Since I posted about it awhile back, I've been working on cross-checking the albums I've collected as missing from Spotify with albums (or CDs) being sold on Ebay. This process is designed to give me a better idea of whether albums are truly missing (i.e. not available for purchase or streaming by consumers) or rather have just been restricted from streaming services because of artist or label wishes.
I've been surprised to find that there are more albums completely unavailable than I originally thought. Even with the limited number of artists and albums I have documented thus far, nearly half of the flagged missing albums are also not available in digital or even vinyl form on Ebay. There is always the possibility that individual collectors are holding these albums until they hit an optimal value at which point they will decide to put them on the market,and there is also the possibility that they are being saved as parts to priceless collections in which case the time it will take for them to become publicly available will be even longer. A third option is that the records have legitimately become obsolete and have been permanently lost, but statistically this is the least likely case.
Something I noticed about the absent from Spotify albums, that were available on Ebay was that there was a wide range of price per album. This could easily serve as a future indicator for rarity, or rather scarcity of a specific album. Excluding albums with uniqueness factors like red vinyl instead of black, or signatures by the artist, price variation as well as number of sellers can help to separate the albums at risk of extinction from those that are popular enough to have multiple sellers at relatively low prices despite not being available for streaming. It comes down to simple supply and demand, when supply is low and there is demand, prices will rise. The most expensive album I've encountered thus far was $300. To me that seems like a high price to pay, but I'm sure there will be more albums that I'll come across that are listed at even higher prices. Album collectors or possessors stand to gain the most from this so there is a tendency to hold onto their scarce possessions, at least until the market conditions are apt for selling rare, vintage folk albums. In that case, this hole in the collection I've been talking about may actually be at least partially superficial, controlled by album owners as well as labels and artists. The key for them is making sure the work isn't lost completely while trying to exact their profits. I'd say that's the biggest risk involved, especially if its a pattern that's been repeated by many people.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Evolution of Music Technology
I thought this week I'd do a focused post on the evolution of music technology, also called audio format, over the last century. Technological change has been the main driving force in the evolution of the composition of today's music collection. Its the force that has put many mid-century recordings into obsolescence, and has led to a larger than normal collection of music from the last 10 years or so due to the ease at current recording technology. Compounded with current copyright law, creative work to be kept out of public domain for creators life plus 70 years, the technological shift has led to the extinction of many songs and albums dating from mid-century to present. Therefore it is important to map the trajectory of music technology during this time frame.
Thomas Edison accidentally created the first recording of the human voice while experimenting with a new telegraph device in 1877 and by the end of the year was able to create a full recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," using the first functioning phonograph.
By 1885 Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter produced competition for Edison's phonograph which they called the "graphophone." It functioned in very much the same way as Edison's recording machine.
The gramophone was invented by Emile Berliner in 1888 and improved upon the earlier recording machines by using a disc as the recording medium, rather than the cylinder that had been used prior. It could hold up to 2 minutes of recorded sound. The discs were made out of vulcanized rubber.
The Columbia Phonograph Company, one of about 30 companies competing in the market at the time, found business success in collaboration between fairgrounds and phonograph leasing. This led to the creation of nickel jukeboxes. With this competitive advantage in business strategy, the Columbia Graphophone Company (changed name, same company), became the only company in the market to turn a profit during the 1890s.
During the 1900s due to the advent of mass production techniques for recorded and automatic music, copyright becomes a relevant question. The industry was now comprised of various iterations of the graphophone. gramophone, and new to the stage player piano. The supreme court decided that copyright protection applied only to music that could be read by the human eye.
In 1901 a new type of disc technology was released call the 78. Its name came from its rotational speed, and it is 10 inches in diameter. The 78 lasted as a format until 1974, and by 1910 there were new disc sizes introduced to the market as well. In 1906 the "Victrola" was rolled out by the Victor Talking Machine Company. It provided the added convenience of being a music player that could fit within the home. It was the best selling record player of its time.
The Radio Corporation of America began mass producing commercial radios during the 1920s which had lots of negative ramifications in the records industry.
1925 saw the introduction of electrical amplification of sound and the first electrically recorded discs went on sale. The technology was conceived by Bell Telephone Laboratories, and with the new higher quality recordings, record sales rebounded.
Radio Corporation of America bought up Victor in 1928, forming RCA Victor. But with the 1929 crash electronic leisure items such as the "Victor" or radio became luxury goods and out of financial reach of many consumers.
In 1933 FM radio was discovered, offering higher quality transmission with less static.
The fragility of the original material of records, shellac, is discovered in attempts to ship records internationally to troops, so in 1943 polyvinyl, PVC, most commonly known as "vinyl" is adopted as material of choice for future records.
By 1964 the cassette tape became the cheaper option compared to vinyl with the capacity to store 30 minutes of recording.
The cassette tape was expanded on through the advent of the 8-track tape cartridge. It was unique in that is was being incorporated into Ford's cars in 1966. However, its higher quality was outdone by the convenience and versatility of other recording mediums and it became obsolete rather quickly.
In the 1980s Philips and Sony collaborated to bring about an improved audio format called the CD. Consumer replaced vinyl collections with the more compact and uniform CDs, and in 3 years time one million CD players were sold.
1990 saw the introduction of today's main audio disruptive product, the MP3. It compressed digital audio files by a factor of 12 so that they could easily be sent from computer to computer while maintaining the same quality.
During the early 1990s, there were numerous disagreements over how to handle copyright with the introduction of the new audio technologies. The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 required the creators of digital recorders to pay 2% royalties to copyright holders as compensation for ensuing piracy.
1995 saw the launch of the first streaming audio service by the company RealAudio. The initial drawback was poor audio quality of this transmission mode.
In 1999 the first music sharing network, called Napster, was debuted. Due to various copyright suits, Napster shut down service in 2001.
Apple picked up the market in 2003 with the release of iTunes, which is to date the most successful online music store.
Information from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/inside/cron.html
Thomas Edison accidentally created the first recording of the human voice while experimenting with a new telegraph device in 1877 and by the end of the year was able to create a full recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," using the first functioning phonograph.
By 1885 Chichester Bell and Charles Tainter produced competition for Edison's phonograph which they called the "graphophone." It functioned in very much the same way as Edison's recording machine.
The gramophone was invented by Emile Berliner in 1888 and improved upon the earlier recording machines by using a disc as the recording medium, rather than the cylinder that had been used prior. It could hold up to 2 minutes of recorded sound. The discs were made out of vulcanized rubber.
The Columbia Phonograph Company, one of about 30 companies competing in the market at the time, found business success in collaboration between fairgrounds and phonograph leasing. This led to the creation of nickel jukeboxes. With this competitive advantage in business strategy, the Columbia Graphophone Company (changed name, same company), became the only company in the market to turn a profit during the 1890s.
During the 1900s due to the advent of mass production techniques for recorded and automatic music, copyright becomes a relevant question. The industry was now comprised of various iterations of the graphophone. gramophone, and new to the stage player piano. The supreme court decided that copyright protection applied only to music that could be read by the human eye.
In 1901 a new type of disc technology was released call the 78. Its name came from its rotational speed, and it is 10 inches in diameter. The 78 lasted as a format until 1974, and by 1910 there were new disc sizes introduced to the market as well. In 1906 the "Victrola" was rolled out by the Victor Talking Machine Company. It provided the added convenience of being a music player that could fit within the home. It was the best selling record player of its time.
The Radio Corporation of America began mass producing commercial radios during the 1920s which had lots of negative ramifications in the records industry.
1925 saw the introduction of electrical amplification of sound and the first electrically recorded discs went on sale. The technology was conceived by Bell Telephone Laboratories, and with the new higher quality recordings, record sales rebounded.
Radio Corporation of America bought up Victor in 1928, forming RCA Victor. But with the 1929 crash electronic leisure items such as the "Victor" or radio became luxury goods and out of financial reach of many consumers.
In 1933 FM radio was discovered, offering higher quality transmission with less static.
The fragility of the original material of records, shellac, is discovered in attempts to ship records internationally to troops, so in 1943 polyvinyl, PVC, most commonly known as "vinyl" is adopted as material of choice for future records.
By 1964 the cassette tape became the cheaper option compared to vinyl with the capacity to store 30 minutes of recording.
The cassette tape was expanded on through the advent of the 8-track tape cartridge. It was unique in that is was being incorporated into Ford's cars in 1966. However, its higher quality was outdone by the convenience and versatility of other recording mediums and it became obsolete rather quickly.
In the 1980s Philips and Sony collaborated to bring about an improved audio format called the CD. Consumer replaced vinyl collections with the more compact and uniform CDs, and in 3 years time one million CD players were sold.
1990 saw the introduction of today's main audio disruptive product, the MP3. It compressed digital audio files by a factor of 12 so that they could easily be sent from computer to computer while maintaining the same quality.
During the early 1990s, there were numerous disagreements over how to handle copyright with the introduction of the new audio technologies. The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 required the creators of digital recorders to pay 2% royalties to copyright holders as compensation for ensuing piracy.
1995 saw the launch of the first streaming audio service by the company RealAudio. The initial drawback was poor audio quality of this transmission mode.
In 1999 the first music sharing network, called Napster, was debuted. Due to various copyright suits, Napster shut down service in 2001.
Apple picked up the market in 2003 with the release of iTunes, which is to date the most successful online music store.
Information from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/music/inside/cron.html
Thursday, April 10, 2014
More Label Profiles
A couple of weeks ago I did a post highlighting some of the labels I saw popping up in my resource. The exercise proved useful and provided some valuable insight, so I'll be posting about some more tonight. The two I've looked into are Verve and Arhoolie.
Verve Records was founded by jazz enthusiast Norman Granz in 1955 in order to consolidate his previous recording activities (Clef and Norgan Records) and even more importantly to promote the work of artist Ella Fitzgerald whom he managed through most of her career. His first record released on the label in 1956 was a Fitzgerald and did very well considering Fitzgerald's already large audience. Granz helped to change the image of jazz, and Granz made an astute observation when he noticed that box office and record sales seem to go hand in hand. With high profitability and many successful artists, Granz sold the label off to MGM for $2.5 million in 1960. This seems to have been less a move of desperation, and more of a chance to make some serious profit from a successful business, much in the fashion of today's acquisitions (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/27/verve-records-jazz-norman-granz). the label has changed hands more times since then, and is currently in the hands of David Foster. I found a complete listing for all over Verve's vinyl records which could help to further document what content has been digitized and what hasn't, as an expansion on what's to be found in the Folkways collection (http://www.jazzdisco.org/verve-records/). It appears to be a catalog full of useful label information.
Arhoolie Records is a small record company that was formed by Chris Strachwitz in 1960. The first album released under the label was Mance Lipscomb, a Texas folk singer (and one of the new additions to the National Recording Registry, which I posted about last week), and the label was founded as a musical niche for "down home blues," like Lipscomb. In that sense, unlike some of the other labels I've looked at, namely Columbia and Verve, who cater much more so to big name acts, Arhoolie was more of a Folkways style label looking to work with smaller scale artists. Unlike all the other labels I have researched thus far, Arhoolie has never changed hands and is still run by the same man who founded it. It actually recently celebrated its 50th anniversary (http://www.npr.org/2013/03/16/174452880/arhoolie-records-50-years-of-digging-for-down-home-music). The label has maintained its goal of producing American root's music, and as such seems interested in the concept of cultural preservation through music. Strachwitz has continued to produce music because it is what he loves, and his story sounds in some ways similar to that of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways.
Verve Records was founded by jazz enthusiast Norman Granz in 1955 in order to consolidate his previous recording activities (Clef and Norgan Records) and even more importantly to promote the work of artist Ella Fitzgerald whom he managed through most of her career. His first record released on the label in 1956 was a Fitzgerald and did very well considering Fitzgerald's already large audience. Granz helped to change the image of jazz, and Granz made an astute observation when he noticed that box office and record sales seem to go hand in hand. With high profitability and many successful artists, Granz sold the label off to MGM for $2.5 million in 1960. This seems to have been less a move of desperation, and more of a chance to make some serious profit from a successful business, much in the fashion of today's acquisitions (http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/27/verve-records-jazz-norman-granz). the label has changed hands more times since then, and is currently in the hands of David Foster. I found a complete listing for all over Verve's vinyl records which could help to further document what content has been digitized and what hasn't, as an expansion on what's to be found in the Folkways collection (http://www.jazzdisco.org/verve-records/). It appears to be a catalog full of useful label information.
Arhoolie Records is a small record company that was formed by Chris Strachwitz in 1960. The first album released under the label was Mance Lipscomb, a Texas folk singer (and one of the new additions to the National Recording Registry, which I posted about last week), and the label was founded as a musical niche for "down home blues," like Lipscomb. In that sense, unlike some of the other labels I've looked at, namely Columbia and Verve, who cater much more so to big name acts, Arhoolie was more of a Folkways style label looking to work with smaller scale artists. Unlike all the other labels I have researched thus far, Arhoolie has never changed hands and is still run by the same man who founded it. It actually recently celebrated its 50th anniversary (http://www.npr.org/2013/03/16/174452880/arhoolie-records-50-years-of-digging-for-down-home-music). The label has maintained its goal of producing American root's music, and as such seems interested in the concept of cultural preservation through music. Strachwitz has continued to produce music because it is what he loves, and his story sounds in some ways similar to that of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Interesting Articles
I find it interesting that since beginning work on this project, in learning about the history of folk music and the issues with music recording preservation as well as keeping old media up to date, I seem to continually be coming across related stories in the news. A couple I came across in the last week seemed particularly interesting and relevant to the questions I'm asking so I'll be devoting a post to talking about them.
The first one I found on NPR. It was really the article title that caught my attention, especially since it sounded a lot like the title of this blog. Published on March 23, 2014, Lost Album Gives Voice To A Johnny Cash In Recovery really offers some insight into the micro side of recording, and album preservation, a side I haven't much explored yet. The piece talks about recordings Johnny Cash, a rock star rather than folk artist, made during the time period I've been studying. The recently uncovered recording, found by Cash's son while he was cleaning out the Cash-Carter house, was made during a low point in the rock star's career and had been for the most part forgotten about. This album was "lost" right around the time Cash was famously dropped from Columbia Records, a label I discussed in my last blog post. While in this case, it wasn't a business change that caused the album to fall through the cracks, a change in the label Cash was associated with was what allowed the album to seemingly disappear. At the time it would have been released, this album wouldn't have been considered anything special. Cash guitarist Marty Stuart remembered the recording sessions for the album as, "Pretty good songs, pretty good performances - but no magic" (NPR). Flash forward to present day. Cash has now been dead for more than 10 years, and this lost album has new value, not so much because of the music made but the story it helps to tell. All these years later, an album like this now has the added value of cultural significance. In the case of this album, many of the songs were written and recorded right after Cash came out of rehab. A detail which wouldn't have been very intriguing back in the day, now offers new insight into Johnny Cash the man as fans look back on his life. John Carter Cash, the son who found the album speaks to this when he says, "Why not let the light endure? Yes, this cool image whatever brings people in, and it's part of who he was. I still haven't figured everything out about my dad and I probably never will. And that darkness, that's truth. But that's not the full picture" (NPR). This sort of posthumous intrigue, especially with celebrities, seems to be the strongest argument for digitizing as much material as we can. The story is the same no matter the genre of music, and if we're talking telling the story of history, there is no better way.
The second story I came across was a CBS Sunday Morning piece about new recordings being added to the National Recording Registry. Latest Additions to the National Recording Registry caught my eye as I didn't know that such a thing existed. This registry is separate from the Smithsonian music collection I've been looking at and was explicitly created to ensure that pertinent cultural recordings, from a variety of music genres and settings (one of the new adds this year is baseball players talking about baseball). There are also Broadway recordings, radio/talk show recordings, and pre-20th century recordings going into the registry. The cool thing about this national registry is not only are the chosen recordings digitized, but with further technological innovation that will inevitably surpass what we currently use, will also be updated so as to always be preserved. There was a new folk genre add this year, Mance Lipscomb's album "Texas Sharecropper and Songster," included because of the cultural significance of Lipscomb's perspective as the son of a former slave and a Native American. In going to the National Recording Registry's website through the Library of Congress I found out that the registry was only begun in 2002 which makes it a little more than 10 years old. This method for preservation is one approach to cultural preservation, low volume but high significance. The question is why some recordings are deemed more important than others, and the possibility that some could be overlooked entirely. I will make a note of any of my Folkways records (if any) that appear on the registry, and it will be interesting to see what gets added in years to come.
The first one I found on NPR. It was really the article title that caught my attention, especially since it sounded a lot like the title of this blog. Published on March 23, 2014, Lost Album Gives Voice To A Johnny Cash In Recovery really offers some insight into the micro side of recording, and album preservation, a side I haven't much explored yet. The piece talks about recordings Johnny Cash, a rock star rather than folk artist, made during the time period I've been studying. The recently uncovered recording, found by Cash's son while he was cleaning out the Cash-Carter house, was made during a low point in the rock star's career and had been for the most part forgotten about. This album was "lost" right around the time Cash was famously dropped from Columbia Records, a label I discussed in my last blog post. While in this case, it wasn't a business change that caused the album to fall through the cracks, a change in the label Cash was associated with was what allowed the album to seemingly disappear. At the time it would have been released, this album wouldn't have been considered anything special. Cash guitarist Marty Stuart remembered the recording sessions for the album as, "Pretty good songs, pretty good performances - but no magic" (NPR). Flash forward to present day. Cash has now been dead for more than 10 years, and this lost album has new value, not so much because of the music made but the story it helps to tell. All these years later, an album like this now has the added value of cultural significance. In the case of this album, many of the songs were written and recorded right after Cash came out of rehab. A detail which wouldn't have been very intriguing back in the day, now offers new insight into Johnny Cash the man as fans look back on his life. John Carter Cash, the son who found the album speaks to this when he says, "Why not let the light endure? Yes, this cool image whatever brings people in, and it's part of who he was. I still haven't figured everything out about my dad and I probably never will. And that darkness, that's truth. But that's not the full picture" (NPR). This sort of posthumous intrigue, especially with celebrities, seems to be the strongest argument for digitizing as much material as we can. The story is the same no matter the genre of music, and if we're talking telling the story of history, there is no better way.
The second story I came across was a CBS Sunday Morning piece about new recordings being added to the National Recording Registry. Latest Additions to the National Recording Registry caught my eye as I didn't know that such a thing existed. This registry is separate from the Smithsonian music collection I've been looking at and was explicitly created to ensure that pertinent cultural recordings, from a variety of music genres and settings (one of the new adds this year is baseball players talking about baseball). There are also Broadway recordings, radio/talk show recordings, and pre-20th century recordings going into the registry. The cool thing about this national registry is not only are the chosen recordings digitized, but with further technological innovation that will inevitably surpass what we currently use, will also be updated so as to always be preserved. There was a new folk genre add this year, Mance Lipscomb's album "Texas Sharecropper and Songster," included because of the cultural significance of Lipscomb's perspective as the son of a former slave and a Native American. In going to the National Recording Registry's website through the Library of Congress I found out that the registry was only begun in 2002 which makes it a little more than 10 years old. This method for preservation is one approach to cultural preservation, low volume but high significance. The question is why some recordings are deemed more important than others, and the possibility that some could be overlooked entirely. I will make a note of any of my Folkways records (if any) that appear on the registry, and it will be interesting to see what gets added in years to come.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Label Specifics
This week, I've made some more technical changes to my data sheets and collection process which I'd like to highlight first. Under the Folk Artist Data Spreadsheet I added a column with links to each of the albums reviewed on the Folkways website. Under the Missing Albums Spreadsheet I have added a Yes/No column for keeping track of whether the album not found on Spotify is available on Ebay (in vinyl/digitized form). I also want to experiment and see if I can find any songs off the albums in question have been uploaded to YouTube, which would indicate that they have in fact been digitized. A presence on Ebay would suggest there is the potential for the album to be digitized, and that it is still in circulation on the music market. The Ebay search should be relatively easy to do, but I expect some trouble with the YouTube search. If it ends up being too tricky, or doesn't yield any results, I'll get rid of it, but for now I think its worth it to do some digging.
On to the real topic of this blog post. After compiling a list of the albums missing from the Spotify digital music collection I thought it would be informational and useful to do a little research some of the recurring labels which produced the albums on the list. From my earlier posts, I have developed a general concept of the Folkways approach and their history, and I'd now like to expand that with a few more labels that were producing folk music during the period I am studying. The two I will highlight today will be Riverside Records and Columbia Records.
According to the current holders of the Riverside label, the Concord Music Group, Riverside Records was launched in New York City in 1953 by jazz enthusiasts named Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews. Its original intent was to reissue classic jazz and blues recordings from the 1920s, however it wound up being one of the key labels of modern jazz. Some of its big name artists include: Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Wes Montgomery, Sonny Rollins, Abbey Lincoln, Art Blakey, Mongo Santamaria, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Heath, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Byrd, and the Staple Singers. In 1964, a year following founder Bill Grauer's death, the company folded. In 1972 the Riverside catalog was acquired by Fantasy, Inc (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/labels/Riverside/). The Concord Music Group does seem to be affiliated with Spotify, according to its website, but an interesting note is that the artists carried over and available from the original Riverside Records seems to be extremely limited. The two artists my search thus far with records under the label, Logan English and Jean Ritchie, are not listed under Riversides artists in the Concord Collection (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/artists.php?). They are also not listed under Fantasy, Inc.'s artists (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/label/Fantasy/). I'd be surprised if there weren't more folk artists under the Riverside label whose work has been lost (or has been made inaccessible) during the acquisition. This is exactly the albums I set out to find so to have evidence as to why the albums are missing is really exciting. It's a first indication of a real hole in the collection, a hole created due to the forces of the market.
Columbia Records is a label very different from Riverside Records. As one of the largest recording companies in the country, it is very focused on profits. It jumped into the folk genre in the 1960s when it signed three big folk artists at the time: Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and Simon & Garfunkel. These names aren't quite synonymous with the segment of folk I have been studying as they all are more associated with the folk-rock segment. Finding information about other artists signed by Columbia during this time is quite a challenge, but this timeline at least helps to highlight the most successful acts. The artists I have as releasing albums with Columbia out of my data collection so far are: Stephen Addiss and Bill Crofut, Andrew Rowan Summers, Malvina Reynolds, and Peter La Farge. As none of them are big name acts, it seems as though for the sake of profit maximization, and conservation of resources, Columbia, in fashion with other large companies, cut production and distribution of those albums which weren't successful enough. The likelihood of these albums floating around somewhere are probably higher than a small label, but again we can see the creation of a void in music collection. This time as a result of profit maximization as opposed to the business transfer we saw in the case of Riverside Records.
On to the real topic of this blog post. After compiling a list of the albums missing from the Spotify digital music collection I thought it would be informational and useful to do a little research some of the recurring labels which produced the albums on the list. From my earlier posts, I have developed a general concept of the Folkways approach and their history, and I'd now like to expand that with a few more labels that were producing folk music during the period I am studying. The two I will highlight today will be Riverside Records and Columbia Records.
According to the current holders of the Riverside label, the Concord Music Group, Riverside Records was launched in New York City in 1953 by jazz enthusiasts named Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews. Its original intent was to reissue classic jazz and blues recordings from the 1920s, however it wound up being one of the key labels of modern jazz. Some of its big name artists include: Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Wes Montgomery, Sonny Rollins, Abbey Lincoln, Art Blakey, Mongo Santamaria, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Heath, Johnny Griffin, Charlie Byrd, and the Staple Singers. In 1964, a year following founder Bill Grauer's death, the company folded. In 1972 the Riverside catalog was acquired by Fantasy, Inc (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/labels/Riverside/). The Concord Music Group does seem to be affiliated with Spotify, according to its website, but an interesting note is that the artists carried over and available from the original Riverside Records seems to be extremely limited. The two artists my search thus far with records under the label, Logan English and Jean Ritchie, are not listed under Riversides artists in the Concord Collection (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/artists.php?). They are also not listed under Fantasy, Inc.'s artists (http://www.concordmusicgroup.com/artists/label/Fantasy/). I'd be surprised if there weren't more folk artists under the Riverside label whose work has been lost (or has been made inaccessible) during the acquisition. This is exactly the albums I set out to find so to have evidence as to why the albums are missing is really exciting. It's a first indication of a real hole in the collection, a hole created due to the forces of the market.
Columbia Records is a label very different from Riverside Records. As one of the largest recording companies in the country, it is very focused on profits. It jumped into the folk genre in the 1960s when it signed three big folk artists at the time: Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and Simon & Garfunkel. These names aren't quite synonymous with the segment of folk I have been studying as they all are more associated with the folk-rock segment. Finding information about other artists signed by Columbia during this time is quite a challenge, but this timeline at least helps to highlight the most successful acts. The artists I have as releasing albums with Columbia out of my data collection so far are: Stephen Addiss and Bill Crofut, Andrew Rowan Summers, Malvina Reynolds, and Peter La Farge. As none of them are big name acts, it seems as though for the sake of profit maximization, and conservation of resources, Columbia, in fashion with other large companies, cut production and distribution of those albums which weren't successful enough. The likelihood of these albums floating around somewhere are probably higher than a small label, but again we can see the creation of a void in music collection. This time as a result of profit maximization as opposed to the business transfer we saw in the case of Riverside Records.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Update on Data Gathering
This week I'll be doing a quick post on some changes I've made to data gathering procedure, and updates to the Data & Notes page on the blog site.
Over the last couple of weeks, as I've been finding more and more artists whose complete discographies do not appear to be available in digital form, I've become dissatisfied with my original data collection procedure. Trying to include all the information about the missing albums on the one spreadsheet did not make my data easily readable or understandable. It felt like too much information to be trying to squeeze into a couple of cells on a spreadsheet. I therefore decided to move the information about missing albums over to a new spreadsheet, which I believe will make it easier to conduct analysis later on in the semester, plus its easier to read and comprehend. To be more specific, for every "No" in column G on the original datasheet (called "Folkways Data Spreadsheet") there are entry(s) in the new spreadsheet (called "Missing Albums Spreadsheet") depending on how many albums were missing per artist. The link to this new spreadsheet is on the Data & Notes page off the main page of the blog, and should be view-able to anyone with the link. In making this change I won't be losing any information which was something I was concerned about, and though it adds another step to the gathering process, in terms of output and data simplicity I think its worth it. The change has also been reflected in my Data Gathering Process page.
With the new expanded information, it will be easier to find patterns in the data. This could include windows of time where there are more albums not digitized, or labels which keep popping up over and over. Looking at the data I have now, it would probably be worth it to look into the list of recording labels I have currently compiled and find out whether they are still in business, where the ownership to this music lies, and some possible reasons why they haven't digitized this older content. I'll try to do a post on that information in the next couple of weeks. Also on my itinerary with regards to the project is beginning a research paper on copyright specifically within the music industry. Once complete that paper will be posted in its own page on the blog.
Over the last couple of weeks, as I've been finding more and more artists whose complete discographies do not appear to be available in digital form, I've become dissatisfied with my original data collection procedure. Trying to include all the information about the missing albums on the one spreadsheet did not make my data easily readable or understandable. It felt like too much information to be trying to squeeze into a couple of cells on a spreadsheet. I therefore decided to move the information about missing albums over to a new spreadsheet, which I believe will make it easier to conduct analysis later on in the semester, plus its easier to read and comprehend. To be more specific, for every "No" in column G on the original datasheet (called "Folkways Data Spreadsheet") there are entry(s) in the new spreadsheet (called "Missing Albums Spreadsheet") depending on how many albums were missing per artist. The link to this new spreadsheet is on the Data & Notes page off the main page of the blog, and should be view-able to anyone with the link. In making this change I won't be losing any information which was something I was concerned about, and though it adds another step to the gathering process, in terms of output and data simplicity I think its worth it. The change has also been reflected in my Data Gathering Process page.
With the new expanded information, it will be easier to find patterns in the data. This could include windows of time where there are more albums not digitized, or labels which keep popping up over and over. Looking at the data I have now, it would probably be worth it to look into the list of recording labels I have currently compiled and find out whether they are still in business, where the ownership to this music lies, and some possible reasons why they haven't digitized this older content. I'll try to do a post on that information in the next couple of weeks. Also on my itinerary with regards to the project is beginning a research paper on copyright specifically within the music industry. Once complete that paper will be posted in its own page on the blog.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Defining Folk
One problem I seem to be running into with this project is coming up with a conceptualization of Folk music, the specific genre I am studying. Last week I made a first stab at putting numbers on the market size, but based on comments from my adviser and my own uncertainty on what to consider folk or not when creating the maps, I decided to speak to the challenge of defining folk music in my post this week.
According to Merriam-Webster, folk music is defined as "the traditional music of the people in a country or region as well as a type of popular music that is based on traditional music and that does not use electric instruments" (Merriam-Webster). The first part of the definition very clearly speaks to international, country specific, music, as in Irish folk, Hungarian folk, Israeli folk, or any other nationality that you can think of. This part of the definition doesn't really apply to folk music within the US I think for the reason that our music industry is too larger and wide of breadth. Because of our extraordinarily diverse population, putting a a finger on what "traditional" music is for America, and even specific regional areas would prove to be a very challenging feat. I think the second part of the definition could help us out, specifically the part of exclusion of electric instruments. That's something concrete to go on, however figuring out what constitutes "based on traditional music" especially in an American context brings up the same problem as the first part of the definition. Maybe the challenge of American Folk music isn't so much the folk, but the underlying question of what is American tradition that stumps so many of us.
Perhaps folk music finds its definition in exemplary artists. The two names which dominate the American folk scene are Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie. Their names are the first to appear when conducting a Google search, and have come up in my Folkways inventory far more than any other artist. What this calls into question is whether the genre is determined by a artist specific model created by artists like Guthrie and Seeger, or if the genre is determined by set commonalities between artists, like style, lyrical spin, or more specific traits like having no electric instruments. In terms of market size, the better situation for artists on Folkways who aren't Seeger or Guthrie, would be a folk genre that doesn't rely on specific name recognition, rather a taste for an essence that is folk.
There is a serious differentiation when it comes to artist who consider themselves to be a part of the genre. I came across the most striking example of this while reading Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival & American Society 1940 - 1970 which was written by Ronald D. Cohen. Cohen writes of a legendary folk artist Bascom Lamar Lunsford who started the Asheville Folk Festival. Excited artists Guy Carawan,Frank Hamilton, and Jack Elliot were disappointed to find that folk hero Lunsford "turned out to be just the opposite of the kind of person I'd expected. He sings like an old mountain reprobate, full of glee and friendliness. He turned out to be a reactionary aristocrat however. The first question he asked us was 'Are you Communists?'" (Cohen, 4-5). The reason I cite this example is because it calls into question the general assumption that folk is a liberal genre, obviously segments of folk have strong liberal tendencies, Pete Seeger and his conflict with McCarthy during the Red Scare is a strong example of this, but it seems as though that definition doesn't encompass the whole genre. Perhaps there is a faction like Lunsford who represent a more conservative take on the genre, and if there is, the market for the music is far less limited. Of course perception is everything so the fact that folk is perceived to be liberal might make any ideological differentiation inconsequential.
Folk is both cursed and blessed with an indefinite nature. On the one hand, overlap with other genres and diversification means that most people have probably heard and appreciated at least one folk song or a song that could arguably pass as folk. This includes music in such genres as rock, country, bluegrass, and jazz to name a few. The fact that the genre lacks a strong identity and rests largely on the shoulders of a few big name artist, however, makes branding folk music as its own entity extremely difficult and therefore developing a loyal following of fans, especially for smaller scale artists, nearly impossible. While Moses Asch solved the preservation problem, getting the music he saved to those who might value it is a much harder task. The cause of that difficulty, in my opinion, is a lack of definition within the genre.
According to Merriam-Webster, folk music is defined as "the traditional music of the people in a country or region as well as a type of popular music that is based on traditional music and that does not use electric instruments" (Merriam-Webster). The first part of the definition very clearly speaks to international, country specific, music, as in Irish folk, Hungarian folk, Israeli folk, or any other nationality that you can think of. This part of the definition doesn't really apply to folk music within the US I think for the reason that our music industry is too larger and wide of breadth. Because of our extraordinarily diverse population, putting a a finger on what "traditional" music is for America, and even specific regional areas would prove to be a very challenging feat. I think the second part of the definition could help us out, specifically the part of exclusion of electric instruments. That's something concrete to go on, however figuring out what constitutes "based on traditional music" especially in an American context brings up the same problem as the first part of the definition. Maybe the challenge of American Folk music isn't so much the folk, but the underlying question of what is American tradition that stumps so many of us.
Perhaps folk music finds its definition in exemplary artists. The two names which dominate the American folk scene are Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie. Their names are the first to appear when conducting a Google search, and have come up in my Folkways inventory far more than any other artist. What this calls into question is whether the genre is determined by a artist specific model created by artists like Guthrie and Seeger, or if the genre is determined by set commonalities between artists, like style, lyrical spin, or more specific traits like having no electric instruments. In terms of market size, the better situation for artists on Folkways who aren't Seeger or Guthrie, would be a folk genre that doesn't rely on specific name recognition, rather a taste for an essence that is folk.
There is a serious differentiation when it comes to artist who consider themselves to be a part of the genre. I came across the most striking example of this while reading Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival & American Society 1940 - 1970 which was written by Ronald D. Cohen. Cohen writes of a legendary folk artist Bascom Lamar Lunsford who started the Asheville Folk Festival. Excited artists Guy Carawan,Frank Hamilton, and Jack Elliot were disappointed to find that folk hero Lunsford "turned out to be just the opposite of the kind of person I'd expected. He sings like an old mountain reprobate, full of glee and friendliness. He turned out to be a reactionary aristocrat however. The first question he asked us was 'Are you Communists?'" (Cohen, 4-5). The reason I cite this example is because it calls into question the general assumption that folk is a liberal genre, obviously segments of folk have strong liberal tendencies, Pete Seeger and his conflict with McCarthy during the Red Scare is a strong example of this, but it seems as though that definition doesn't encompass the whole genre. Perhaps there is a faction like Lunsford who represent a more conservative take on the genre, and if there is, the market for the music is far less limited. Of course perception is everything so the fact that folk is perceived to be liberal might make any ideological differentiation inconsequential.
Folk is both cursed and blessed with an indefinite nature. On the one hand, overlap with other genres and diversification means that most people have probably heard and appreciated at least one folk song or a song that could arguably pass as folk. This includes music in such genres as rock, country, bluegrass, and jazz to name a few. The fact that the genre lacks a strong identity and rests largely on the shoulders of a few big name artist, however, makes branding folk music as its own entity extremely difficult and therefore developing a loyal following of fans, especially for smaller scale artists, nearly impossible. While Moses Asch solved the preservation problem, getting the music he saved to those who might value it is a much harder task. The cause of that difficulty, in my opinion, is a lack of definition within the genre.
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