Jim Copp's playhouse

Abstract

Jim Copp wrote, performed, and produced a series of children's phonograph records during the 1950s and 1960s. These records are stunning achievements in magnetic tape-era sound art, and were released and distributed by Playhouse Records, an independent record label operated by Copp and his business partner Ed Brown. The history of Playhouse Records adds to our knowledge of postwar sound art and independent media production, and reveals the potential for children's media to serve as an outlet for artists working on the fringes of the mainstream entertainment scene. In this essay, I situate Playhouse within the context of the postwar record industry, and listen to Copp's recordings with an ear to the intersection of sound studies, queer theory, and children's media culture.