"Neither group, however, could foresee to what extent the war effort would be defined by advertisers and merchandisers. One advertiser described morale as "a lot of little things," and those little things included beer, chewing gum, tobacco, breakfast cereal - virtually every product on the American market. Selling merchandise was always the first priority of Tin Pan Alley, and the OWI never swayed them from this course."--BOOK JACKET.

After Pearl Harbor, Tin Pan Alley songwriters rushed to write the Great American War Song—an "Over There" for World War II. The most popular songs, however, continued to be romantic ballads, escapist tunes, or novelty songs. To remedy the situation, the federal government created the National Wartime Music Committee, an advisory group of the Office of War Information (OWI), which outlined "proper" war songs, along with tips on how and what to write. The music business also formed its own Music War Committee to promote war songs. Neither group succeeded. The OWI hoped that Tin Pan Alley could be converted from manufacturing love songs to manufacturing war songs just as automobile plants had retooled to assemble planes and tanks. But the OWI failed to comprehend the large extent by which the war effort would be defined by advertisers and merchandisers. Selling merchandise was the first priority of Tin Pan Alley, and the OWI never swayed them from this course. Kathleen E.R. Smith concludes the government's fears of faltering morale did not materialize. Americans did not need such war songs as "Goodbye, Mama, I'm Off To Yokohama", "There Are No Wings On a Foxhole", or even "The Sun Will Soon Be Setting On The Land Of The Rising Sun" to convince them to support the war. The crusade for a "proper" war song was misguided from the beginning, and the music business, then and now, continues to make huge profits selling love—not war—songs.

The song 'God Bless America' has come to inhabit our collective consciousness. This book tells the fascinating story behind the song, from its composition in 1918 by Irving Berlin, to its first performance by Kate Smith in 1938, to its post 9/11 popularity.

To what extent can music be employed to shape one culture's understanding of another? In the American imagination, Japan has represented the "most alien" nation for over 150 years. This perceived difference has inspired fantasies--of both desire and repulsion--through which Japanese culture has profoundly impacted the arts and industry of the U.S. While the influence of Japan on American and European painting, architecture, design, theater, and literature has been celebrated in numerous books and exhibitions, the role of music has been virtually ignored until now. W. Anthony Sheppard's Extreme Exoticism offers a detailed documentation and wide-ranging investigation of music's role in shaping American perceptions of the Japanese, the influence of Japanese music on American composers, and the place of Japanese Americans in American musical life. Presenting numerous American encounters with and representations of Japanese music and Japan, this book reveals how music functions in exotic representation across a variety of genres and media, and how Japanese music has at various times served as a sign of modernist experimentation, a sounding board for defining American music, and a tool for reshaping conceptions of race and gender. From the Tin Pan Alley songs of the Russo-Japanese war period to Weezer's Pinkerton album, music has continued to inscribe Japan as the land of extreme exoticism.

This book introduces readers to the most significant technological developments in music making and listening, including such topics as metronomes and the development of music notation as well as synthesizers, the latest music collaboration apps, and other 21st-century technologies. Rather than focusing on technical and mechanical details, Music and Technology: A Historical Encyclopedia features the sociological role of technological developments by highlighting the roles they have played in society throughout time. Students and music fans alike will gain valuable insight from this alphabetized encyclopedia of the most significant examples of technological changes that have impacted the creation, production, dissemination, recording, and/or consumption of music. The book also contains a chronology of milestone events in the history of music and technology as well as sidebars that focus on several key individual musicians and inventors.

This wartime biography follows the life of a Second World War B-17 bombardier from the beginning of the war to its conclusion. Based on the 150 letters the airman, Fred Lull, wrote home to his mother, much of the horrors of what he experienced off the wing of his plane, aircraft destroyed, dismemberment by flak, go unshared. Fred did not want his mother to worry and could not tell her: 'I noticed some movement and a flash of light out of the corner of my right eye. The plane that had been flying right next to us had exploded and simply disappeared.' Using the bombardier's combat flight record, research data and interviews of former B-17 crew members, the story unfolds, breaking through the barrier of an unwillingness and inability to tell loved ones of the smell and taste of war.

American Women during World War II documents the lives and stories of women who contributed directly to the war effort via official and semi-official military organizations, as well as the millions of women who worked in civilian defense industries, ranging from aircraft maintenance to munitions manufacturing and much more. It also illuminates how the war changed the lives of women in more traditional home front roles. All women had to cope with rationing of basic household goods, and most women volunteered in war-related programs. Other entries discuss institutional change, as the war affected every aspect of life, including as schools, hospitals, and even religion. American Women during World War II provides a handy one-volume collection of information and images suitable for any public or professional library.

"Nothing defines the songs of the great American songbook more richly and persuasively than their urban sensibility. During the first half of the twentieth century, songwriter such as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, George and Ira Gershwin, and Thomas 'Fats' Waller flourished in New York City, the home of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Harlem. Many of these remarkably deft and forceful creators were native New Yorkers. Others got to Gotham as fast as they could. Either way, it was as if, from their vantage point on the West Side of Manhattan, these artists were describing America--not its geography of politics, but its heart--to Americans and to the world at large. In City songs and American life, 1900-1950, renowned author and broadcaster Michael Lasser offers an evocative and probing account of the popular songs--including some written originally for the stage or screen--that America heard, and sang, and danced to during the turbulent first half of the twentieth century. Lasser demonstrates how the spirit of the teeming city pervaded these wildly diverse songs. Often that spirit took form overtly in songs that portrayed the glamor of Broadway of the energy and jazz age culture of Harlem. But a city-bred spirit--or even a specifically New York City way of feeling and talking--also infused many other widely known and loved songs, stretching from the early decades of the century to the twenties (the age of the flapper, bathtub gin, and women's right to vote), the Great Depression, and, finally, World War II. Throughout this remarkable book, Lasser emphasizes how the soul of city life, as echoes in the nation's songs, developed and changed in tandem with economic, social, and political currents in America as a whole"--Dust jacket flap.

Because news is a weapon of war--affecting public opinion, troop morale, even strategy--for more than a century America's wartime officials have sought to control or influence the press, most recently by "embedding" reporters within military units in Iraq. This second front, where press freedom and military imperatives often do battle, is the territory explored in The Military and the Press, a history of how press-military relations have evolved during the twentieth and twenty-first century in response to the demands of politics, economics, technology, and legal and social forces. Author Michael S. Sweeney takes a chronological approach, considering freedoms and restraints such as the First Amendment, court decisions, and government and military directives that have affected the press during World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the more recent conflicts. He explores the ongoing themes of wartime censorship and propaganda, as well as operational security in the battle zone. In chapters addressing the recent shift in military strategy in dealing with the press, Sweeney discusses new forms of control--from embedding journalists and discouraging unaccredited "unilaterals" to developing the news agenda through a barrage of briefings, sound bites, and visuals and appeals to patriotism that border on domestic propaganda. With profiles of a few specific journalists--from Richard Harding Davis covering the Spanish-American War to Christiane Amanpour reporting from the conflicts in Bosnia and Iraq--this deft blend of journalistic history and analysis should serve as a call-to-arms to a public not always well served by a military-press standoff.