Lonely Sounds: Recorded Popular Music and American Society, 1949-1979
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History History, Department of 4-18-2008 Lonely Sounds: Recorded Popular Music and American Society, 1949-1979 Chris R. Rasmussen University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historydiss Part of the History Commons Rasmussen, Chris R., "Lonely Sounds: Recorded Popular Music and American Society, 1949-1979" (2008). Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History. 16. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historydiss/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the History, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, & Student Research, Department of History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Lonely Sounds: Popular Recorded Music and American Society, 1949-1979 by Christopher Rasmussen A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: History Under the Supervision of Professor Benjamin G. Rader Lincoln, Nebraska May, 2008 ii LONELY SOUNDS: POPULAR RECORDED MUSIC AND AMERICAN SOCIETY, 1949- 1979 Christopher Rasmussen, Ph.D. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008 Adviser: Benjamin G. Rader Lonely Sounds: Popular Recorded Music and American Society, 1949-1979 examines the relationship between the experience of listening to popular music and social disengagement. It finds that technological innovations, the growth of a youth culture, and market forces in the post- World War II era came together to transform the normal musical experience from a social event grounded in live performance into a consumable recorded commodity that satisfied individual desires. The musical turn inward began in the late 1940s. Prior to the postwar era, the popular music experience was communal, rooted in place, and it contained implicit social obligations between the performer and the audience and among members of the audience. Beginning in the late 1940s, technological, social, and cultural innovations, including new radio formats, automobile radios, and an expanding recording industry liberated popular music from some of the restraints of place and time. Listeners in the 1950s acquired expanded opportunities for enjoying music in ways that were more private, mobile, and intensely personal. Not only did the opportunities to listen alone expand enormously, but so also did the inclination. iii The postwar youth culture that grew up around the Top 40 radio format and 45-rpm singles stood at the vanguard of this revolutionary change in the musical experience. For many young listeners, rock and roll records represented a singular authentic experience. By the middle 1960s, these listeners believed that correctly listening to rock records not only revealed a unique self but also reintegrated alienated individuals into supportive communities. The isolated nature of the listening experience, however, poignantly frustrated such hopes. The dream of social renewal through rock records collapsed in the early 1970s. In its place came a more aggressive emphasis on self-sufficiency and personal control. In the subsequent decade devices such as the Sony Walkman successfully colonized public space, shielding listeners from other sounds while enclosing them in a private sonic environment of their choosing. This revolution in the musical experience, I contend, reflected and contributed to the pervasive sense of loneliness associated with the postwar era. iv For A. Grant Reed “Papa” v Acknowledgments Dissertating is lonely work, so I’m fortunate to have such great family, friends, and colleagues. My advisor, Benjamin G. Rader, shepherded this project through to completion. A successful conclusion would not have been possible without his close readings and advice. Jim Le Sueur and Carole Levin, as Graduate Chairs and colleagues (and in Carole’s case temporary landlord), were instrumental in ensuring that I had the necessary institutional support. David Nesheim, graduate student ringleader, was the animating spirit behind the weekly drinking and bull sessions at Duffys Tavern. Tom Smith and Jon Wendt provided free criticism, while my parents, John and Christie Rasmussen showed unwavering support and encouragement. Thanks to my brothers: Jimmy, Johnny, and Peter, for fellowship, fun, and snowboarding, and also to my cousins: Alison, Paul, Julie, and particularly Michael Sanchez-Masi for same (sans snowboarding). Special recognition goes to my aunt Linda Sanchez-Masi, whose company, cooking, humor proved essential. Most of all I’m grateful to and thankful to my wife, Svetlana. vi Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................1 Chapter One Imagined Audiences and Make-believe Performances: Records and Radio in the “Golden Age”.........................................................................................................................13 Chapter Two The Top 40 Format: Records on Radio ..................................................................................50 Chapter Three Communities of the Top 40: The Postwar Youth Market, Audience, and Culture ...............80 Chapter Four Making Records, Making Money, Making Connections: The Rise of the Rock Long- Player .....................................................................................................................................120 Chapter Five Youth Culture of the 1960s: Pre-recorded Dreams of Authentic Connection .......................152 Chapter Six Lonely Sounds: Sonic Self Sufficiency, Personal Control, and Social Shields .....................188 Epilogue` ................................................................................................................................224 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................233 1 Introduction I'm in love with modern moonlight 128 when it's dark outside I'm in love with Massachusetts I'm in love with the radio on It helps me from being alone late at night It helps me from being lonely late at night I don't feel so bad now in the car Don't feel so alone, got the radio on Like the roadrunner That's right In the lyrics of “Roadrunner” (1976) Jonathan Richman of the Modern Lovers captures the main concerns of this study. One of these is the post-World War II angst associated with perceptions of a declining sense of community or social connectedness. As he speeds down a Massachusetts highway at night, we learn that the roadrunner is alone and lonely, but that, while modern technologies may contribute to his malaise, they simultaneously offer him some relief from his anguish. The enclosed car itself provides not only the close quarters of a womb-like security but also its capacity for hurtling him down the highway at breakneck speeds serves to enhance his sense of personal empowerment. Technology facilitates perhaps an even greater feat for the Roadrunner. The car radio connects him to a world outside himself; it allows him a partial escape from the awful sense of being totally alone in an alien world. “It helps me from being alone at night. It helps me from being lonely at night,” he sings. “Don’t feel so alone, got the radio on like the roadrunner. That’s right.” Yet Richman suspected or recognized at some level that technology’s answer to social disengagement was inadequate. Hence, he changed his relationship to musical performance. To many fans’ and critics’ confusion, he purged his live performances of common rock elements: 2 distortion, electric instruments, and eventually a supporting band all vanished when Richman took the stage. What was left by the late 1970s was a reinvigorated interpretation of the rock and roll of the 1950s, injected with Richman’s characteristic energy, insight, humor, and pathos. Often appearing unaccompanied or with a percussionist on stage, Richman continued to release records to a small following, but achieved renown as a live performer. As a performer, Richman sought a direct, physical, and face-to-face connection with the audience, unmediated by pose or technology. He never abandoned recording, but placed the technology and the larger industry in a subordinate role to his performances. A Jonathan Richman record is more an invitation to an event, than the end product.1 This study examines the relationship of a particular form of modern technology, recorded music, to post-World War II society. The same issues that unnerved Richman and led to his drive to create an unmediated stage presence were reshaping the American musical experience and social relationships between the years of 1949 and 1979. The musical performance, to which recordings were supposed to be inferior copies, declined in significance, while the recorded artifact grew more important. Since the turn of the century, popular recorded music had been one of a galaxy of standardized commodities available for individual consumption, but it was not until the postwar era that the record became the primary means by which American experienced music. As the recorded artifact gained prominence, musical genres proliferated, the recording industry expanded, and the market diversified,