I
t’shard to imagine,butbeforeanother
generationgoesby, thesubjectmatterof this
collectionwillpass intohistory.Songsabout
phonographrecords.Making them,buying them,playing themand
measuring thestagesofour livesby them.Theseare the topicsof the
songson thiscollection.Theymadeperfect sensewhen theywere released in the1930s,
’40sand ’50s.Evenas lateas the1960s, ’70sand ’80speoplewerestillwritingsongs
about phonograph records.Sadly, theydon’t anymore.
Recordswerepartofour lives.Everyone
bought them.Someofusbrought them to
partiesor listened to themwithour
friends.Others listened torecordsalone,
drawing thepowerof themusic intoour
personal lives.Manyof us played the
jukeboxor listenednightlyasdisc jockeys
played thehitsof theday.Weevenwrote
orphoned the radio station to request our
favoritesongs.Afewof thosedisc jockeys
made theirownpreferencesknownwhen
they tried tosave theworld from rock ‘n’
roll; theymadenewsbybreakingrecords
over theair rather thanplaying them.
Itwasn’t just disc jockeyswhogot in
theway. In1942andagain in1948,
JamesCaesarPetrillo,headof the
AmericanFederationofMusicians,
calledstrikesforbiddingallmembers
oftheunionfrommakingrecords.
Somelabelsweresmartenoughto
planahead,butother labelsand
artistsgotcaught short.Anumberof
recordingartistswere inspired to
writeandsingsongsabout the labor
dispute that had temporarily silenced
them.
