Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm and Blues - Softcover

Goosman, Stuart L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812221087 ISBN 13: 9780812221084

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010

Synopsis

In 1948, the Orioles, a Baltimore-based vocal group, recorded "It's Too Soon to Know." Combining the sound of Tin Pan Alley with gospel and blues sensibilities, the Orioles saw their first hit reach #13 on the pop charts, thus introducing the nation to vocal rhythm & blues and paving the way for the most successful groups of the 1950s.

In the first scholarly treatment of this influential musical genre, Stuart Goosman chronicles the Orioles' story and that of myriad other black vocal groups in the postwar period. A few, like the Orioles, Cardinals, and Swallows from Baltimore and the Clovers from Washington, D.C., established the popularity of vocal rhythm & blues nationally. Dozens of other well-known groups (and hundreds of unknown ones) across the country cut records and performed until about 1960. Record companies initially marketed this music as rhythm & blues; today, group harmony continues to resonate for some as "doo-wop."

Focusing in particular on Baltimore and Washington and drawing significantly from oral histories, Group Harmony details the emergence of vocal rhythm & blues groups from black urban neighborhoods. Group harmony was a source of empowerment for young singers, for it provided them with a means of expression and some aspect of control over their lives where there were limited alternatives. Through group harmony, young black males celebrated and musically confounded, when they could not overcome, complex issues of race, separatism, and assimilation during the postwar period.

Group harmony also became a significant resource for the popular music industry. Goosman interviews dozens of performers, deejays, and industry professionals to examine the entrepreneurial promise of midcentury popular music and chronicle the convergence of music, place, and business, including the business of records, radio, promotion, and song writing.

Featured in the book's account of the black urban roots of rhythm & blues are the recollections of singers from groups such as the Cardinals, Clovers, Dunbar Four, Four Bars of Rhythm, Five Blue Notes, Hi Fis, Plants, Swallows, and many others, including Jimmy McPhail, a well-known Washington vocalist; Deborah Chessler, the manager and songwriter for the original Orioles; Jesse Stone, the writer and arranger from Atlantic Records; Washington radio personality Jackson Lowe; and seminal black deejays Al ("Big Boy") Jefferson, Maurice ("Hot Rod") Hulbert, and Tex Gathings.

About this title

Review:

"An important and valuable contribution to the literature of twentieth-century popular music."—American Historical Review

"Goosman challenges major myths, conventional wisdom, and historical inaccuracies concerning black popular music between 1940 and 1960. . . . A groundbreaking study."—Popular Music and Society

"A must read for serious students of black music history."—Journal of African American History

"With haunting voices and compelling arguments, Group Harmony brings us to a deeper awareness of the traditions, convictions, and energies, as well as the talent, that brought forth the R&B group sound. As oral history and social portrait, this is the story we need to hear about a music we'll never forget."―Charles McGovern, College of William and Mary and the Smithsonian Institution

From the Author:

Stuart L. Goosman is a writer and musician. He earned his Ph.D. degree in ethnomusicology in 1992 and was a full-time academic for ten years.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0812221087
• ISBN 13: 9780812221084
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304