From Edison to Marconi : The First Thirty Years of Recorded Music

Like any profound technological breakthrough, the advent of sound recording ushered in a period of explosive and imaginative experimentation, growth and competition. Between the commercial debut of Edison’s "talking machine" in 1889 and the first commercial radio broadcast three decades later, the recording industry was uncharted territory in terms of both technology and content. This history of the earliest years of sound recording-the time between the phonograph’s appearance and the licensing of commercial radio-examines a newly created technology and industry in search of itself. It follows the story from the earliest efforts to capture sound, to the fight among wire, cylinder and disk recordings for primacy in the market, to the growth and development of musical genres, record companies and business practices that remain current today. The work chronicles the people, events and developments that turned a novel, expensive idea into a highly marketable commodity. Two appendices provide extensive lists of popular genre and ethnic recordings made between 1889 and 1919. A bibliography and index accompany the text. From Edison to Marconi Acknowledgments Contents Preface Introduction 1. The Ancients and the Jukebox Phenomenon 2. Inventing the Music Industry 3. Edison’s Invention 4. Cylinders, Discs, and Vision 5. A Consumer Business or a Business Technology? 6. “A&R” 7. Speaking of Money, and the Jukebox 8. Toward Mass Production 9. Recording and Recordings 10. Sound, Quality, and Topicality 11. A Popular Product and a Consumer Market 12. A&R in the Early Years — Styles and Genres 13. Of Places, Performers, and Songs 14. Type, Style, Genre, Tempo 15. Most of the Music 16. Immigration and Recordings 17. Culture Swing — The Ethnic Recordings 18. Images, Music, and the Inevitable Transition 19. The Caruso Effect 20. Enter Marconi Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Notes Bibliography Index "This history examines a newly created technology and industry in search of itself. It follows the story from the earliest efforts to capture sound, to the fight among wire, cylinder and disk recordings for primacy in the market, to the growth and development of musical genres, record companies and business practices"--Provided by publisher