"When
skies are cloudy and grey
They're only grey for a day
So wrap your troubles in dreams
And dream your troubles away."
"Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams" by Koehler, Moll &
Barris
We're
at a loss, really, if we need to convert any of you to our love
for the popular music of the 1920's and 30's. Would we promote
hot music or sweet music, vaudeville songs, race records, blues,
musical comedy  and
British music hall recordings, or any of the many other styles
that flourished in the early days of radio?
Composers
and songwriters like Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Harry Warren,
the Gershwins, Dorothy Fields and countless others provided
the material that flooded the airwaves during those decades
- when musicians suddenly had a means of broadcasting their
music from coast to coast. The sort of music you may know from
the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" soundtrack was hugely
popular because of the large numbers of rural families who had
moved to the cities - but the music of the cities travelled
just as well and just as far.
In
fact the infancy of radio is the best analog we know for the
rapid establshment of the World Wide Web. Radio stations faced
new technical challenges, for one thing, but also, at the
beginning there was no real consensus as to how the new medium
would pay for itself.
 But
what we care about right now is the music itself and the way
it was packaged. Up through early radio days people were far
more likely to play music at home than we are today. When a
song was popular its sheet music sold very widely - as Irving
Berlin realized almost at once, and turned to his advantage
by publishing his own work.
Sheet
music was cheap, readily available, and popular. So in order
to keep selling it in the face of competition the publishers
packaged and branded it. Much popular music came from Broadway
shows and talking motioon pictures - so when a show or film
was released the publishers packaged all its songs in the same
format, as we can see in the Gold Diggers designs, or for "A
Little Bungalow" from the Marx Brothers' show (and later,
film) The Coconuts.
Tunes
were covered by different performers, who might be pictured
on the covers - like Joe Candullo on our "Whisting in the
Dark" cover.
And
of course many of these covers just featured striking art deco
or American Arts and Crafts designs, as does "Some Sunny
Day".
We
don't get to choose where we love. If you're going to love this
as we do, you already love it: we can't talk you into it. Go
have a look, and see for yourself.
Use
the links in the left menu, below "Sheet Music of the 20's
& 30's", to see the shirts, mugs, cards and posters.
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