[Bridge 4] Final draft

Sieun Lee

Integrated Seminar 1

Bridge 4

November 30, 2016

 

History of Music and the Bowery

 

Ever since the burghers of the Dutch West India Company established a trading post at the tip of Manhattan island in 1625, New York City has been under rapid development in each and every aspect of a society. Countless things changed in such a small island including the buildings, music, culture and so on until it eventually became the most populous and exciting city in the world. Being the oldest region of the city, the Bowery and the lower east side of Manhattan are iconic places that went through the rapid growth of New York City, having changed from farmland to metropolis. As Joyce Mendelsohn argues in his book Lower East Side, gentrification is rapidly erasing the visible links with the past in and outside of the Bowery.[1] However, there are a lot of vestiges of the early New Yorkers that we can still find in the Bowery – there still exist the architectures, the stores, and houses from the old days.

There are definitely a lot of interesting things from the past that are we can find from the Bowery – the history of transportation, architecture, art and so on. Running from the folk music to CBGB, the history of music in the Bowery is also very dynamic and conspicuous. In this paper, I will talk about the music history of the Bowery and the development of musical devices in the 1860s, 1970s, and 2010s, which would each represent the folk music, punk rock, and modern pop music.

 

  • 1860s

Folk music of America, not from the 1960s and 1970s when the folk revival took place, was mostly written during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The definition of folk music often varies – for example, a song collector Cecil Sharp insisted that the composer of the folk songs should be anonymous and that the transmission should be oral[2]. On the other hand, Robert Golden, the founder of Archive of American Folk Song at the Library Congress, insisted that the folk song may have been composed by the specific author[3]. Although his songs are definitely published as his own, Stephen Foster, America’s first professional songwriter, is known for composing hundreds of folk songs that remained popular all around America for more than 150 years.

Stephen Foster was born and raised in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, but spent his last four years of life in the Bowery. Life in the Bowery did not seem to be happy for Foster. Foster published more than 100 songs during the years he lived in New York, but most of remained unpublished. As he started living apart from his family, Foster became more dependent on alcohol. According to Foster’s protégé, Foster drank constantly and was never intoxicated. [4] Being under-appreciated by the publishers, Foster barely had enough money to spend on alcohol. Foster’s life in Bowery was short, but according to Stephen Foster Drama Association, Foster’s songs were performed in Bowery in different shows or pubs, and his sheet music was sold for people playing their own piano at home.[5]

Although phonautograph, the earliest recording method, was invented in 1857, the recording technology until the 1860s were not sufficiently developed to record a full music. The audio recording was not a mainstream nor was available until the late 1800s. Unfortunately, passing away in 1864, Stephen Foster did not have a chance to hear his own melodies recorded according to the interview with the Stephen Foster Drama Association. His music was rather shared through the publication of sheet music and distribution through the publishing companies.[6]

 

  • 1970s

For about 100 years after Stephen Foster’s death, music in Bowery shifted between different genres including folk music, jazz, rock ‘n roll, and so on. CBGB, a small club in the Bowery founded in 1973, became the part of the punk rock in the 1970s that had the mind of “back to basics”[7]. Although the club was initially founded for country music and blues acts, it became the birthplace of a new type of music – punk. Artists like Patti Smith and bands like The Police had a debut at CBGB and performed there, making CBGB’s reputation higher and higher.

In the 1970s, the recording technology had been much more developed than in 1860s. Unlike Stephen Foster who could only sell his sheet music in order to spread his songs outside of the Bowery, artists in the 1970s including Patti Smith could record their songs and release a debut album, just as singers nowadays. Since the Compact Disk, CD, was invented in 1982, songs from CBGB in the 1970s were rather released in LP. For example, Horses, the debut album by Patti Smith that was released on 1975, was also released in the format of LP by Arista label. In the New York City, including Bowery, the record industry including record production and sales became stronger than ever, as the rock music got more popular. Albums released from major oligopolistic labels were easily available in the chain record stores.[8]

As the Compact Cassette, cassette tape in another word was invented in the early 1960s, artists were also able to release cassette tapes of their music too. However, according to Christman Ed, it was only after 1983 when the cassette sales surpassed the vinyl album sales.[9] It was also after mid-80s when the popularity of illegal mixtapes began.[10]

 

  • 2010s

As the 21st century began, the number of inventions and development of musical devices became more than twice of the number of the devices that had been invented in last two centuries, according to Mix magazine’s editor Paul Verna.[11] The first I-pod and other portable media players appeared in the early 2000s and were upgraded with different functions every year. Nowadays in the 2010s, musical devices are no longer categorized differently as ‘musical devices’. People all listen to music through electronic files using any device available – we can use our cellphones, laptops, mp3 players or even our cars. As we can upload our own songs online using Soundcloud or Youtube whenever we want to, music produced and prevailing nowadays do not seem to have any specific region of its birth neither. It isn’t that the music in the specific area is now wiped out – it is rather existing all over the world.

Just as the quote from Joyce Mendelsohn’s Lower East Side says, one may also perceive that the gentrification in the musical area is erasing the links with the music of the Bowery that were produced decades ago. However, the development of technology in musical devices and the Internet is actually being helpful to the preservation of the old culture. Unlike in the 1860s when the recording was impossible, Stephen Foster’s songs are now recorded in many different versions and are available in different formats. Thanks to those who are still interested in the preservation of the music from the past and those who enjoy such music, there are institutions like Stephan Foster Story and the Bowery Ballroom where people still performs the old songs. Patti Smith and her band are even having a concert in the Bowery Ballroom on December 27th of this year. Thanks to the development of technology, as long as there exist the people who want to listen to the music, the songs from the Bowery will never disappear from people’s mind, unlike the buildings that can be torn down completely whenever they are sold.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

Christman, Ed. 2006. “UPFront: Retail Track – Will Industry Let CD Fade with a Bang Or Whimper?” Billboard – the International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment, Jan 14, 21.

 

Eric Ferrara and David Bellel, Lower East Side (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 7.

 

Mowery Samantha, Stephen Foster and American Song: A Guide for Singers. Master’s thesis, 2008.

 

Robert Golden, Folk Songs in America (New York: National Service Bureau, 1938).

Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980), 64.

 

Samuels, Anita M. 1998. “Street Tapes Still Popular, Still Illegal.” Billboard – the International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment, Jul 11, 24.

 

Stephen Foster Drama Association, Personal interview. New York, December 1, 2016

 

Straw, Will. “Characterizing Rock Music Cultures: The Case of Heavy Metal.” Canadian University Music Review, no.5 (1984): 104

 

The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge: A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004)

 

Verna, Paul. 2002. “24 Years of Digital: MDM, CD, DASH, AIT, FireWire … Pro meets Consumer.” Mix, 07, 12-12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22

 

Zupp, Adrian. 2003. “CBGB: Punk from the Bowery.” Billboard – the International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment, May 03, 46.

 

[1] Eric Ferrara and David Bellel, Lower East Side (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012), 7.

[2] Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980), 64.

[3] Robert Golden, Folk Songs in America (New York: National Service Bureau, 1938).

[4] Mowery Samantha, Stephen Foster and American Song: A Guide for Singers. Master’s thesis, 2008.

[5] Stephen Foster Drama Association, Personal interview. New York, December 1, 2016

[6] Ibid.

[7] The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge: A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 176.

[8] Straw, Will. “Characterizing Rock Music Cultures: The Case of Heavy Metal.” Canadian University Music Review, no.5 (1984): 104. Doi:10.7202/1013933ar.

[9] Christman, Ed. 2006. “UPFront: Retail Track – Will Industry Let CD Fade with a Bang or Whimper?” Billboard – the International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment, Jan 14, 21.

[10] Samuels, Anita M. 1998. “Street Tapes Still Popular, Still Illegal.” Billboard – the International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment, Jul 11, 24.

[11] Verna, Paul. 2002. “24 Years of Digital: MDM, CD, DASH, AIT, FireWire … Pro meets Consumer.” Mix, 07, 12-12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22

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