New book recalls 'lost' black voices
More than a century after the first primitive sound recordings, virtually all the artists who cut those marvelous scratchy disks have been forgotten.
Who today remembers Irish tenor Billy Murray, "the Denver Nightingale," biggest star of the prewar recording industry?
As often happens, though, black performers have been forgotten even more thoroughly, an oversight pop culture historian Tim Brooks sets out to correct with his exhaustive "Lost Sounds" (University of Illinois Press, $65), a 530-page chronicle of black artists back to George W. Johnson.
Johnson was whistling for pennies at Hudson River ferry terminals in 1890 when he was invited to make some records. In the fashion of the day, those were derogatory "coon" songs. But he opened doors for artists who after a while didn't have to sing them anymore. By the turn of the 20th century, groups like the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet were recording spirituals.
A few years later, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson (pictured), the man from whom white supremacists said boxing had to be rescued, narrated accounts of his fights and tips on fitness. He would occasionally swing an orchestra baton as well, suggesting that then as now, controversy could be good for business.
Brooks, also the co-author of a hugely popular guide to prime-time television history, spins his tales here as stories, not academic recitations. While much of his audience will likely be historians and scholars, a civilian who picks up this book will find it surprisingly hard to put down.