I subscribe to satellite radio for my car. They have a 40s on 4 program, i.e. 40s music played on channel 4, as well as a 50s on 5, 60s on 6, 70s on 7, 80s on 8. Unfortunately, no 30s on 3 or 20s on 2. I keep writing them about it. They probably use the old formula of one letter or email equals 1000 listeners.
40s on 4 is pretty nice. True, they don't delve anywhere deep enough into the music of that period but at least there's a station that plays 40s music 24/7 and they still play a decent selection. From listening to it, I have caught a few references in 3 Stooges episodes that I've heard since I was a young boy but never knew what they were talking about. Listening to it also helps me appreciate just how important the 40s were to us musically. So many songs in the GAS (Great American Songbook or just "the Songbook") came out of the 40s or became ingrained in American culture in the 40s: "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" "Satin Doll" "Hold Tight" "White Christmas" "Sentimental Journey" "Rum & Coca-Cola" "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" "Daddy" "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" "Take the A Train" "Cow Cow Boogie" "Bobby Socks Baby" "Saturday Night Fish Fry" "On the Sunny Side of the Street" "Call It Stormy Monday" "The Woody Woodpecker Song" "I'm in the Mood for Love" "When You Wish Upon a Star" "The Way You Look Tonight" "Elmer's Tune" "Blues in the Night" "Jingle Jangle Jingle" "That Old Black Magic" "Paper Doll" "Swinging on a Star" "It's Been a Long, Long Time" "Old Buttermilk Sky" "That Lucky Old Sun" "Ain't Misbehavin'" "In the Mood" "She's Funny That Way" "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" "The Frim-Fram Sauce" "Flying Home" etc.
All the "era" stations on satellite overlap a bit. So you'll hear stuff from the late 30s and early 50s on the 40s station as well. Nothing wrong with that. That way, you get to hear "Sing Sing Sing" and "Forty Cups of Coffee."
The 40s, as great as the music was, also sewed the seeds of the destruction of that direction in music. Big bands were pretty much dead after the war. Some carried on but not for very long. When Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge program went off the air in 1950, he retired from music and never took it up again. This was due to two things: the Japanese cutting off shellac shipments from Southeast Asia to the West although this was circumvented by the invention of the Formvar disc which was actually superior to the shellac discs but there was also a musician's strike called in 1942 over how musicians would be paid if their music was played on the radio from recordings. It was nearly 1945 before the strike was called off. By that time, "minority" music was popular because the major labels couldn't put out anything new. That was the time we saw Capitol, Atlantic, Duke, Savoy, Juke Box, Cat, Federal and other such labels spring up that specialized in minority music. By the end of the war, minority music labels were major players. This was because the kids loved the stuff. They didn't care a fig for Sinatra or Kay Kyser or Spike Jones or Les Paul and Mary Ford. They wanted to hear blues and jacked-up hillbilly music. The big bands had broken down into smaller units during the war because tour buses used up more tires and fuel. These things were in short supply so the bands broke down and traveled in cars. This led to a looser, wilder type of music because the small units had to fill in more space. By the end of the war, it was a norm which led to jump blues which was the original rock and roll that Alan Freed peddled to his young, white audience in '51.
BB King stated that his early records had a jazzy feel because his session men were veterans of the old big bands and they instilled this jazzy sensibility into King's music that made it so distinctive.
So that's how rock and roll sprang up so fast on the heels of big band--war shortages and a musicians' strike. In the blink of an eye, the 40s legacy was gone. But luckily, it was well documented with recordings whose true cultural value has only started being realized in the last 20 years or so.
Yesterday, I saw something hopeful: a teenaged girl and her mother were in a record store and the mother was helping the girl to pick out the old swing hits. I don't work there but I shop there a lot and I know the owners very well. So I showed them where a lot of good swing was to be found. I asked the girl how she became so interested in the old swing. She said she started listening to the new swing stuff that had come out in the last few years--Cherry-Poppin' Daddies and like that--and decided to look at the old swing to see what it was all about and now she was hooked on it. I told her that my daughters were big fans of Glen Grey. Her mother said that her parents really like Jimmie Lunceford and she wanted to get some for her daughter so I showed them where the Lunceford stuff was. There was one new swing band that I really like a lot and that was Indigo Swing and I asked the girl if she heard them. She said no so I hooked her up with that too. By the time they left, they had a big stack of CDs of over $100 worth. The mother didn't mind spending the money because "I'm going to listen to these too!" Lastly, I recommended 40s on 4 but I don't know if they got a subscription or not.
Makes me realize that there is hope.
40s on 4 is pretty nice. True, they don't delve anywhere deep enough into the music of that period but at least there's a station that plays 40s music 24/7 and they still play a decent selection. From listening to it, I have caught a few references in 3 Stooges episodes that I've heard since I was a young boy but never knew what they were talking about. Listening to it also helps me appreciate just how important the 40s were to us musically. So many songs in the GAS (Great American Songbook or just "the Songbook") came out of the 40s or became ingrained in American culture in the 40s: "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" "Satin Doll" "Hold Tight" "White Christmas" "Sentimental Journey" "Rum & Coca-Cola" "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" "Daddy" "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" "Take the A Train" "Cow Cow Boogie" "Bobby Socks Baby" "Saturday Night Fish Fry" "On the Sunny Side of the Street" "Call It Stormy Monday" "The Woody Woodpecker Song" "I'm in the Mood for Love" "When You Wish Upon a Star" "The Way You Look Tonight" "Elmer's Tune" "Blues in the Night" "Jingle Jangle Jingle" "That Old Black Magic" "Paper Doll" "Swinging on a Star" "It's Been a Long, Long Time" "Old Buttermilk Sky" "That Lucky Old Sun" "Ain't Misbehavin'" "In the Mood" "She's Funny That Way" "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" "The Frim-Fram Sauce" "Flying Home" etc.
All the "era" stations on satellite overlap a bit. So you'll hear stuff from the late 30s and early 50s on the 40s station as well. Nothing wrong with that. That way, you get to hear "Sing Sing Sing" and "Forty Cups of Coffee."
The 40s, as great as the music was, also sewed the seeds of the destruction of that direction in music. Big bands were pretty much dead after the war. Some carried on but not for very long. When Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge program went off the air in 1950, he retired from music and never took it up again. This was due to two things: the Japanese cutting off shellac shipments from Southeast Asia to the West although this was circumvented by the invention of the Formvar disc which was actually superior to the shellac discs but there was also a musician's strike called in 1942 over how musicians would be paid if their music was played on the radio from recordings. It was nearly 1945 before the strike was called off. By that time, "minority" music was popular because the major labels couldn't put out anything new. That was the time we saw Capitol, Atlantic, Duke, Savoy, Juke Box, Cat, Federal and other such labels spring up that specialized in minority music. By the end of the war, minority music labels were major players. This was because the kids loved the stuff. They didn't care a fig for Sinatra or Kay Kyser or Spike Jones or Les Paul and Mary Ford. They wanted to hear blues and jacked-up hillbilly music. The big bands had broken down into smaller units during the war because tour buses used up more tires and fuel. These things were in short supply so the bands broke down and traveled in cars. This led to a looser, wilder type of music because the small units had to fill in more space. By the end of the war, it was a norm which led to jump blues which was the original rock and roll that Alan Freed peddled to his young, white audience in '51.
BB King stated that his early records had a jazzy feel because his session men were veterans of the old big bands and they instilled this jazzy sensibility into King's music that made it so distinctive.
So that's how rock and roll sprang up so fast on the heels of big band--war shortages and a musicians' strike. In the blink of an eye, the 40s legacy was gone. But luckily, it was well documented with recordings whose true cultural value has only started being realized in the last 20 years or so.
Yesterday, I saw something hopeful: a teenaged girl and her mother were in a record store and the mother was helping the girl to pick out the old swing hits. I don't work there but I shop there a lot and I know the owners very well. So I showed them where a lot of good swing was to be found. I asked the girl how she became so interested in the old swing. She said she started listening to the new swing stuff that had come out in the last few years--Cherry-Poppin' Daddies and like that--and decided to look at the old swing to see what it was all about and now she was hooked on it. I told her that my daughters were big fans of Glen Grey. Her mother said that her parents really like Jimmie Lunceford and she wanted to get some for her daughter so I showed them where the Lunceford stuff was. There was one new swing band that I really like a lot and that was Indigo Swing and I asked the girl if she heard them. She said no so I hooked her up with that too. By the time they left, they had a big stack of CDs of over $100 worth. The mother didn't mind spending the money because "I'm going to listen to these too!" Lastly, I recommended 40s on 4 but I don't know if they got a subscription or not.
Makes me realize that there is hope.
