American Music Timeline - 1900-1920
Part III: 1900-1920 |
by David Johnson
1900 | 1904 | 1907 | 1911 | 1912 | 1916 | Next: The Twenties | |
1900 | Symphony Hall built in Boston |
1900 | "Country" music of southeastern U.S. features guitar, fiddle banjo, harmonica - direct descendant of English, Scottish, Irish ballads, folk songs "Western" musical genre spreads through western states, features steel guitars and large bands; singing cowboys Based on Mississippi River boat music and black, French, Spanish piano music, jazz develops in New Orleans brothels, honky-tonk bars |
1904 | George M. Cohan's musical play, Little Johnny Jones, followed by Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, 1906, help create indigenous American musical theater |
1907 | Florenz Ziegfeld launches Ziegfeld Follies, elaborate musical stage shows, through 1931, starring such performers as Billie Burke, Fannie Brice, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers |
1911 | Popular songwriter Irving Berlin completes "Alexander's Ragtime Band," his first hit; culmination of ragtime craze |
1912 | Composer, band leader, "father of the blues," William Christopher Handy publishes Memphis Blues, helps inaugurate new style based on rural black folk music |
1916 | President Woodrow Wilson issues executive order making "The Star-Spangled Banner" the national anthem. Congress confirms it, 1931 Charles Albert Tindley, first black gospel composer to be published, releases New Songs of Paradise, collection of 37 gospel works |