How About Tin-Pan Alley?...
I’ll admit, it’s not for everyone. In fact, it’s more so for a very small, select few, but I happen to love this era of music. Most people have heard those phonographic, tinny songs from the 1920s and 1930s, but Tin-Pan Alley came in the decades before them, coming after ragtime and largely preceding late jazz. It lasted from around the late 1890s to the early 1920s, and I would argue that Billy Murray and Bix Beiderbecke were its most prominent artists. It mainly professed short, comical or love songs. Here are just a few songs from this era, and some of my personal favorites (in no particular order):
“Come Josephine in My Flying Machine” (Billy Murray and Ada Jones; 1911):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFZDB6DqAnA
“When Francis Dances With Me” (Billy Murray and Ada Jones; 1922):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hfzFReHGKdA
“You Took Advantage of Me” (Bix Beiderbecke; 1928):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOo5BsN5VTc
“In the Old Town Hall” (Billy Murray; 1921):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8_sprX1gnY
“When I Leave the Worl Behind” (Henry Burr; 1915):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh2hsjWjN4
“Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built fot Two)” (Edward M Favor; 1894):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXrN16dttWg
“Carolina in the Morning” (American Quartet with Billy Murray; 1923?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8SmUquGOyk
“I’ll See You in C-U-B-A” (Billy Murray; 1920, in response to Prohibition):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjHkw5fxagc
“Turn Back the Universe and Give me Yesterday” (Orpheus Quartet; 1916):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i8pPvIsErw
So, once again, these are a very acquired taste, I suppose, but I like songs like this. The great news is that if you like this music, there are thousands and thousands of other songs from the Tin-Pan Alley Era (I had to narrow them down quite a bit to result in the list above, but there are quite a lot of other great ones out there). For a little more information, if anybody is interested, you can try this post of mine linked here: https://theprose.com/post/374078/a-short-biography-of-billy-murray-1877-1954
#Tin-PanAlley