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Author Kraft, James P.

Title Stage to Studio : Musicians and the Sound Revolution, 1890-1950 / James P. Kraft
Published Baltimore, MD : Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996

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Description 1 online resource (x, 255 pages) : illustrations
Series Studies in industry and society ; 9
Studies in industry and society ; 9
Contents 1. Working Scales in Industrial America -- 2. Boom and Bust in Early Movie Theaters -- 3. Encountering Records and Radio -- 4. Playing in Hollywood between the Wars -- 5. Rising Militancy -- 6. Recording Ban -- 7. Balancing Success and Failure -- Appendix: AFM Membership, 1896-1956
Summary Thomas Edison's inventions, so successful commercially, altered the lives of all Americans in the twentieth century. Among those persons most directly affected were artists in the entertainment industry. In this groundbreaking study of musicians and the businesses of recording, broadcasting, and film, James P. Kraft shows how musicians adapted - or tried to adapt - to momentous change and the emerging nexus of corporate power, labor-union muscle, and government regulation that came to define the field
Kraft begins in the late nineteenth century, before high-fidelity records, network radio, and sound motion pictures ended a "golden age," in which demand for skilled instrumentalists often exceeded supply. He examines conflicts that occurred across America - in New York recording studios, on Hollywood sound stages, and in nightclubs and movie theaters - as new invention and entrepreneurship intersected with the interests of artists. He describes how instrumentalists suddenly discovered - just as nineteenth-century artisans had before them - that they were competing not only against their local counterparts but also against nationally oriented "entertainment factories" whose highly skilled workers compromised the appeal of local performers
Combining ideas and techniques from business, labor, and social history, Kraft offers an illuminating case study in the impact of technology on industry and society. He stresses that capital and capitalism were as important in the entertainment industry as they were in steel manufacturing or coal mining. At the same time, he explains that the technological changes faced by musicians were not some anonymous force but were socially constructed. Finally, since the history of musicians represents part of cultural history, Kraft suggests that changes in the lives of musicians reflected and related to cultural changes as well as to organizational and technological ones
Analysis Music Sound recording History
United States
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
Print version record
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Labor movement -- United States
Industrial relations -- United States
Musicians -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States
Musicians -- Effect of technological innovations on -- United States
Musicians -- Employment -- United States
Industrial relations
Labor movement
Musicians -- Employment
Musicians -- Legal status, laws, etc.
Schallaufzeichnung
Musiker
Muzieksociologie.
Muziekindustrie.
Maatschappij.
Musicians -- Employment -- United States.
Musicians -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- United States.
Industrial relations -- United States.
Labor movement -- United States.
United States
USA
Form Electronic book
LC no. 95043923
ISBN 9781421427591
1421427591
1421429160
9781421429168