Electric Shock

by Peter Doggett

  Writing a book of this scope and length has often felt like (to steal a phrase from Bob Dylan) balancing a mattress on a bottle of wine. That would never have been possible without the ceaseless love and support of my wonderful wife, Rachel Baylis – wonderfully talented, too, as a glance at her website will make clear (www.rachelbaylis.com). Constantly optimistic, positive, creative, energising and grounded, her contribution to this book has been immeasurable and invaluable. Meeting her was the luckiest moment of my life.

  Finally, lifelong thanks to John Sebastian for first making me aware of ‘the magic that can set you free’; and to Crosby, Stills & Nash, for more than 40 years of musical joy, accompanied by soap-opera shenanigans worthy of the Ewing family.

  Source notes

  Curiosities of spelling and grammar have been corrected and/or modernised where necessary to aid the twenty-first-century reader. The following abbreviations have been used to denote periodicals and newspapers: AML – American Music Lover; BB – [The] Billboard; BM – Black Music; DB – Down Beat; DE – Daily Express; DM – Daily Mirror; G – Gramophone; IT – International Times; MM – Melody Maker; NME – New Musical Express; RP – Radio Pictorial; RS – Rolling Stone.

  Speaking of the Past

  1. ‘There are towns’: quoted in Sanjek, American Popular Music, vol. 1, p. 27.

  2. ‘Such tunes, although whistled’: Dwight’s Journal of Music, 19 November 1853.

  3. ‘The California beetle’: DE, 6 September 1913.

  4. ‘[The 79-year-old music professor]’: DM, 15 June 1926.

  5. ‘Jazz is born of disorder’: DM, 13 March 1928.

  6. ‘Music begins to atrophy’: Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (1934).

  Chapter 1: The Voice of the Dead

  1. ‘And the tunes that mean’: Kipling, The Seven Seas (1895).

  2. ‘In time we may all get’: DM, 22 December 1903.

  3. ‘May I ask what it is’: DM, 7 November 1903.

  4. ‘anything less distinguished’: DM, 16 May 1904.

  5. ‘the worst thing that can happen’: court transcript, May 1904.

  6. ‘Its systematic lack of harmonic’: New York Times, 9 February 1902.

  7. ‘a musical concert, however good’: New York Times, 8 February 1902.

  8. ‘You can study the great’: Gramophone Company advertisement, November 1904.

  9. ‘In your own home’: Anglophone Company advertisement, November 1904.

  10. ‘How startling it will be’: Dr William F. Channing in Popular Science Monthly, April 1878.

  11. ‘The Phonograph will undoubtedly’: North America Review, 1878.

  12. ‘In a time like ours’: quoted in Eisenberg, The Recording Angel, p. 55.

  13. ‘people of sensitivity’: W. S. Mead-more in G, May 1935.

  14. ‘not then capable of producing’: ibid.

  15. ‘You will find that the effect’: Talking Machine News, September 1918.

  16. ‘Attached to the wall’: Telephony, 18 December 1909.

  17. ‘We played that waltz all day long’: Phono Trader and Recorder, September 1905.

  18. ‘The young men like’: DM, 13 September 1912.

  19. ‘The public … must be very faithful’: DM, 6 February 1904.

  20. ‘I think the public like it’: DM, 17 March 1904.

  21. ‘A startled, demoralized’: quoted in Behr, Thank Heaven for Little Girls, p. 21.

  22. ‘writing up to three a day’: this is Joseph Tabrar, reported in Self, Light Music in Britain, p. 37.

  23. ‘A repertoire such as Florrie’: G, August 1940.

  24. ‘Only a few years ago a sheet’: Harris, How to Write a Popular Song, p. 7.

  25. ‘ultimate success or failure’: ibid., p. 14.

  26. ‘Avoid slang or double entendre’: ibid., p. 15.

  27. ‘A – The Home, or Mother’: ibid., pp. 12-13.

  Chapter 2: Everybody’s Doin’ It Now

  1. ‘With regard to ragtime’: DE, 28 December 1912.

  2. ‘The ragtime rush’: DE, 7 March 1913.

  3. ‘with a fast-moving program’: Speath, History of Popular Music, pp. 88–9.

  4. ‘suspicion that the intention’: New York Times, 18 February 1892.

  5. ‘The future music of this country’: quoted in Abbott, Out of Sight p. xi.

  6. ‘What with “coon songs”’: ibid., p. 209.

  7. ‘are a nuisance and should be abated’: ibid., p. 201.

  8. ‘Kansas City girls’: ibid., p. 448

  9. ‘a country “rag” dance’: ibid.

  10. ‘clear out of sight’: Kansas City American Citizen, cited in ibid., p. 322.

  11. ‘the popular music market’: Schafer, Art of Ragtime, p. 28.

  12. ‘Whites taunted blacks’: Suisman, Selling Sounds, p. 38.

  13. ‘is a term applied’: Etude, October 1898.

  14. ‘a libellous insult’: Negro Music Journal, quoted in Berlin, Ragtime p. 42.

  15. ‘The authors and publishers’: ibid., p. 42.

  16. ‘cannot be interpreted at sight’: quoted in Schafer and Riedel, Art of Ragtime, p. ii.

  17. ‘Pianola playing is real playing’: Orchestrelle Company advertisement, November 1903.

  18. ‘These silly dances are physically’: DE, 21 January 1914.

  19. ‘To imitate a grizzly bear’: DE, 27 May 1913.

  20. ‘The tango is a pseudo-dance’: quoted in Savigliano, Tango, p. 116.

  21. ‘The Dance of Moral Death’: DE, 2 January 1914.

  22. ‘If I catch him cutting’: DE, 1 January 1914.

  23. ‘nigger-dance characteristics’: DE, 2 January 1914.

  24. ‘only forms of the oldest dance’: DE, 14 April 1913.

  25. ‘inoculated with the ragtime-fever’: Berlin, Ragtime, p. 44.

  26. ‘virulent poison’: ibid

  27. ‘malarious epidemic’: ibid

  28. ‘syncopation gone mad’: ibid

  29. ‘can only be treated’: ibid

  30. ‘when taken to excess’: ibid., p. 43.

  31. ‘falling prey to the collective soul’: ibid., p. 44.

  32. ‘the nerves and muscles tingling’: ibid., p. 46.

  33. ‘Suddenly I discovered that my legs’: ibid.

  34. ‘Along Atlantic Coast resorts’: Edison Phonograph Monthly, September 1911.

  35. ‘As they would say in the States’: Phono Trader and Recorder, April 1912.

  36. ‘One of the Children of Ham’: ibid.

  37. ‘You don’t have to stop yourself’: Bergreen, As Thousands Cheer, p. 547.

  38. ‘The lyric, silly though it was’: ibid., pp. 68–9.

  39. ‘Five Tunes a Day’: ibid., p. 90.

  40. ‘a Negro dresser’: Freedland, Al Jolson, p. 40.

  41. ‘there was the anticipation’: ibid., p. 55.

  42. ‘In the end, they placed a coat’: ibid., p. 59.

  43. ‘So nothing is to be sacred’: HMV catalogue, 1912.

  44. ‘We had our first battle yesterday’: DE, 7 September 1914.

  45. ‘Homely Songs Stir Nation’s Heart’: DM, 16 October 1914.

  46. ‘Every YMCA hut’: The Voice, July–August 1917.

  47. ‘as happy as sandboys’: DE, 26 February 1918.

  Chapter 3: Take Me to the Land of Jazz

  1. ‘Do you jazz-trot?’: DE, 30 May 1918.

  2. ‘Officers on leave complain’: DM, 20 February 1919.

  3. ‘The New Noise That Makes People Gay’: DE 22, November 1918.

  4. ‘You cannot dance the writhing’: DE, 28 November 1918.

  5. ‘complaining that in her craze’: DE, 18 June 1919.

  6. ‘expected to bring with her’: DM, 7 February 1919.

  7. ‘the sleek, well-dressed’: DE, 2 February 1920.

  8. ‘the girl who is asked everywhere’: ibid.

  9. ‘some of these girls have not’: ibid.

  10. ‘Dancing is the natural sequel’: DE, 4 March 1919.

  11. ‘danced night aft
er night’: DE, 5 March 1919.

  12. ‘The Demoniacs’: DM, 26 March 1919.

  13. ‘mental opiate’: DE, 5 March 1919.

  14. ‘People seem to have lost themselves’: DM, 15 March 1919.

  15. ‘a bunch of crazy niggers’: DE, 9 December 1919.

  16. ‘an outlaw and a musical bandit’: quoted in Carney, Cuttin’ Up, pp. 134–5.

  17. ‘adept at strumming jazz tunes’: DM, 4 August 1930.

  18. ‘of gold and silver tissue’: DE, 25 March 1919.

  19. ‘Just one simple, curling’: DE, 19 June 1919.

  20. ‘a jazz night – a mad, jolly’: DM, 28 June 1919.

  21. ‘Jazz was overdone during its reign’: DM, 18 November 1919.

  22. ‘Some of you may wonder’: DM, 11 July 1919.

  23. ‘has no relations at all’: Henry Osbourne Osgood, So This Is Jazz!, ch. 2.

  24. ‘In the year 1915’: Mendl, Appeal of Jazz p. 43.

  25. ‘Some say the Jass band’: Victor Records catalogue, March 1917.

  26. ‘The invention of jazz’: DB, 1 July 1949.

  27. ‘vaudeville’s newest craze’: BB, September 1916.

  28. ‘The ODJB reduced’: Early Jazz, p. 179.

  29. ‘We won’t put our stuff’: quoted in Ogren, The Jazz Revolution p. 94.

  30. ‘As the popularity of the dance wanes’: DE, 28 October 1919.

  31. ‘The year 1923 has given us’: G, January 1924.

  32. ‘Blues records long ago’: G, June 1925.

  33. ‘he found something curious’: Hamilton, In Search of the Blues, p. 33.

  34. ‘one of those over-and-over strains’: Berrett, Louis Armstrong, pp. 179–80.

  35. ‘the weirdest music I had ever heard’: Handy, Father of the Blues (1941).

  36. ‘My aim would be to combine’: ibid.

  37. ‘The dancers seemed electrified’: ibid.

  38. ‘The blues are such as synonymous’: Murray, Stomping the Blues, p. 45.

  39. ‘When singing with raucous bands’: Jazz Journal, June 1957.

  40. ‘I dressed her from the inside out’: Schuller, Early Jazz, p. 367.

  41. ‘Miss Smith walked on that stage’: Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey, p. 16.

  42. ‘the best loved of all the Race’s’: Columbia catalogue illustration, in ibid., p. 46.

  43. ‘You’ll feel better’: OKeh catalogue illustration, in ibid., p. 92.

  44. ‘Wanna be happy?’: OKeh catalogue illustration, in ibid., p. 60.

  45. ‘Clara Smith’s tones’: Vanity Fair, March 1926.

  Chapter 4: Dance-o-Mania

  1. ‘It would be difficult to find’: DE, 30 October 1919.

  2. ‘Graceful dancing is dead’: DM, 14 May 1920.

  3. ‘The War shattered many of our illusions’: Nelson, All About Jazz, p. 170.

  4. ‘What is a saxophone?’: Mr Justice Eve, who added: ‘Is it a wind or a string instrument?’: DM, 20 January 1926.

  5. ‘the antithesis of jazz’: DE, 5 July 1919.

  6. ‘That’s music’: ibid.

  7. ‘This is the most discordant’: Encore magazine, quoted in Godbolt, History of Jazz in Britain, p. 11.

  8. ‘astonishing … extraordinary’: DE, 14 August 1919.

  9. ‘magicians’: ibid.

  10. ‘dancing to the ragtime music’: DM, 10 November 1916.

  11. ‘a damn nigger’: Memory Lane, Winter 1977/78.

  12. ‘I am certain that although’: Memory Lane, Spring 1978.

  13. ‘Jazz was a novelty’: Heath, Listen to My Music, p. 28.

  14. ‘The first note plunges you’: Columbia advertisement, February 1920.

  15. ‘at a dance dive’: quoted in Berrett, Louis Armstrong, p. 1.

  16. ‘came up with the idea’: Collier, Reception of Jazz, p. 16.

  17. ‘Those who like his music’: Kenney, Chicago Jazz, p. 78.

  18. ‘Paul Whiteman was known’: quoted in Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America, p. 77.

  19. ‘All I did was to orchestrate jazz’: Saturday Evening Post, 27 February 1926.

  20. ‘I intend to point out’: Carney, Cuttin’ Up, p. 125.

  21. ‘I do not think that serious music’: Radio Times, 3 July 1925.

  22. ‘Jazz music is descending’: Time, 25 February 1924.

  23. ‘the only true American art’: ibid.

  24. ‘smoothed his harshness’: Vanity Fair, October 1925.

  25. ‘coldly received’: Memory Lane, Summer 1978.

  26. ‘The trouble with the modern girl’: DM, 31 January 1925.

  27. ‘We ought to consign jazz’: Time, 17 May 1926.

  28. ‘a nigger’s shuffling step’: G, January 1927.

  29. ‘savages … still live in trees’: M. Savile: DM, 5 October 1927.

  30. ‘Nigger music’: Dr Farrell, Exeter College: DM, 6 August 1927.

  31. ‘attendant immodest dances’: DM, 21 September 1927.

  32. ‘We younger Negro artists’: The Nation, 23 June 1926.

  33. ‘The venue’s exclusionary policies’: Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America, p. 54.

  34. ‘It’s impossible’: Shapiro, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, p. 159.

  Chapter 5: Wizard of the Microphone

  1. ‘A cheap dance record’: G, October 1923.

  2. ‘An innovation of this kind’: G, May 1925.

  3. ‘new noise’: quoted in Eisenberg, The Recording Angel, p. 112.

  4. ‘I do not believe any audience’: ibid.

  5. ‘Sound Photographed onto a Record!’: illustration in Cliffe, Fascinating Rhythm, p. 83.

  6. ‘immense loudness’: G, May 1935.

  7. ‘particularly partial’: MM, March 1926.

  8. ‘discretion won the day’: G, September 1933.

  9. ‘Why not learn the guitar?’: MM, March 1926.

  10. ‘a really confidential attitude’: G, June 1929.

  11. ‘The thing you have to understand’: Giddins, Pocketful of Dreams, p. 259.

  12. ‘the boys and girls who intersperse’: New York Times, 24 February 1932.

  13. ‘People sing more than they did’: Broadcasting in Everyday Life, p. 16.

  14. ‘Soft, foul, crooner-obsessed’: Action, 20 August 1936.

  15. ‘Whiners and bleaters’: New York Times, 11 January 1932.

  16. ‘Male crooners are quite divorced’: Baade, Victory Through Harmony, p. 136.

  17. ‘To exclude any form of anaemic’: ibid., p. 139.

  18. ‘Bing’s singing was nothing’: Giddins, Pocketful of Dreams, p. 203.

  19. ‘Bing conveyed a chest-tone’: ibid., p. 172

  20. ‘Most of his predecessors’: ibid.

  21. ‘This approach made some people’: Young, Music of the Great Depression p. 10

  22. ‘The audience, except for the few’: New Republic, 7 August 1929.

  23. ‘The constant jar and rasping’: Taylor, Music Sound & Technology, p. 299.

  24. ‘mask the clatter of knives’: Lanza, Elevator Music, p. 17.

  25. ‘There was a time when dance music’: Eisenberg, The Recording Angel, p. 64.

  26. ‘The dance hall was the only’: Parsonage, Evolution of Jazz, p. 40.

  27. ‘the British touch’: G, September 1926.

  28. ‘nerve-torturing riot’: Radio Times, 18 June 1926.

  29. ‘a person felt honoured’: Heath, Listen to My Music, p. 37.

  30. ‘Royal interest can obviously’: Payne, This Is Jack Payne, p. 32.

  31. ‘the Violin of Death’: RP, 15 January 1937.

  32. ‘Continue! There is a singing’: RP, 12 February 1937.

  33. ‘Many a tune has gone’: Payne, This Is Jack Payne, p. 83.

  34. ‘loathe and abominate’: ibid., p. 32.

  35. ‘foolish flappers’: ibid.

  36. ‘dear mr hall’: RP, 29 November 1935.

  37. ‘the constant use of certain mannerisms’: AML, August 1935.

  38. ‘This worked well’: Bret, Gracie Fields, p. 5.

&nb
sp; 39. ‘poor gracie’: HMV advertisement, late 1931.

  40 ‘There were lots of film stars’: Bret, Gracie Fields, p. 35.

  41. ‘I spoke the language’: RP, 27 November 1936.

  Chapter 6: Blues in the Night

  1. ‘I’d lower the volume’: Cash, Cash, p. 51.

  2. ‘Hill Billies are the most incorrigibly lazy’: G, December 1931.

  3. ‘The songs themselves’: quoted in Woods, Folk Revival, p. 14.

  4. ‘Many of the songs were printed’: Wolfe, Tennessee Strings, p. 8.

  5. ‘simply the greatest’: Delmore, Truth is Stranger, p. 98.

  6. ‘We were afraid to advertise’: Oliver, Blues off the Record, p. 49.

  7. ‘blind lemon’: mcgee, b. b. king, p. 11.

  8. ‘It’s funny how collectors’: Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey, p. 58.

  9. ‘She wouldn’t have to sing’: ibid., p. 42.

  10. ‘I believed everything he sang’: McGee, B. B. King, p. 10.

  11. ‘The new sensation in the singing’: Columbia advertisement, 1928.

  12. ‘the prevailing atmosphere’: Broughton, Black Gospel, p. 37.

  13. ‘The day of the popular record’: Phonograph Monthly Review, August 1931.

  14. ‘The public has lost its thrill’: The Music Seller, October 1931.

  15. ‘Wall Street Lays an Egg’: Variety, 30 October 1929.

  16. ‘There was a kind of desperate’: Sudhalter, Stardust Melody, p. 145.

  17. ‘poor and rich alike felt’: Eisenberg The Recording Angel, p. 31.

  18. ‘The talking films are going’: G, July 1929.

  19. ‘He has a knack of establishing’: DM, 9 October 1928.

  20. ‘It was made obvious’: Daily Sketch, 14 October 1928.

  21. ‘Each talkie has one big’: The Voice, March 1930.

  22. ‘the most upsetting year’: Winifred Bristow: Picture Show Annual 1931, p. 22.

  23. ‘Picturegoers made it quite clear’: Edward Wood: ibid., p. 52.

  24. ‘Dance music is in the thraldom’: G, January 1926.

  25. ‘I just read a magazine’: Lombardo, Auld Acquaintance, p. 73.

  26. ‘Musical comedies do not act’: Time, 30 May 1932.

  27. ‘Its prelude establishes’: ibid.

  28. ‘an explosion of melody’: Giddins, Pocketful of Dreams, p. 174.