An Introduction to America’s Music

164

F

ollowing the Civil War, the United States underwent a transformation

from a primarily agricultural to a primarily industrial economy. Cities

grew, while the proportion of people living in rural areas shrank. The

public sphere became more commercialized, with greater emphasis on nation-

ally distributed consumer goods. In the face of these changes, music continued

to assert traditional small-town values and the tenets of old-time religion, even

as the means for producing and disseminating that music were changing. This

chapter describes some key features of that transformation: the professionaliza-

tion of the wind band, the origins of gospel hymns patterned on popular song,

the rise of the phonograph and vaudeville as new ways to popularize music, and

the consolidation of the popular music industry in New York City.

BAND MUSIC AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

In August 1898 a newspaper in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, carried a poem that

declared the Keystone Band of Lake Como, in the state’s northeast corner, one of

the town’s chief assets.

The grand old town of Como lies resting ’neath the hills,

W hile its waters run on daily, in quiet rippling rills;

And its sights and scenes are glorious—in fact, are simply grand,

But there’s one thing does excel all else—it’s the music of its band.

Local pride stands behind this glimpse of an amateur group that played for sum-

mer picnics, winter entertainments, and civic occasions as they arose. People

outside Lake Como may not have thought much of the Keystone Band, but the

group was valued at home because the isolation of rural towns encouraged self-

suffi ciency. Local bands affi rmed local self-respect. In newspapers of the time,

there are almost no critical reviews of any band performance.

The Keystone Band stands in a line that began in the 1700s with local militia

bands, blossomed during the Civil War into a national patriotic movement, and

continued as an amateur pastime even after elite professional wind bands came

into prominence (see chapters 2 and 5). The professional band, directed in the

CHAPTER

7

“AFTER THE BALL”

Band Music, Gospel Hymns, and

Popular Songs after the Civil War

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