This is a monumental book, dazzling in its ambition and breadth. It is also obviously a labour of love – perhaps of obsession – which succeeds in portraying the importance of live music to being human and has implications which go way beyond the country upon which it is focused. It is a landmark text, which will doubtless be referred to for years to come. If you have any interest in what live (popular) music means, you should read the book. That will take time, but it will be time well – and enjoyably – spent.
Perhaps the first thing to recognise is the sheer scale of Waksman's achievement. When we wrote our history of live music in the UK (Frith et al. 2013, 2019, 2021) it took four of us to cover an approximately 70-year period within one nation-state. Gratifyingly, Waksman acknowledged that work as ‘a compelling foundation on which future research can be built’ (Reference Waksman2021, p. 212). By the time he wrote that he was working alone to produce this book – a history of live music which is located in a much bigger country, covers around an additional 100 years and still manages to use less pages than us. It also took him 14 years. Hats off.
In order to cover musical activity across such a large geographic space and extended time period, Waksman effectively offers 10 case studies (although they are not labelled as such). What emerges is an academically excellent study which succeeds in telling a complex story in a compelling manner. It is also a work which draws on a hugely impressive range of sources, the enormity of which is shown by the fact that Waksman's notes alone cover 75 pages.
The book begins with Jenny Lind – ‘the Swedish Nightingale’ – performing in the USA for the first time in 1850 and ends with Beyoncé's 2018 headlining appearance at Coachella, the success of which saw the event dubbed ‘Beychella’. In between come chapters on the Postbellum Public Sphere, Vaudeville, Early Jazz, Concert Music, 1950s rock ’n’ roll (where Waksman ponders why so many people asked what the first rock ’n’ roll record was, but seemingly none when the first rock ’n’ roll concert was, p. 294), festivals, arena shows and hip hop. If this might suggest breadth at the expense of depth, then this is not the case as Waksman uses the examples to outline broader trends. Waksman dates the first use of the term ‘live music’ to 1853 (p. 14) and fascinatingly also finds a song featuring the phrase Rock and Roll being performed in 1878 (p. 292).
Our work on live music in the UK focused on the work of concert promoters – a group of people who make the live music sector work, but whose role has been somewhat overlooked in the extant literature. Here Waksman notes their importance, featuring them prominently and noting that their work ‘has long been an exercise in speculation’ (p. 429). However, as his subtitles suggest, Waksman's focus is more on performers and what happens on stage. Yet even such a focus soon becomes bound up in a lot of other considerations. Simply having a live music performance raises a number of questions including: Who are the performers? Where is that performance? (Waksman traces the use of different types of venue over the years, both indoor and outside). Who organised it? (Beginning with P.T. Barnum's work with Lind, promoters’ activities are outlined). Who is the audience? (Race is vital here and is returned to below). How much do they pay? (The US live music business is particularly commercial by most European standards and tales of commercial success and failure abound here. For example, Waksman shows how Barnum thought about prices for the Lind performances). And so on. Thus in the case of live music, beginning with a focus inevitably leads to adopting a wider lens. As Waksman himself notes, the result is ‘much more than a history of great performances’ (p. 23).
The issue of race is written large throughout, from blackface minstrelsy to perceptions of hip hop. Much of the focus here is on African-Americans, especially as performers but also as audience members in a society where the gathering together of large numbers of African-Americans has often been a cause for official concern – especially if they are also young and male. African-Americans were also deliberately excluded from concerts throughout the years, including when the performers themselves were black. The struggle of black promoters to reach the higher echelons of live music promotion are also illustrated. Issues at various times with the staging of rap gigs (especially from late 1980s) are also examined and show that concerns were often with the perceptions of the likely audiences for such shows. In addition promoters always have to imagine their audiences and can aim their shows at different racial groups. Thus, for example, Waksman charts the rise of both (white) honky tonks and the (black) ‘chittlin’ circuit’.
For Waksman to end the book with an account of headlining performance by a black American woman is highly significant here. While largely an artistic success and important for its symbolism, Waksman still expresses concern that Beyoncé's vision of black female self-empowerment is one underpinned by an ‘embrace of wealth as a sign of achievement’ (p. 559). Moreover that artistic triumph is located in a situation where the ‘live music industry is still scared of putting black performers in front of black audiences’ (p. 556). If a long road has been travelled, then there appears to still be many miles ahead and such tales make this book one which is never simply a celebration, but much more a ‘warts ’n’ all’ account.
Space hardly allows for a full discussion of race and American live music, but it should be noted that in this book race is not simply a metaphor for African-Americans. Rather, as in much else race permeates the whole organisation, performance and reception of American live music. The racial and ethnic background of performers is obviously important here, but Waksman also illustrates the importance of a number of Jewish promoters. Similarly venues’ clientele can be associated with particular minority groups. Thus in thinking of where to stage a live music event the savvy promoter has to think about who they are trying to attract and whether they can attract them to a particular venue at a particular time. As Waksman shows, the results of getting this wrong can be financially ruinous.
Another key issue in the book – within which race is also writ large – is genre. Inevitably Waksman is drawn into discussing a wide range of these – jazz, blues, folk, rock, rap. etc. – and always with both empathy and expertise. One aspect of this is, of course, venues. The history of live music is the history of where it takes place, with the broad story being of music genres starting out in venues which are not suited for them and eventually finding places which can better accommodate their acoustic aesthetics. (The location of Lind's performances caused concern, p. 67.) Moreover, venues can, we are reminded, codify and define a genre (p. 172) and festivals can do much the same (pp. 345–417).
Technology is another a key aspect here, as with Waksman's discussion of the rise of the DJ as performer, something facilitated by radio. If radio is about reaching audiences, then so are large-scale music events and here engineers such as Bill Hanley have played a key, if often unrecognised, role in determining what audiences actually hear. Waksman acknowledges the debt that such people are owed.
If audiences are often the object of technology, then audience behaviour emerges as another vital component of the live music experience. Here a key divide is whether a live music event is designed to involve silent sitting and revelling in the music itself or enthusiastic participation via such things as dancing and/or singing along (with the latter practice causing UK headlines at the time of writing). In addition, different genres have different expectations, which can also change over time as genres attract bigger (for which often read white and middle class) audiences. Moreover, disturbances involving audiences – from those at Lind shows up to modern festivals – also pervade the book, often illustrating different interpretations and expectations of an event within its audience, something which Waksman calls ‘competing ideas of cultural value’ (p. 77). Whatever the intent of the promoter and artist, different audience segments may interpret the event differently. Moreover, official concerns about workers’ behaviour during their leisure time can be seen as having a particular resonance in a country which had a period of prohibition during which live music intensified its already close relationship with illicit activity.
The theme of gender is addressed throughout and it is hardly accidental that Waksman begins and ends the book with female performers and also features them in the book's subtitle. Part of the story here is the struggle of female performances, another is the role of audiences (especially as over-enthusiastic fans such as those involved in Beatlemania) and of the provision of safe venues for female audience members. The fact that most of the key backstage personnel – promoters, agents, bookers, managers, engineers, etc. – that Waksman identifies are men also provides food for thought. Waksman again documents all of these processes in subtle and reflective ways and throughout the book the context in which the performance takes place jostles with the performance itself.
Another aspect of the book which appealed to me was the introduction of a range of characters of whom I was previously unaware of (perhaps because I am not from the USA). To be told of promoters such as Benjamin Franklin Keith and Tony Pastor, bookers like Arthur Judson and Sol Hurok and many others was to enter another world, from which I emerged much the wiser. In addition, while space also prevents the direct quotation of many of Waksman's astute observations, it should be noted that they abound throughout.
In terms of critique, one could always quibble with the choice of locations, timespan, case studies and concentration on performance. However, the choices themselves are illuminating. Meanwhile a slight irritation came with Waksman's urge – which he shares with others – to put a description of an author before their name. Thus, various authors are labelled as ‘musicologist’ (p. 41), ‘Popular music scholar’ (p. 52), ‘jazz scholar’ (p. 233) ‘philosopher’ (p. 248), ‘media scholar’ (p. 249), ‘German social theorist’ (p. 251), etc. What significance is meant to be attached to such assignations remains opaque. They seem pointless. What readers should concern themselves with is surely not how writers are designated, but whether what they are saying makes sense? But perhaps I'm just grumpy. Waksman also seems to take moral panic theory at face value and although he uses it more as an aside than a framing argument, such an approach has the potential to undermine what may actually be legitimate concerns.
However, such minor criticisms aside, this is a warmly recommended book. To tell anything like the full story here would have been an impossible task. Instead judiciously chosen examples serve to highlight broader trends and illuminate the importance of live music in American life. But not just American life. Waksman completed the book as the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily obliterated live music. His last words are: ‘Its return is essential to our recovery’ (p. 569). Amen. Moreover, many of the reasons for why that is essential can be found within these pages. Read them.
