Shellac and Swing! tells the story of the gramophone's 'golden age, '
from 1900-1955, when it helped to shape Britain's culture from the arts
to warfare. The story focuses on the gramophone, the invention of Emile
Berliner in the 1880s, but begins with a brief outline of the first
attempts to record the human voice and of Edison's invention of the
cylinder and the phonograph. It uses primary evidence, images and
interviews with DJs, fans, musicians and historians to explore this
fascinating and often eccentric tale. Each chapter ends with 'On the
Record, ' a discussion of a record that relates to the chapter's themes.
Although the gramophone and its fragile shellac discs were vital to
Britain's music scene--opera and music hall, the Jazz Age, the crooners,
early rock'n'roll--its impact was far more extensive. Its place in
British history encompasses advertising and design, fraud and piracy,
phallic symbols, talking books, the threat from radio and TV, the
contrasting worlds of the Salvation Army and adult 'party' discs, the
creation of a parliamentary insult, new political strategies and the
seditious activity of the Mau Mau. From the establishment of the
Gramophone Company in London in the late 1890s to the end of shellac
record production in the 1950s, the British public bought the machines
and the discs in their millions and the record labels made stars of
performers like Caruso, Harry Lauder, Al Bowlly and Dame Nellie Melba.
'Shellac and Swing!' explores the ways in which the gramophone helped
these singers to achieve stardom but it also explores in detail and for
the first time many other stories of not-so-famous performers, of the
gramophone in political electioneering and of forgotten technology: the
first pirate radio broadcasters, the soldiers who took their 'Trench
Decca' portables to the Western Front, the invention of the
Flame-O-Phone, the People's Budget recordings and the pioneering label
owner and producer of 'blue' discs. The gramophone's heyday ended with
the rise of rock 'n 'roll, teenagers, the 45 rpm single, the LP and the
record player, but it survives today as part of a vibrant contemporary
music, fashion and lifestyle scene.
