase Augustine’s dictum about time, one could say: “So what is popular music? If no one asks me about it, I know it; but if I want to explain it to someone when they ask me, I don’t know.” It seems even more difficult to find and name the origins of this music. Cultural currents usually influence each other and can hardly be divided in terms of time.
Almost all experts agree that “modern” pop music begins with the emergence of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s. Lester William Polfus (Gibson Les Paul, 1952) and Leo Fender (Telecaster, 1950) created the necessary lead, rhythm and bass guitars, while the first commercial tube amplifiers came onto the market at the same time. Not unimportant is the fact that the popularity of television in the USA exploded after the Second World War; around 1955 almost half of all households already had a black-and-white television in addition to a radio.
The talk show established itself as a popular and preferred TV format, with new singers being introduced again and again in these programs. Adolescents from wealthy families could even afford a portable, small transistor radio and were thus able to listen to their music or their preferred station outside of the family living room or away from parental “censorship measures”. Rock ‘n’ roll, the new style of music, often a white interpretation of black, sensual rhythm and blues music, was stylized as the theme of a generational conflict (see also the films “Because they don’t know what they are doing” and “The Seeds of Violence”, both 1955).
In addition, it was possible to purchase and “own” these songs – in the form of small records! (Most players already had controls for different disc sizes.) So musical consumer goods became status symbols within a peer group! Demure and middle-class country & western singers or lewd and non-conformist rock ‘n’ roll icons? – From now on, this question divided families, parents from their children, adults from young people.
And before? Before the United States of America entered World War I (1917), New Orleans was not only a cultural melting pot, but also an important commercial and military port. In Storyville, the nearby entertainment district, there were rows of brothels and bars where the piano was played. Since 1898 each establishment has had its own house pianist; the so-called “Professor” greeted the guests musically and invited other – mostly Afro-American – jazz musicians to spontaneously play along.
Did the predominantly black pianists perhaps even create an original American style of music with ragtime? The linear time in the melody was “torn up” with syncopation and off-beat phrases over a marching bass. This new way of playing the piano was so well received by the audience that they asked for more pieces of music. Scott Joplin, a black musician, sold over a million sheet music for the first time in music history with his “Maple Leaf Rag” (1899).
At that time, the number of sheets of music sold was a decisive factor in the success of a piece of music. “The St. Louis Blues” (1914, 165 different recordings!) and the indestructible “Tiger Rag” (1917, 136 recordings) followed – they became Evergreens and long sellers. Irving Berlin also jumped on the trend and composed “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” in 1917 – the first worldwide hit conquered the market for decades! Gospels, i.e. “good spell” (“gospel” as “good news”), may also play a major role in the search for the roots of pop music. The missionary character of the Baptist and methodical revival movement was not only accepted by the black slaves early on.
They were convinced by the down-to-earth and rather original nature of the pastors and, last but not least, by the tradition of the passion story of Jesus. In addition to the phenomenon of “camp meetings” (extended families, some with their slaves, met for prayer meetings lasting several days in the open air), it was the rapidly growing cities in the east (New York, Boston, Chicago) in which in the 19th century religious movements and with them new church songs (revival songs or gospels) emerged. For a new, urban proletariat that wanted to take an active part in church services, simple and captivating melodies that were easy to learn were needed.
Common phrases and popular phrases were “borrowed” from secular, popular songs and furnished with godly lyrics. So popular ballads were sung both in the sacred and in the profane realm. The term “minstrel” derives from “Ménestrel” (a term for medieval minstrels), a special form of American light music of the early 19th century. In so-called “minstrel shows” white musicians with black make-up performed and caricatured the (supposedly primitive) way of life of oppressed African Americans to the amusement of the audience.
To all appearances openly racist as well as amusing, comical and politically unobjectionable contributions mixed up. Some composers wrote songs that, as mentioned above, became famous as gospel, others were also used in these dubious entertainment shows. Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) was probably America’s most successful songwriter in the mid-19th century. He is the composer of “Oh Susanna” (1847, the anthem of the Californian gold diggers), “Old Folks at Home” (“Way down upon the Swanee River”, 1851), “Old Black Joe” (1853) and “My old Kentucky Home” (1853, official anthem of the US state of Kentucky).
His songs also found their way into the church, others were performed in minstrel shows, whereby Foster – from a social and political point of view – may have been a personality. There are no surviving racist texts by him. (Foster may also have been the first pop composer: bands like the Beatles and the Beach Boys and musicians like Bob Dylan interpreted his music!) In general, American audiences may have been interested in unusual, curious, even exotic attractions, where – from a sociological and psychological point of view – a certain class thinking probably played a not insignificant role.
In revue-like (and actually grotesque) show numbers, the indigenous population of America – as well as the former slaves – were presented in stereotypical and clichéd images. Not only that: even simple white workers felt superior to the blacks and also the “redskins”. People laughed at the apparently simple-minded and naive culture of the oppressed or “inferior races” and forgot their own difficult and not so free life.
Another detail of pop history is represented by the “America tours” of European musicians and singers in the 19th century: While the American audience was looking at the world of the Indian tribes and black Africans from “above”, the European music groups were perhaps even a little Nostalgia or a longing for the times of the parents and grandparents who had emigrated to the “Promised Land” many years ago. It is said that in 1831 the “Tyrolese Minstrels” undertook a very successful concert tour through some American cities. The four singers (the prototype of a boy band?) had both a “Yager Choir” and a “Styrian Cow Series” in their program.
They wowed the “New World” with yodels, lederhosen and chamois beards. German and Swiss groups, also often male quartets, followed. It is known that a “Rainer Family” from the Zillertal gave concerts in many American music centers from 1839 to 1843 and also found enthusiastic audiences. One can speculate as to what delighted the American audience the most: Was it the “savagery” of the Alpine yodel; Was it maybe also the dance performances (Schuhplattler) and traditional costumes, or maybe also the polyphonic songs? The latter probably also inspired or at least influenced barbershop singing.
The thought that alpine music-making practice at least helped shape American pop music sounds bizarre at first glance. On closer inspection, however, the idea gains in charm…
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