Recorded Music in American Life The Phonograph and Popular Memory, 1890-1945

Here, Kenney examines the interplay between recorded music and the keysocial, political, and economic forces in America during the era of thephonograph's rise and decline as the dominant medium of popular recordedsound--from the appearance of the first commercial recordings to the postwaryears when the industry became more complex and less powerful. He argues thatthe phonograph and the recording industry served neither to impose a preferencefor high culture nor a degraded popular taste, but rather expressed a diverseset of sensibilities in which various sorts of people found pleasure. Asdetailed in this study, recorded music provided the focus for active recordedsound cultures, in which listeners shared what they heard and expressedimportant dimensions of their personal lives by way of their involvement withrecords and record-players.

William Howland Kenney is Professor of History and American Studies at Kent State University. He is also a jazz clarinetist and the author of Chicago Jazz: A Cultural History (OUP, 1993).