| Author Name: | Sanjek, Russel |
|---|---|
| Date: | {{{date}}} |
| Journal: | [[{{{journal}}}]] |
| Volume: | {{{volume}}} |
| Topic: | Blackface Minstrelsy |
| Pages: | {{{pages}}} |
This three-volume work tells the complete story of American popular songs, their authors, and the business they set in motion.
Volume one (the beginning to 1790) explores the inception of the music publishing business in Elizabethan England and traces music activity in England until 1790, examining popular balladry, copyright problems, the start of music printing, religious music, professional music makers, musical theater, eighteenth-century music, and such leading musical figures as Purcell, Handel, and Haydn. Also discussed are the beginnings of music in the United States, including musical theater, black music, and the Great Awakening and its relationship to music publishing.
Volume two (1790 to 1909) concentrates exclusively on music activity in the United States in the nineteenth century. Among the topics discussed are how changing technology affected the printing of music, the development of sheet music publishing, the growth of the American musical theater, popular religious music, black music (including spirituals and ragtime), music during the Civil War, and finally "music in the era of monopoly," including such subjects as copyright, changing technology and distribution, invention of the phonograph, copyright revision, and the establishment of Tin Pan Alley.