|
What's all the noise about the 1890s?
People are getting excited about scratchy records from two centuries ago! Music
collectors, historians, and teachers have taken a strong liking to our 1890s,
Vol. 1, so we're back with our second volume of tracks from the American
1890s. In two CDs, with 60 selections and two extensive booklets, Archeophone
chronicles the popular music and some of the most notable events of the decade
known as "The Gay '90s."
Here are another 30 songs, marches, whistling solos, banjo and xylophone solos,
and comic routines, all from the decade when popular music was first born as
a commercial product. With over 70 minutes of sound and a 24-page booklet,
this is a real value for the scholar and casual listener alike.
Familiar Songs
The names of the performers are remote to many listeners, but the songs are
part of the fabric of America's national identity: "Hello, Ma Baby" (a song
about telephones and ragtime), "A Hot
Time in the Old Town" (which became the unofficial anthem of the Spanish-American
War), and "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (Sousa's best-known march). There's
also the perennial "Silver Threads
Among the Gold," the Civil War-era ""Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," and "The
Liberty Bell," the Sousa march known to many modern listeners as the
theme song to Monty Python's Flying Circus. Surprise yourself by just how
many of these songs you—or your parents—or your grandparents—know.
The Fallen Woman
With songs like "She's More to Be Pitied than Censured," "She Was Happy Till
She Met You," "She May Have Seen Better Days," and "Just Tell Them That You
Saw Me," the public learned about women caught up in a changing society. Either
they left the safety of their families, moved to the dangerous city, and fell
in with bad company, or they married badly and took the unthinkable step of
leaving their husbands. These mournful stories try to elicit a sympathetic
tear from their listeners. Perhaps most pathetic of all is "A Picture No Artist
Can Paint," in which an elderly couple experiences a double loss: first, of
the daughter who leaves in a fit of anger, and second, of the son who goes
to find her!
A Time of Inventiveness
From the light bulb to the telephone to, of course, the phonograph, the 1890s
saw the march of technical progress. See how technology both affected the
themes of many songs and stimulated the production of the first commercial
records in our extensive notes on the times, the people, and the performers
of the '90s.
Could You Please Say that Again?
Customers thanked us for including lyrics in our booklet to The 1890s, Vol.
1, so we've put even more lyrics in the booklet to this second volume.
Moreover, we give brief biographical sketches to some of the key composers
represented in this collection. This CD and notes is a package you can't do
without!
|
Shopping Cart | Checkout 
