1. Watkins, T. H., The Great Depression: America in the 1930's (Boston: Little, Brown, 1993)Google Scholar, which accompanied a recent public television series on the subject, exemplifies the nation's enduring fascination with the decade.

2. Note for example Watkins's conclusion that there was a revolution but it was “peaceful” and “democratic” (Watkins, , Depression, 106–7Google Scholar; see also Levine, Lawrence W., “American Culture and the Great Depression,” Yale Review 74 [01 1985]: 200 ff.)Google Scholar. Others interested in the psychological explanation were McElvaine, Robert, The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941 (New York: Times, 1984), 173Google Scholar; Leuchtenberg, William, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932–1940 (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 118–19Google Scholar; Bird, Caroline, The Invisible Scar (New York: D. McKay, 1966), 22 ffGoogle Scholar. and passim; and Bernstein, Irving, A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), 22Google Scholar. For the conservatism of even American workers in those years, see Dubofsky, Melvin, “Not So Turbulent Years: A New Look at the 1930's,” in Life and Labor: Dimensions of American Working Class History, ed. Stevenson, Charles and Asher, Robert (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY-Albany Press, 1986), 223Google Scholar; and Cohen, Lizabeth, The Making of a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 364Google Scholar, who cites the continuing faith of workers in their national government. Brinkley, Alan, “Prosperity, Depression, and War, 1920–1945,” in The New American History, ed. Foner, Eric (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), esp. 125–26Google Scholar, includes this conservative interpretation in a good, recent historiographical review.

3. Erenberg, Besides Lewis's “From New York to Middletown: Repeal and the Legitimization of Nightlife in the Great Depression,” American Quarterly 38 (Winter 1986): 761–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Warren Susman has dealt with the decade as one with its own values in “The Thirties,” in The Development of an American Culture, ed. Coben, Stanley and Ratner, Lorman2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 215–60.Google Scholar

4. Sussman, , “Thirties,” 220Google Scholar ff.; the summary in Peretti, Burton W., The Creation of Jazz: Music, Race, and Culture in Urban America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 2Google Scholar; and Ulanov, Barry, A History of Jazz in America (New York: Viking, 1972), 156Google Scholar, for a representative impression of the masses.

5. Cf. the description of the relations between one entertainer and her audience in Erenberg, Lewis, Steppin' Out: New York City's Restaurants and Cabarets and the Decline of Victorianism, 1890–1925 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 176Google Scholar ff. He refers to Sophie Tucker's performances in the early 1920s' cabarets and the warm, intimate way she interacted with her audiences. The popular entertainers of the next decade retained that kind of contact.

6. Turner, Victor, The Anthropology of Performance (New York: PAJ, 1986), 98.Google Scholar

7. Sklar, Robert, Movie-Made America (New York: Random House, 1975), 161, 175, 204–5Google Scholar; Bergman, Andrew, We're in the Money (New York: New York University Press, 1971), xi–xxii, 13–16, 168Google Scholar; and McElvaine, , Great Depression, ch. 9Google Scholar, are all in consensus.

8. From Higgins, Kathleen Marie, The Music of Our Lives (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 142–43 ff., 190.Google Scholar

9. Frith, Simon, “Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music,” in Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception ed. Leppert, Richard and McClary, Susan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 139.Google Scholar

10. Pells, Richard H., Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 265–67, 320–22Google Scholar, refers to the mass media's erasing social distinctions and helping people adjust to the economic crisis.

11. I refer to the higher figure because undoubtedly some without sets listened with those who owned them. By 1939, it was 86% of the homes. My statistics are from Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933), 942Google Scholar; Cantril, Hadley and Allport, Gordon, The Psychology of Radio (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935), 3, 85Google Scholar; and Marquis, Alice G., Hopes and Ashes: The Birth of Modern Times, 1929–1939 (New York: Free Press, 1986), 21, 27, 41, 44.Google Scholar

12. Cantrill, and Allport, , Psychology of Radio, 28Google Scholar, and its programming surveys on 73–76, 82–83, 89, esp. 92–93, 217.

13. Charles Hamm provided two examples, Gershwin, George's “Embraceable You” (1931)Google Scholar and Kern, Jerome's “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (1933)Google Scholar, in his Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (New York: Norton, 1979), 361, 369–79, 382Google Scholar. See also his liner notes in “American Song in the Great Depression: Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” New World Records, NW 270 (1977)Google Scholar; and Mooney, H. F., “Popular Music Since the 1920's: The Significance of Shifting Taste,” American Quarterly 20 (Spring 1968): esp. 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note the criticism of the corpus of popular white sentimental songs as conservative and unrealistic in Hayakawa, S. I., “Popular Songs vs. the Facts of Life,” in Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, ed. Rosenberg, Bernard and White, Daniel Manning (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957), 393–402Google Scholar. A good, recent account of the decline of jazz in the early 1930s is in Peretti, , Creation of Jazz, chs. 8 and 9.Google Scholar

14. An excellent summary of social dance history is Cropper, Dorothy N.'s “It's Up to the Composers! The World Is Waiting for a New Dance,” Metronome 49 (08 1933): 20–22, 24Google Scholar. I am indebted to James Maher of New York City for this reference.

15. A comprehensive history of American social dancing still needs to be written (see Peiss, Kathy, “Dance Madness: New York City Dance Halls and Working Class Sexuality, 1900–1920,”Google Scholar in Stevenson, and Asher, , Life and Labor, 177–81Google Scholar; Nye, Russell B., “Saturday Night at the Paradise Ballroom, or Dance Halls in the Twenties,” Journal of Popular Culture 7 [Summer 1973]: 14–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and especially Dannett, Sylvia G. L. and Rachel, Frank R., Down Memory Lane: Arthur Murray's Picture Story of Social Dancing [New York: Greenberg, 1954], 79–86).Google Scholar

16. From Lowenthal, Leo, Literature, Popular Culture, and Society (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961), 110–16.Google Scholar

17. Hearn, Charles R., The American Dream in the Great Depression (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1977), 193–94.Google Scholar

18. Peretti, , Creation of Jazz, ch. 5Google Scholar, offers a lucid differentiation for the oftenconfusing problem of defining “jazz.” An amusing defense of the music in the face of conservative opposition is Osgood, Henry O., So This Is Jazz (Boston: Little, Brown, 1926), 246 ff.Google Scholar

19. Nye, , “Saturday Night,” 19–20Google Scholar and passim, refers to the acceptance of ballroom dancing among the lower classes as well.

20. Citations for white leaders abandoning hot jazz are listed here but note in particular the brief, sweet jazz career of one of the nation's greatest black composers, Duke Ellington. He played and recorded “forgettable commercial material” on his European tour of 1933 and his Victor recordings of 1933 and 1934 (from Firestone, Ross, Swing, Swing, Swing: The Life and Times of Benny Goodman [New York: Norton, 1993], 128Google Scholar; and Collier, James Lincoln, Duke Ellington [New York: Oxford University Press, 1987], 135, 136, 156, 168Google Scholar; see also Ulanov, Barry, Duke Ellington [New York: Creative Age, 1945], 126–27, 129).Google Scholar

21. Braun, D. Duane, Toward a Theory of Popular Culture: The Sociology and History of American Music and Dance (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ann Arbor Press, 1969), 20 ffGoogle Scholar. The forgettable era of “mickey mouse” bands according to jazz historians, e.g., Simon, George, The Big Bands, 4th ed. (New York: Schirmer, 1981), 26.Google Scholar

22. Quoted in International Who's Who in Music (Chicago: Who's Who in Music, 1940), 513Google Scholar. It is wise to remember that many “hot” bands played “sweet” and the more commercialized, money-making pieces in the 1920s and 1930s (note the standard work on Goodman: Collier, James Lincoln, Benny Goodman and the Swing Era [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985], esp. 20–28, 188–89Google Scholar; and Peretti, , Creation of Jazz, 94–95).Google Scholar

23. Quoted in Firestone, , Swing, 74.Google Scholar

24. Tirro, Frank, Jazz: A History (New York: Norton, 1977), 210.Google Scholar

25. Hitchcock, H. Wiley, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974), 215.Google Scholar

26. Ulanov, , History of Jazz, 156–57.Google Scholar

27. McMahon, Audrey, “Why Don't You Like to Dance? You Don't Have To, But If You Don't, Psychologists Agree There Is Something Wrong,” Dance Magazine 13 (02 1930): 9, 60.Google Scholar

28. Seashore, Carl E., Psychology of Music (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1938), 142–43.Google Scholar

29. Valery, Paul, “Philosophy of the Dance,” in What Is Dance: Readings in Theory and Criticism, ed. Copeland, Roger and Cohen, Marshall (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983): 60–62Google Scholar. Note also the testimony of Louis Brecker, the owner of the famous Roseland Ballroom in the 1920s and 1930s, regarding the ameliorating conditioning of social dancing in times of tension in a February 2, 1961, Milwaukee Journal article by Martin Abramson in the Milwaukee Public Library clipping file.

30. The encyclopedic work of Gault, Lon A., Ballroom Echoes (Wheaton, Ill.: Andrew Corbet, 1989)Google Scholar, offers the best picture of the national coverage of dance palaces. For Chicago, see also Kenney, William, “White Jazz Age Music and Dance Halls”Google Scholar (in a manuscript kindly supplied by the author), 134 ff, who refers to social dancing then as a “craze,” as do Green, Abel and Laurie, Joe Jr., Show Biz: From Vaudeville to Video (New York: Holt, 1951), 230Google Scholar. Robert, S. and Lynd, Helen Merrell, Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1937), 269Google Scholar; and Nye, , “Saturday Night,” 20Google Scholar, refer to the many, small, rural dance halls.

31. Ogren, Kathy, The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning of Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 109Google Scholar; and especially Fass, Paula, The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 300–2Google Scholar, who calls dancing the most popular social pastime for young people, especially in college fraternities, and increasing in the late 1920s. By 1930, nearly two-thirds of the high-school-age students attended those institutions with much dancing (ibid., 124).

32. Note that I am not dealing with any Afro-American musicians partly because none were as widely popular in the time under study as were the eight listed here.

33. Some were Jan Garber, Hal Kemp, Kay Kyser, Sammy Kaye, Blue Barron, and Eddie Duchin (Wilson, John S., “‘Mr. New Year's Eve’ for Nearly Half a Century,” New York Times, 11 7, 1977, 38Google Scholar; and Lombardo, Guy with Altshul, Jack, Auld Acquaintance: An Autobiography (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), 163–64.Google Scholar

34. Note, for example, the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association influence in promoting fast dancing, in Kenney, William Rowland, Chicago Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 71Google Scholar. See also Braun, , Theory of Popular Culture, 24–26Google Scholar; and Hagert, Thornton, “Instrumental Dance Music 1780's–1920's”Google Scholar liner notes to Come and Trip with Me: Instrumental Dance Music 1780's–1920's, New World Records (1978), 4Google Scholar, who describes the growing popularity of the slow fox-trot by 1930.

35. Dexter, Dave, Jazz Cavalcade: The Inside Story of Jazz (New York: Criterion, 1946), 88Google Scholar; and a quotation from George Simon's review in Metronome (02 1942)Google Scholar, in Simon, , Big Bands, 321.Google Scholar

36. Both quotations are from Kelland, Thomas, “What Makes Music: Dance Band Industry Comes of Age and Sweet Leaders Reminisce of Days When They Were Just Starting,” New York World Telegram, 06 2, 1941Google Scholar, in 1940s' Scrapbook, Sammy Kaye Collection, Ohio University. See also Rust, Brian, The Dance Bands (London: Ian Allan, 1972), 39.Google Scholar

37. Kelland, , “What Makes Music.”Google Scholar

38. For his extraordinary appeal to campuses, Louis Armstrong, and Harlem, see Lombardo, , Auld Acquaintance, 79–80, 107–8Google Scholar; Herndon, Booton, The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 142Google Scholar; and Simon, George, Guy Lombardo: A Legendary Performer (New York, 1977), 1Google Scholar, in Lombardo Collection, Lombardo Music Centre, London, Ontario, hereafter cited as LMC. Polls in 1929 and 1933 of University of Michigan students found dancing the most desirable recreational activity, with movies second (Angell, Robert C., “The Trend Toward Greater Maturity,” Schools and Society 38 [09 23, 1933], 394Google Scholar). For their Cleveland and Chicago lessons, see Lombardo, , Auld Acquaintance, 63Google Scholar; and Lees, Gene, “Guy Lombardo – The Melody Lingers On,” High Fidelity 24 (04 1974): 30.Google Scholar

39. While he specified no date, a jazz authority stated a little-known fact that showed Lombardo's unusual appeal to Blacks. His band set the all-time record for attendance at the Savoy Theater in Harlem according to the letter from James T. Maher to the author (May 16, 1994). See also Maher, liner notes to “He's My Guy: Guy Lombardo and His Orchestra,” RCA Camden Record CAL-578 (1960).

40. Note especially Simon, , Lombardo, 1Google Scholar, in LMC, as well as Rust, Bands, 39Google Scholar; Whitman, Alden, “Guy Lombardo of the Royal Canadians Dies in Houston at Age of 75,” New York Times, 11 11, 1971, 38Google Scholar; Eichberg, Robert, Radio Stars of Today or Behind the Scenes in Broadcasting (Boston: L. C. Page, 1937), 92Google Scholar; and Kenney, William Howland, Chicago Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 80.Google Scholar

41. The “key man in … Lombardo's dance band for four decades,” from Kinkle, Roger D., The Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Music and Jazz, 1900–1950, 4 vols., (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1974), 4: 1339–40.Google Scholar

42. Simon, , Lombardo, 1Google Scholar; and quoted in Herndon, , Sweetest Music, 87.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., 94–96, 142; and Lombardo, , Auld Aquaintance, 99ff. and 91Google Scholar, especially where he states that the Hotel Roosevelt offer was below others. In the spring of 1932, Radio Guide featured a story on the Royal Canadians that called them busy on radio four times a week on CBS (Radio Guide, week of April 10–17, 1932, 1: 14).

44. For why the band was familiar with many Scottish songs, see Lombardo, , Auld Acquaintance, 106Google Scholar; and especially Cline, Beverly Fink, The Lombardo Story (Don Mills, Ont.: Musson, 1979), 49Google Scholar. Their preeminent position is evident in “Bandstand and Baton,” Radio Guide, week ending August 25, 1934, 3: 17.

45. Milwaukee Journal, 02 10, 1935Google Scholar; “Lombardo Tops Bernie!” Radio Guide, week of 02 5–11, 1933, 2: 3Google Scholar; and the obituary by Wilson, John S. in New York Times, 11 7, 1977, 38.Google Scholar

46. “Guy Lombardo, Top Bandleader for Over 50 Years, Dies at 75,” in Variety Obituaries, 1905–1986, 11 vols. (New York: Variety, 1975–1979), 8: n.p.Google Scholar

47. See Banks, Nancy, “The World's Most Beautiful Ballrooms,” Chicago History 2 (Fall-Winter 1973): 206–15Google Scholar; Gault, , Ballroom Echoes, 15–23Google Scholar; Green, and Laurie, , Show Biz, 230Google Scholar; and especially Kenney, , Chicago Jazz, esp. 77–79 and passim.Google Scholar

48. From a telephone interview with Mrs. Dorothy King of Pleasant Valley, Arizona, January 11, 1993; Sandburg, Richard, “What Ever Happened to Wayne King, the Waltz King,” Friendly Exchange (Fall 1982): 42Google Scholar, in the Wayne King Collection at Arizona State University, Tempe, hereafter cited as WKASU. Simon, George, The Best of the Music Makers (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 320Google Scholar; and “Wayne King Dies at 84: Renowned as ‘Waltz King’,” Arizona Republic, probably 03 18, 1985Google Scholar, WKASU which says he started at the Aragon in 1927 (Annette Voth, “Excerpts from a Talk on Wayne King,” ibid., 1, says 1926).

49. Note his Chicago reception from a successful national tour in 1932, in “Orchestral Doings,” Radio Guide, week of April 17–23, 1932, 5. He had come in behind Ben Bernie and Lombardo in 1933 (ibid., March 5–11, 1933, 12). See also Alcock, John J., “The Waltz King Himself,”Google Scholaribid., May 7–13, 1933, 3; “Gold Medals to Penner and Vallee,” ibid., July 14, 1934, 27; Lewis, Martin, “Along the Airialto,”Google Scholaribid., week ending July 21, 1934, 4; “Wayne King's Medal Presentation,” ibid., week ending August 25, 15; and the controversy over King's radio announcer in “Bandsman Rejects NBC Announcer,” Variety, 05 8, 1931, 57.Google Scholar

50. From a newspaper clipping, probably the column by BCL in the Milwaukee Journal of 02, 1932Google Scholar, in the Corenthal Collection of Wisconsin Music in the University of Wisconsin Mills Music Library. See also King's 1947 article, “Music as a Way of Living,” in Bourland, Richard D., “Savannah's Music King,” 3Google Scholar, in WKASU. His popularity then and even in the later 1930s was among both young and old (see “Favorite Band Seems to Favor Badger State,” ibid.; and his record-setting 1939 appearance at a University of Illinois prom in Metronome 56 [01 1940]: 28)Google Scholar. The Aragon was a Depression attraction to working-class youth (see the Italians in Chicago Project transcript from Tape 2, Side A, esp. 43, University of Illinois, Chicago Archives). King remained based in the Midwest although he toured the East with a 1931 offer from the Waldorf-Astoria (Dolores King interview and Variety, 06 16, 1931, 60).Google Scholar

51. The figures are for Lombardo in Variety, 03 8, 1932, 30Google Scholar; and for King in 1931, Simon, , Best of the Music Makers, 320.Google Scholar

52. A general review and discussion of these bands in Simon, , Big Bands, 4, 26, 491Google Scholar, and passim, shows this, along with Voth, Annette, “Excerpts from a Talk on Wayne King,” 1Google Scholar; and Variety, 10 30, 1929, 81–82Google Scholar, and December 12, 1931, 52 (Note especially Jones's obituary in New York Times, 10 20, 1956, 21Google Scholar). Nelson openly expressed his desire for the audience's friendship (Nelson, Ozzie, Ozzie [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973], 139Google Scholar). For Ellington's flirtation with commercial music, see Collier, , Duke Ellington, 135, 156Google Scholar. See the general discussion also in Jackson, Arthur, The World of the Big Bands: The Sweet and Swinging Years (New York: Arco, 1977), 17ff., esp. ch. 2.Google Scholar

53. The figure is from “Choose Jazz King!” Radio Guide, week of January 8–14, 1933, 3. Variety, 03 8, 1932, 30Google Scholar, lists six thousand dollars a week from radio. He won with just under twenty thousand votes, ahead of Lombardo and King (ibid., March 5–11, 12). Note especially the assessments in Frank, Pat, “Why I Make a Million,” Radio and Amusement GuideGoogle Scholar, week of October 9–15, 1932, 1, 5, 20; and “Ben Bernie” in Block, Maxine, ed., Current Biography, 1941 (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1941), 73–74.Google Scholar

54. Note especially Kinkle, , Complete Encyclopedia, 2: 577–578Google Scholar; any of his programs for Pabst Brewing Company, for example, “Ben Bernie Show,” 01 1, 1935Google Scholar, in the author's possession; and “Ben Bernie Dies, Bandleader, 52,” New York Times, 10 21, 1943, 27.Google Scholar

55. Pack, Vernon L., “Ted Lewis, Extraordinary Entertainer,” Ohio Cues 39 (03 1990): 3Google Scholar; and Simon, , Best of the Music Makers, 357.Google Scholar

56. Quoted in Brown, David and Lehman, Ernest, “Is Everybody Happy?” Colliers 103 (05 27, 1939): 19Google Scholar. Note also Geoff Collins, “Is Everybody Happy? The Ted Lewis Story,” Memory Lane (1976): 24Google Scholar, in Ted Lewis Museum Collection, Circleville, Ohio. Note Smith, Dennis R., “Ted Lewis and His Clarinet Revue Give Loew's Good Bill,” Canton (Ohio) Repository, 01 24, 1934, 11Google Scholar, who said Lewis had the stage altered so he could be closer to the audience; and “Ted Lewis Tells His Age,” Indianapolis Star, 01 30, 1934Google Scholar, in Lewis Collection, Scrapbooks 1933–35 in Yale University Music Library.

57. Cantor, Eddie, “How I Beg For Money,” Saturday Evening Post 224 (10 1951): 91Google Scholar. Note also liner notes to “A Date with Eddie Cantor,” Audio Fidelity Record AFLP 702 (n.d.)

58. Caught Short, according to Cantor, sold 100,000 copies the first day and 500,000 in all (Eddie Cantor, with Kesner, Jane, Take My Life [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957], 31–32Google Scholar; and Cantor, , The Way I See It [Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959], 11, 96Google Scholar). Note, too, as an example of his humor, his popular record cut October 29, 1929, “Eddie Cantor's Tips on the Stock Market,” Victor 22189 (from Rust, Brian and Debus, Allen G., The Complete Entertainment Discography [New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1989], 139Google Scholar). His ebullient, warm, performance style is reviewed in “Eddie Cantor,” in Allen, Steve, The Funny Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), 119–125.Google Scholar

59. Cantor, , Take My Life, 31–32Google Scholar. See also “Eddie Cantor Requested No Public Funeral; Star Long Ailing, Was 72,” Variety Obituaries, 1964–1968 (New York: Variety, 1988), 6: n.p.Google Scholar

60. He claimed that in the years 1932–34 his show had climbed to having the largest radio audience (Cantor, , Take My Life, 214).Google Scholar

61. For a lengthy discussion on the therapeutic role of popular songs in the Depression, see Tyler, Don, Hit Parade: An Encyclopedia of Top Songs of the Jazz, Depression, Swing, and Sing Eras (New York: Quill, 1985), 51–61, 71Google Scholar; Hamm, Charles, “American Song During the Great Depression,” liner notes, New World Records, NW 270 “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” (1977)Google Scholar; and especially Studs Terkel, liner notes to “Songs of the Depression,” Book-of-the-Month Club Records, Record 21–5406 (1980), which oddly contradict Hamm's contention elsewhere that songs of the era rarely touched on the issues of those years (Hamm, , Yesterdays, 377).Google Scholar

62. From Kiner, Larry F., The Rudy Vallee Discography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985), ix–xiiGoogle Scholar. It is important to note that Vallee added males to his largely adoring female audience after 1929 with stirring march tunes like the “Stein Song” and his extremely popular radio program (Sanjek, Russell, American Popular Music and Its Business: The First Four Hundred Years, From 1900–1984, 3 vols. [New York: Oxford University Press, 1988], 3: 111, 150Google Scholar). His claim to male fans in “Rudy Vallee: I'll Be Front Page News Until I Die,” Show Business Illustrated (01 29, 1962): 2: 34Google Scholar; and Vallee, , Vagabond Dreams Come True (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930), 119Google Scholar, is corroborated in the journal 12 and 8 (June and July 1930); and “Heigh Ho, Everybody,” ibid., May 1931, 1–4; along with newspaper clippings and his “Radio Roads” reports from his 1930 tour in Rudy Vallee Scrapbooks, Larry Kiner Collection, Redmond, Washington. I am deeply grateful to Mr. Kiner.

63. Rudy Vallee with McKean, Gil, My Time Is Your Time: The Story of Rudy Vallee (New York: I. Obolensky, 1962), 88–89.Google Scholar

64. Vallee, , Vagabond Dreams, 90–92, 258, 262Google Scholar. Note especially his comments on his band's anti-Depression impact during his 1930 summer tour of New England in “Mr. Vallee Looks at the Nation: Tour Over …,” newspaper clipping dated September 13 from New York City, in Larry Kiner Collection, Redmond, Washington. “Is Rudy Vallee Slipping?” Radio Guide, week ending October 31, 1931, 1, refers to his charitable generosity.

65. Letter from Larry Kiner, Redmond, Washington, January 13, 1993; Washer, Ben, “Rudy Vallee's Variety Show,” Radio GuideGoogle Scholar, week of April 16–22, 1932?, 13, copy in possession of Ray Tump, Milwaukee; Donson, Hildegarde, “Kate Smith … Part 2,”Google Scholaribid., 36; and “Kate – The Radio Singer,” ibid., week ending October 31, 1931, 4.

66. Quoted in Eichberg, , Radio Stars, 134Google Scholar. Note especially the candid judgment by her agent Ted Collins (“Kate Smith's Inside Story….” Radio and Amusement Guide, week of 10 16–22, 1932, 5Google Scholar), which refers to criticism that her empathy was to build her audience and thus insincere; and letter from R. W. Kennedy, New York, December 22, 1931, in Kate Smith Collection, Boston University Special Collections. Smith was made chair of the NRA entertainers' committee in 1934 (Ted Collins' testimony in “I Know Kate Smith,” Tower Radio [10 1934]: 69–70Google Scholar). More evidence of her considerable social conscience is in Mitchell, Joseph, “Home Girl,” New Yorker 10 (03 3, 1934): 25–26.Google Scholar

67. I am combining several quotations: Smith, Kate, Living in a Great Big Way (New York: Blue Ribbon, 1938), 37, 219Google Scholar; and Smith, Kate, “Radio Singing as a Profession,” in The Book of Knowledge (New York, 1948), 250.Google Scholar

68. Prihal, Frank J., “Kate Smith, All-American Singer, Dies at 79,” New York Times, 06 18, 1986, 1Google Scholar. Such vocal power over radio caused a social psychological study of how she was able to raise an incredible $39,000,000 war-bond pledge from listeners to one broadcast in 1943. Merton, Robert K. et al. , Mass Persuasion: The Social Psychology of a War Bond Drive (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946), 97Google Scholar, refers to her prior stock of public confidence.

69. From Thomas, Bob, The One and Only Bing (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1977), 3–4.Google Scholar

70. From Gammon, Peter and Clayton, Peter, Dictionary of Popular Music (New York: Philosophical Library, 1961), 56.Google Scholar

71. Friedwald, Will, Jazz Singing: America's Great Voices From Bessie Smith to Bebop and Beyond (New York: Scribner's, 1990), 11, 14–15.Google Scholar

72. The best analysis of his vocal achievement is by DrMize, John Tbwnsend Hinton, Bing Crosby and the Bing Crosby Style: Crosbyana Through Biography–Photography–Discography (Chicago: Who's Who in Music, 1946, 1948), 77Google Scholar ff., esp. 87; see also Frith, Simon, Music for Pleasure: Essays in the Sociology of Pop (New York: Routledge, 1988), 19Google Scholar. His earliest broadcasts in the fall of 1931 made him an immediate sensation among both men and women, according to Thomas, , One and Only Bing, 11Google Scholar; and “Bing Crosby, 73, Dies in Madrid at Golf Course,” New York Times, 10 15, 1977, 11Google Scholar. Note his own explanation of his bigender appeal in his autobiography, Bing Crosby as told to Martin, Pete, Call Me Lucky (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953), 146.Google Scholar

73. Rockwell, John, “Crosby Set the Style for an Older Age and Led the Way for Rock,” New York Times, 10 15, 1977, 11Google Scholar; and Thomas, , One and Only Bing, 135–38, 147–48Google Scholar. Frith (Music For Pleasure, 19Google Scholar) reviews the pitfalls of using content analysis to determine popular culture but appears to accept Crosby's close connection with his audience.

74. “Radio's Biggest Music Plug, Theme Songs …,” Variety, 11 17, 1931, 61.Google Scholar

75. Seashore, , Psychology, 142Google Scholar. Note, too, Revesz, G., Introduction to the Psychology of Music, trans. GIC De Courcy (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 140.Google Scholar

76. Barzun, Jacques, Music in American Life (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1956), 24.Google Scholar

77. Pratt, Ray, Rhythm and Resistance: Explorations in the Political Uses of Popular Music (New York: Praeger, 1990), 6–7Google Scholar; and Frith, , “Towards an Aesthetic,” 144.Google Scholar

78. Levine, Lawrence, “The Folklore of Industrial Society,” A merican Historical Review 92 (12 1992): 1375.Google Scholar

79. Mulvey, Del, ed., We Had Everything But Money (Greendale, Wis.: Century, 1992), 125, 131, 137, 147, 150.Google Scholar

80. Malone, Bill C., Country Music U.S.A., rev. ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), 130Google Scholar. Note the quoted confession of one radio listener to country music over WLS Chicago, in Levine, , “Folklore,” 1377.Google Scholar

81. Terkel, Studs, “Songs of the Depression,”Google Scholar liner notes to Book-of-the-Month Club Records, Record 21–5406 (1980).

82. “Steve,” in Crafts, Susan D., Cavicchi, Daniel, and Keil, Charles, My Music (Hanover, N.H.: University of New England Press, 1993), 182–83.Google Scholar