274 PART 3 | FROM WORLD WAR I THROUGH WORLD WAR II
a second guitar or a fi ddle, resembling the string band sound. Sometimes he is
accompanied by a steel guitar: a guitar modifi ed so the strings are well above
the fi ngerboard, held in the lap and played with a metal slide held in the left
hand. This instrument, also called a Hawaiian guitar, was popularized on the
mainland by Hawaiian musicians who toured in vaudeville and tent-rep shows,
such as Joe Kaipo, who recorded several songs with Rodgers.
Other Rodgers records use jazz instrumentation; in “Blue Yodel no. 9
(Standing on the Corner),” his singing and yodeling are accompanied by Louis
Armstrong on cornet. Collaborations between white and black musicians were
rather unusual on records at that time and virtually never seen on stage. Putting
Armstrong and Rodgers together was the brainstorm of Ralph Peer, who made
his money in both hillbilly and race records.
Rodgers recorded for only six years before succumbing to tuberculosis. By the
time he died in 1933, country music had established itself as a signifi cant part of
the record industry. Its second decade would build on the successes of Rodgers
and the Carter Family, continuing the styles they pioneered and adding new ones.THE CLASSIC AMERICAN POPULAR SONG
A key requirement for a hit show tune was its ability not only to function dra-
matically in its original stage setting but also to stand on its own. The fi rst quality—
dramatic suitability—links musical comedy to opera and operetta, though in fact
the early musicals place only the lightest dramatic demands on their songs, as
the case of Sinbad and its interpolations suggests (see chapter 10). As an inde-
pendent song, a show tune might achieve hit status by exhibiting the best quali-
ties of any other popular song of the time: simplicity, memorability, just enough
distinctiveness, and a lyrical subject that audiences found interesting. Like Tin
Pan Alley, Broadway embraced ragtime. And with the rise of the blues, popular
song and the musical found a new means of expressivity. From the 1920s until
well after World War II, many popular songs would display some degree of blues
infl uence.
The best show tunes of that period have escaped the usual fate of the popular
song by surviving to the present day as so-called standards in the repertories of
jazz and cabaret singers and instrumentalists. Because these songs have proven to
have enduring value for so many people, the period from the 1920s through the
early 1950s is sometimes called the golden era of the classic American popular
song, a term practically synonymous with “standard.” Not every standard began
life as a show tune, but most of them did. Their longevity stands in stark contrast
to the short lives of most of the shows that launched them. For that to change,
a show’s songs needed to be part of a larger artistic vision. A landmark musical,
perhaps the fi rst to generate multiple hits and sustain a long life on the stage, is
Show Boat (1927).MUSICAL COMEDY MEETS OPERETTA: SHOW BOAT
An example of the new up-to-date musical comedy of the 1920s was Lady Be Good!
(1924), with songs by George and Ira Gershwin. The lighthearted tale about a stage
brother and sister featured dancer and singer Fred Astaire and his real-life sister,steel guitarstandards172028_11_254-279_r3_ko.indd 274 23/01/13 8:42 PM