Skip to main content

David Bowie - Five Years

The development of the phonograph record industry was a great boon to the entertainment world and became a big factor in the popularizing of songs. First efforts in this medium entailed the use of cylinders, which proved impractical. Columbia and Edison were early companies, joined in 1901 by Victor, and these three became the most important companies in the development of records. Other companies formed a decade or so later. After cylinders came the standard type of 78- rpm record used during all the years following till about 1950. Early records utilized an acoustical process of recording which left much to be desired because of its poor fidelity and volume. The early records featured band marches, string ensembles, instrumental solos, comedy and novelty songs and dialogues, and opera singers performing operatic and semi-classical airs. By 1909 the companies began to record the popular songs of the day by well-known entertainers. The first electrical records appeared in the mid 20s on a small scale, and by the late 20s most companies had converted to the far superior electrical process.

The roots of jazz took hold decades before. Jazz in something like its later form began to emerge about 1890. By 1900 it was being played in New Orleans. Leading early jazzmen were Buddy Bolden and Bunk Johnson, followed by King Oliver and Louis Armstrong. Small jazz groups played for street parades and funerals, in brothels and dance halls. Many future jazz greats were spawned in New Orleans in the formative years.

Jazz bands began to play on riverboats up and down the Mississippi, stopping to play at river towns and spreading the sound. Bands moved to Chicago in the postwar era. That city became a mecca for jazzmen from all points, a wild and lively place during Prohibition.
Source: Complete Encyclopedia of Popular Vol. 1 Music By Year 1900 1950 by Roger D. Kinkle


David Bowie - Five Years
  • Songwriter David Bowie
  • Co-produced by Bowie and Ken Scott,
  • Released June 16 1972


"Rolling Stone, 28 February 1974

In February 1976 Rolling Stone published an extract from Bowie’s aborted autobiography, The Return of the Thin White Duke, in which he suggested that his half-brother Terry Burns had inspired ‘Five Years’."

See previous Song of the Day

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Moondog - Behold

The history of jazz has been one of fusion. Its musicians and composers have continually drawn upon a huge range of different musics to create the rich and diverse tapestry that is world jazz today. Jazz is an evolving tradition of music making. And how often, in the life stories of individual jazz musicians, do we see these same patterns operating at microcosm? The richness of Turkish music and culture sometimes seems at odds with its turbulent and cruel history. In 1979... the country suffered its third military take over in thirty years... Every kind of music was in Turkey at that point. But it was not appreciated. To understand the culture of the country, with those three military takeovers, Turkey could not go anywhere. Musically, it was very difficult. But things were beginning to happen. Traditional Turkish music is essentially monophonic, rich in melody and rhythm but with little by way of harmony. The contrast with western music, with its beautiful harmonies but rhythmic weakn...

Veronica Swift - A Little Taste

There has always been an uncomfortable tension between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, a cyclical influence that vacillates between inspiration, appropriation and separation. Popular music has broken off into categories of rock, pop, country, and R&B, each with their own origin stories. But R&B and rock, usually codified as vastly different, Black and white styles, have long been intertwined in ways our historical memory may have us forget.  Despite the innovation that comes from separation, rock and R&B always find their way back to each other. In recent years, rock veterans have turned to the genre’s classics for inspiration. Queens of the Stone Age veered from their typical hard rock with 2017’s Villains, a dance y album inspired by frontman Josh Homme’s love of 1920s jazz and swing, other Black genres that laid the groundwork for the popular music of today. The whitewashing of rock’s history has oversimplified music’s malleability and silenced the voices of Amer...

The Gap Band - The Sun Don't Shine Everyday

The Gap Band - The Sun Don't Shine Everyday Genre: RnB Released in: 1984 Duration: 5:14 "The Gap Band was most successful when working with producer Lonnie Simmons, with four consecutive gold records. Their party train soon slowed to a stop. They reformed in the 90s and occasionally toured and attempted a comeback album." See Previous Song of the Day