Jukebox created, described, contextualized, and complied by
Michael Bishop, Amy Dumlao and Natalie Shonka
for the American Studies Program at the
University of Virginia
in the Fall of 2001.

All songs and images made available
by this web site
are to be used for academic purposes only.

Chuck Mancuso's Popular Music And The Underground: Foundations of Jazz, Blues, Country, and Rock, 1900-1950 is an ambitious and comprehensive overview of the history of American popular music. Mancuso covers this complex and perpetually expanding topic with estimable clarity, never allowing the reader to become lost in the intricate web of events, personalities, movements, genres, and sub-genres that comprise the American musical past. Mancuso shows the development of modern forms of American music as the results of a process of ever evolving and reciprocal cultural assimilation between the musical expressions of the different races, classes, ethnic groups, and regional identities that comprise American society. This site has been premised in part on Mancuso's theory of the cyclical exchange of musical ideas between the underground and mainstream popular music styles and forms. We owe much to his focused biographies of the artists, clear explanations of genres and detailed account of the aesthetic and social interactions that resulted in modern American music.

Arnold Shaw's Let's Dance (1998) provided incomparable information on the songs that moved the nation during the 1930s. As a former employee of the record business himself, Shaw brought an understanding of the formation of artists in their rise to acclaim and success, tying together their songs and influences along the way. With succinct explanations of movie musicals, Your Hit Parade, and the rise of the Big Band, Shaw artfully leads to a greater understanding of popularized tunes of the day. (Available from the Oxford University Press; New York, New York.)

William Zinsser's Easy to Remember (2000) provided an excellent discussion of Broadway and its transferal into movie musicals. By discussing each popular artist of the genre and addressing their similar influences or disparate creations, Zinsser recreated the conversation between their music and with the American public.

William Howland Kenney's Recorded Music in American Life: The Phonograph and Popular Memory, 1890-1945 is an inspired social history that measures the influence of the phonograph on American society. Kenney follows the machine from its invention all the way through the period when the device became ubiquitous in the homes of the nation. He places special emphasis on cultural analysis of the music business and patterns of consumption to demonstrate that recorded music is a valuable tool for understanding the fabric of American history because it is quite literally a record of collective memory. Kenney explores the trade publications and other documents to gain insight into the market perceptions and specific cultural agenda of the industrial process that guided the manufacture and market of recorded music. Kenney's theories on the role of music as a product of memory and identity formed the basis for the thesis of this site. We are indebted to him especially for his analysis of the role of the record industry in shaping forms of American popular music.

Whitburn, Joel. A Century Of Pop Music. Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research. 1999.
Whitburn has completed extensive research to determine hit lists for years before the advent of the Billboard Era in 1940 by analyzing such information as record sales charts (in Variety, Billboard); radio airplay and sheet music sales; rankings from the radio show Your Hit Parade; and Billboard's chart of jukebox hits. Naturally one can be suspect of these rankings, as companies and charts reflected as well as shaped what compromised "popular music."

Place, Jeff and Kip Lornell. "A Booklet of Essays, Appreciations, and Annotations Pertaining to the Anthology of American Folk Music Edited by Harry Smith." Booklet. Smith, Harry. Ed. Anthology of American Folk Music: Edited By Harry Smith. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Washington: 1997.

Sanjek, Russell, and Sanjek, David. American Popular Music Business in the 20th Century. Oxford University Press, New York. 1991.

Spotswood, Dick. Liner notes. The Music of Cuba: 1909-1951. C.D. Columbia/Legacy. 2000.

Escott, Colin. Liner notes. The Essential Roy Acuff: 1936-1949. C.D. Columbia/Legacy. 1992.

"Biography of Cleo Patra Brown." The International Association of Jazz Education On-Line Jan. 2002. The International Association of Jazz Education (I.A.J.E.)
http://www.iaje.org/bio.asp?ArtistID=44