Historical Dictionary of the American Music Industry by Keith Hatschek and Veronica A. Wells

Abstract

Reviewed by: Historical Dictionary of the American Music Industry by Keith Hatschek and Veronica A. Wells Robert Willey Historical Dictionary of the American Music Industry. By Keith Hatschek and Veronica A. Wells. (Historical Dictionaries of Professions and Industries.) Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. [xxiii, 360 p. ISBN 9781538111437 (hardcover), $95; ISBN 9781538111444 (e-book), price varies.] Acronyms and abbreviations, chronology, appendixes, bibliography. [End Page 434] This reference book gives a broad overview of how the popular-music industry has evolved in the United States in the last 250 years and includes entries covering the practices, terminology, concepts, careers, and representative pioneers who have created music and brought it to the public. One in a series of historical dictionaries published by Rowman & Littlefield, this volume follows the same format as the Historical Dictionary of Librarianship, presenting subject terms in bold while indicating where to find synonyms or related terms, which makes it easy to scan the pages and locate what is of interest. This cross referencing is of special value. For example, the reader is directed to see “DJ” for information about “Deejays”, and to also read about the “First Sale Doctrine” in the entry on “Copyright.” The conciseness of the entries makes it a valuable supplement to textbooks on the subject, where indexes help locate pages that include terms, but which can then be slow to find the references providing the information that is desired. Readers have become used to searching for information on the internet, but this book saves time by collecting consistently high-quality results that won’t become outdated. While the book is intended to be a dictionary on individual subjects, the fact that the authors have also incorporated many interesting facts that are not covered elsewhere makes it enjoyable to read it in spurts from start to end. Like others in the series, this Dictionary begins with four pages of abbreviations and acronyms, which would be helpful for deciphering the language in contracts, for example. This is followed by a nine-page chronology of developments over a wide range of topics, including technology (radio, records, television, portable systems, networks), advertisers, festivals, and investors. I was happy to find many facts that a reader is unlikely to be aware of even if they are familiar with the field—for example, that the first commercial radio was installed in an automobile in 1930 and that the cast of Hair (which opened on Broadway in 1968) performed at the March on Washington. This timeline often reveals the synchronicity between multiple events in the same year. The next section is a thirty-two-page condensed history that provides an excellent overview of the music industry. A slower reading pace is required, since it packed with information, and many facts are delivered in succession without a lot of transitional passages. The authors begin with the colonial era and proceed through minstrelsy (where the pattern of cultural appropriation in American popular music of African American culture began), vaudeville, and how advances in printing, the expansion of the postal service, and affordable sheet music led to the rise of Tin Pan Alley publishers. Printed scores became less important as radio became popular, and the teen market created by baby boomers and advertising fueled the birth of rock and roll. Music popular with teenagers in the 1960s became mainstream; later festivals and corporations made it more of a commodity, and video made it a more visual medium. The drop in record sales in the last twenty years made live-performance revenue more important. The book was released just before the COVID-19 pandemic, making it a useful snapshot of the industry just before it began to increasingly shift to online experiences. The bulk of the work rests in the more than five hundred entries. The authors achieved a good balance between presenting information on individuals responsible for music and those instrumental for how it is sold. Readers on the outside of the industry will be more familiar with the names of artists and bands than those of record-label executives, managers, talent agents, [End Page 435] producers, inventors, promoters, and DJs who work behind the scenes. The focus is on the popular-music industry...