The American Popular Music Business in the 20th Century Book

When the late Russell Sanjek's monumental three volume history, American Popular Music and Its Business, first appeared, it was acclaimed as an unprecedented contribution to the study of American popular culture. Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records called it a "colossal work of research and writing," and Nat Hentoff lauded this history as "an astonishing work of discovery" and "a lucid, continuously absorbing narrative. There is nothing else like it in the literature. Now, David Sanjek, the author's son, and a scholar of American culture in his own right, has condensed and updated the last volume of this classic, providing a richly detailed history of the music business in the 20th century. Sanjek traces the incredible technological and economic revolution which has accompanied popular music in the last ninety years, starting with Thomas Edison's important turn of the century inventions and following through all the way to the rise of the compact disc and Digital Audio Tape. The business side of popular music figures largely in this illuminating study--from the rise and fall of vaudeville to the huge entertainment conglomerates like Time-Warner Brothers and Thorn-EMI; from the sale of sheet music (at one time the major source for the dissemination of songs) to the marketing of music videos on MTV; and from early wheeler-dealers like E.F. Albee and Marcus Loew to modern day mega-stars like Michael Jackson (who bought the rights to many Lennon/McCartney songs for $40 million in 1984). There are numerous insights into the long-term relationship between movies and music, from the earliest silent films, when live music was used to cover up the sound of the projector, to the blockbusters of the '70s and '80s like Saturday Night Fever, the soundtrack for which sold 15 million copies in the U.S. alone. Incorporating anecdotes and filled with information not previously found in any single volume, The American Popular Music Business in the Twentieth Century is an important resource for anyone interested in how music is produced and marketed. As a longtime industry insider, Russell Sanjek had a unique and unprecedented knowledge of the music business--now his knowledge is available to the non-specialist, as well as the scholar of popular culture.Read More