Everybody's doin' it: sex, music, and dance in New York, 1840-1917
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Popular music -- New York (State) -- New York -- 1911-1920 -- History and criticism
Popular music -- New York (State) -- New York -- To 1901 -- History and criticism
Popular music -- Social aspects -- New York (State) -- New York -- History
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Published Reviews
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this explosive history of sex, music, and dance in New York City, Cockrell (Demons of Disorder) details an "underworld in which legions of lower-class blacks and whites danced madly to wild music-making in the search for joy and escape." In the 1840s, the city's dance halls and saloons were a hotbed of prostitution-and musicians fanned the flames. Outraged reformers, investigators, preachers, and politicians fought vice by implementing license requirements for liquor and entertainment, dry Sundays, and a ban on serving booze where live music was performed. But by the Civil War, commercialized sex was the city's second-largest industry, with 400-plus musicians playing in bars and brothels. By the turn of the century, heavily syncopated ragtime was moving young New Yorkers, as Cockrell writes enthusiastically, "in fresh, sexy, uninhibited ways"; "tough dances" such as the hug-me-tight, the Bowery glide, and the turkey trot became ubiquitous. In 1913, a whopping 1,300 musicians were playing the circuit. Then came 1917, when the onset of WWI led the War Department to crack down on the so-called tenderloin districts: musicians lost gigs, and duos such as Vernon and Irene Castle performed sterilized versions of popular dances. Cockrell's fascinating story and soundtrack of disorderly old Gotham will delight New York City historians and music buffs alike. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
In Demons of Desire: Blackface Minstrels and Their World, Cockrell (emeritus, musicology, Vanderbilt Univ.) investigated the effects of race and class on the early American stage. Here the author trains a spotlight on the influence of sex, race, and class on American popular music and dance in the 19th and early 20th centuries and discusses how the rise of prostitution in New York "encouraged dancing made rowdy by wild music," affected the development of musical styles, and gave many artists a way to make a living. Ragtime and jazz didn't happen in a vacuum but in a colorful and often lawless world of dance halls, saloons, brothels, and dives. Primary sources ranging from police reports and contemporaneous accounts to period illustrations and song lyrics effectively depict the denizens of this demimonde. It all makes for an absorbing exploration of a tumultuous time in our cultural and social history. VERDICT Readers interested in the period will appreciate this lively look at the origins of American popular music and dance.--Carolyn M. Mulac, Chicago
Kirkus Book Review
A history of the hot music and provocative dancing that lit up the Gilded Age.Cockrell (Emeritus, Musicology/Vanderbilt Univ.; Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World, 1997) offers a colorful panorama of New York City nightlife from 1840 until the start of World War I. In the mid-19th century, music became wild: "exhilarating rhythms, a brassy sound, the thumping bass, and sinuous melodies" responded toand incitednew dance crazes that swept the nation. Young people, and especially lower-class patrons, flocked to dance halls, a cheap and alluring form of entertainment, where they "tough danced," a term applied to energetic dances such as "the walk back, the hug-me-tight, the lovers' two-step" and sexy animal dances, such as the bunny hug, kangaroo squeeze, jackass step, and the grizzly bear. All of them gave men and women a chance to embrace, gyrate their bodies, and twirl madly. In 1909, Cockrell discovered, 95 percent of young working-class women in New York went to dance halls, some every night, most at least once a week. "Shaking of hips, shimmying, twisting, and thrusting of the lower body were all parts of the accepted repertoire of moves," writes the author. Sex was in the air: in music, dancing, and prostitution, which flourished in dance halls and saloons, inspiring determined private and public reform efforts. Drawing on newspaper reports, court records, song lyrics, reform tracts, and travel guides, among many other sources, Cockrell fashions an abundantly populated narrative featuring musical performers and composers (Irving Berlin, for one, whose hit song gives the book its title), dancers, club owners, madams, prostitutes, gangsters, reformers, preachers, policemen, politicians, and exuberant patrons of dance halls, bars, and saloonssome of which served special clienteles. "Dive," for example, was a term for a saloon frequented by blacks and whites, located in "below-sidewalk cellars"; when "dive" became applied more broadly to disreputable venues, Black-and-Tan came to refer to racially integrated establishments; and the Slide catered to gay men and women.A well-researched and spirited cultural history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Reviews
In Demons of Desire: Blackface Minstrels and Their World, Cockrell (emeritus, musicology, Vanderbilt Univ.) investigated the effects of race and class on the early American stage. Here the author trains a spotlight on the influence of sex, race, and class on American popular music and dance in the 19th and early 20th centuries and discusses how the rise of prostitution in New York "encouraged dancing made rowdy by wild music," affected the development of musical styles, and gave many artists a way to make a living. Ragtime and jazz didn't happen in a vacuum but in a colorful and often lawless world of dance halls, saloons, brothels, and dives. Primary sources ranging from police reports and contemporaneous accounts to period illustrations and song lyrics effectively depict the denizens of this demimonde. It all makes for an absorbing exploration of a tumultuous time in our cultural and social history. VERDICT Readers interested in the period will appreciate this lively look at the origins of American popular music and dance.—Carolyn M. Mulac, Chicago
Copyright 2019 Library Journal.Publishers Weekly Reviews
In this explosive history of sex, music, and dance in New York City, Cockrell (Demons of Disorder) details an "underworld in which legions of lower-class blacks and whites danced madly to wild music-making in the search for joy and escape." In the 1840s, the city's dance halls and saloons were a hotbed of prostitution—and musicians fanned the flames. Outraged reformers, investigators, preachers, and politicians fought vice by implementing license requirements for liquor and entertainment, dry Sundays, and a ban on serving booze where live music was performed. But by the Civil War, commercialized sex was the city's second-largest industry, with 400-plus musicians playing in bars and brothels. By the turn of the century, heavily syncopated ragtime was moving young New Yorkers, as Cockrell writes enthusiastically, "in fresh, sexy, uninhibited ways"; "tough dances" such as the hug-me-tight, the Bowery glide, and the turkey trot became ubiquitous. In 1913, a whopping 1,300 musicians were playing the circuit. Then came 1917, when the onset of WWI led the War Department to crack down on the so-called tenderloin districts: musicians lost gigs, and duos such as Vernon and Irene Castle performed sterilized versions of popular dances. Cockrell's fascinating story and soundtrack of disorderly old Gotham will delight New York City historians and music buffs alike. (Aug.)
Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly.