Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song

by David A. Jasen

For nearly a century, New York's famous "Tin Pan Alley" was the center of popular music publishing in this country. It was where songwriting became a profession, and songs were made-to-order for the biggest stars. Selling popular music to a mass audience from coast-to-coast involved the greatest entertainment media of the day, from minstrelsy to Broadway, to vaudeville, dance palaces, radio, and motion pictures. Successful songwriting became an art, with a host of men and women becoming famous by writing famous songs.

Genres: Music

492 pages, Hardcover

First published November 2, 1988

About the author

David A. Jasen is considered to be the world's foremost authority on ragtime music. He has studied, recorded, and performer ragtime music for over five decades; his publications include complete scores for many major ragtime composers, and several books on the history of the music. Additionally, he has authored for Routledge a number of other well-received and strong selling reference works, including Tin Pan Alley: An Encyclopedia and A Century of American Popular Song.

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed exploring the development of popular songwriting through this book. So many standards we still love singing and hearing arrangements of today came from Tin Pan Alley. i loved learning that around the turn of the century into the 1900s, the push behind songwriting was to get people to buy sheet music so they could enjoy making the music themselves at home. The introduction is an excellent overview of popular song from 1890s through 1950s.