{"product_id":"talking-machine-west-2-a-history-and-catalogue-of-tin-pan-alleys-western-recordings-1902-1918-9780806156040","title":"Talking Machine West, 2: A History and Catalogue of Tin Pan Alley's Western Recordings, 1902-1918","description":"\u003cbr\u003e Many associate early western music with the likes of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, but America's first western music craze predates these \"singing cowboys\" by decades. Written by Tin Pan Alley songsters in the era before radio, the first popular cowboy and Indian songs circulated as piano sheet music and as cylinder and disc recordings played on wind-up talking machines. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The colorful fantasies of western life depicted in these songs capitalized on popular fascination with the West stoked by Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows, Owen Wister's novel\u003ci\u003e The Virginian\u003c\/i\u003e, and Edwin S. Porter's film \u003ci\u003eThe Great Train Robbery\u003c\/i\u003e. The talking machine music industry, centered in New York City, used state-of-the-art recording and printing technology to produce and advertise songs about the American West. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eTalking Machine West \u003c\/i\u003ebrings together for the first time the variety of cowboy, cowgirl, and Indian music recorded and sold for mass consumption between 1902 and 1918. In the book's introductory chapters, Michael A. Amundson explains how this music reflected the nostalgic passing of the Indian and the frontier while incorporating modern ragtime music and the racial attitudes of Jim Crow America. Hardly Old West ditties, the songs gave voice to changing ideas about Indians and assimilation, cowboys, the frontier, the rise of the New Woman, and ethnic and racial equality. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In the book's second part, a chronological catalogue of fifty-four western recordings provides the full lyrics and history of each song and reproduces in full color the cover art of extant period sheet music. Each entry also describes the song's composer(s), lyricist(s), and sheet music illustrator and directs readers to online digitized recordings of each song. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Gorgeously illustrated throughout, this book is as entertaining as it is informative, offering the first comprehensive account of popular western recorded music in its earliest form.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eAmundson, Michael A.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cb\u003eMichael A. Amundson \u003c\/b\u003eis Professor of History at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. His publications include \u003ci\u003eWyoming Revisited: Rephotographing the Scenes of Joseph E. Stimson\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eYellowcake Towns: Uranium Mining Communities in the American West\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"University of Oklahoma Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50872840126738,"sku":"9780806156040","price":38.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_50f27ec1-1414-423b-b6f8-e1f7119e9503.jpg?v=1737912846","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/talking-machine-west-2-a-history-and-catalogue-of-tin-pan-alleys-western-recordings-1902-1918-9780806156040","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}