When American pop music lived in New York
By James Aitchison
Think of American pop music and Nashville springs to mind. Or that iconic circular Capitol Records building in Los Angeles. Originally, though, New York was the undisputed home of American music. Before records, phonographs and radio, the piano was the driving force of pop music. As thousands of American middle-class families came to afford a piano, they needed sheet music so they could play their favourite songs at home.
In 1885 a number of music publishers set up shop on West 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenue, New York, in the Flower District. These pioneers were salesmen; Isadore Witmark had previously sold water filters, Leo Feist had sold corsets, while Joe Stern and Edwards B. Marks were originally necktie and button salesmen.
Overnight, sheet music became their new trade. By the turn of the century, songwriters, singers, and Broadway performers all flocked to this musical epicentre. The publishers employed song pluggers — pianists and singers — who made their living demonstrating the songs to promote sheet music sales. Among those pounding away on pianos was George Gershwin, soon to become one of American’s most famous composers.
song plugger on Tin Pan Alley
According to legend, Monroe H. Rosenfeld of the New York Herald described “the collective sound made by many cheap upright pianos all playing different tunes reminiscent of the banging of tin pans in an alleyway”. The name stuck: Tin Pan Alley. By 1907, the term came to signify not only the musical real estate itself but also the popular music industry in general.
At first the publishers pushed melodramatic ballads and comic novelty songs, but soon cakewalk, ragtime, jazz and blues joined the list of offerings. Songwriters of the day were Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Cahn, Oscar Hammerstein II and Fats Waller.
wartime song, George M. Cohan’s Over There
One of Tin Pan Alley’s most popular hits during World War I was George M. Cohan’s Over There, which demonstrated how popular music could stir patriotic feelings. The US had just entered the war and was sending troops to the battlefields in Europe:
“Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word over there
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming …
We’ll be over, we’re coming over,
And we won’t come back till it’s over,
Over there!”
By the advent of the Second World War, pianos and sheet music were giving way to records and radio. No longer were song pluggers plunking away on Tin Pan Alley. The music industry had matured and gained a new home: the Brill Building. Located at 1619 Broadway and 49th Street, just north of Times Square, it boasted eleven storeys of musical talent, publishers and studios. It was named for its owner Maurice Brill, a haberdasher who operated a store at street level.
American musical talent
By the 1960s, the “Brill Building Sound” became a musical phenomenon. The building contained 165 music businesses. A musician could cut a demo, hawk it around to publishers, and promote the record without ever leaving the building.
The great Carole King recalled, “Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific…”
Teamed with then-husband, lyricist Gerry Goffin, King composed a string of classics such as The Loco-motion, It Might as Well Rain Until September, and Aretha Franklin’s great hit (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.
Songs were literally “written to order” and later recorded by some of the greatest names in American music who called the Brill Building home: Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach, Sonny Bono, Bobby Darin, Gene Pitney, and Dionne Warwick. Others worked further along the street at 1650 Broadway.
Today, both Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building are designated New York City landmarks, ensuring that two eras of American musical history end on a perfect note.
