Back at the Drawing Board!

Ah yes, here we are once again, putting pen and pencil to paper. This time we're setting out for the adventure that is the Tucson Zine Fest coming up in May.

The original card illustrations

My wife Christy and I are working on putting together pieces for our pop music history book project. I had started this a while back as illustrated cards but figured out that cards weren't going to get us to a final printed booklet.  The cards were put away and we have since moved on to larger portraits.

Below, work in progress of Al Jolson, our representative from 1919!

The start of the Al Jolson illustration

Though the Tucson Zine Fest is not a sure thing yet (we'll get notified at the beginning of March if we've been accepted), we'll still be producing our booklet regardless.

Also joining us at the (hopefully) Tucson Zine Fest will be our buddy Brett Hanse.  Not sure what he's contributing yet but I'm sure it'll be fun.

The 'mostly' completed Morton Harvey illo.

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1922: Fanny Brice

Fanny Brice – 1922

1891-1951

Born in New York to Hungarian Jews, Fanny Brice dropped out of school at the age of 17 and began working in a burlesque revue. Within two years she was a headliner for Ziegfeld Follies. By the early twenties Fanny had an enormous hit with the song “My Man” for Victor Records. It was around this time that she married her second husband Julius “Nicky” Arnstein who had served prison time in Sing Sing and had gang connections. Arnstein's lifestyle would return to haunt the couple as he would later be convicted of Wall Street bond theft and would again serve time in prison. Brice, at great expense, funded his legal defense. After serving three years, Arnstein was released and and left Brice and their two children. Fanny would eventually marry again but that marriage also failed. Fanny Brice continued to perform and was best know for her Baby Snooks character that she would act out on radio until the 1950's. She died in 1951 of a brain hemorrhage. The 1968 movie “Funny Girl” starring Barbara Streisand is loosely based on the life of Fanny Brice.

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1921: Marion Harris

Marion Harris – 1921

1896-1944

Marion Harris started out as a Vaudeville singer in the Midwest in the early 1910's. By 1917 she was recording music and performing on Broadway. She is by many considered one of the first women to sing blues and jazz songs written by African-American songwriters. She continued to perform on stage throughout the 1920's and began acting and singing in films. In the mid-thirties Marion Harris moved to England where she had performed at London's Cafe de Paris but her home was destroyed in a Nazi rocket attack and moved back to the states. She died tragically from burns after falling asleep in bed with a lit cigarette in April of 1944.

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1920: Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor – 1920

1892 – 1964

With an extensive career that spanned most of his life, Eddie Cantor was the pop worlds first multi-talented mega-performer that conquered stage, radio, the silver screen and television. Known as the “Apostle of Pep”, the energetic Cantor was know for his witty comedic eye-rolling song and dance routines. Born in New York city and raised by his grandmother after both of his parents died by 1902, Eddie Cantor began his career as a waiter and singing for tips at a Coney Island saloon in the early 1900's backed by Jimmy Durante on piano.  By 1907 he was performing on stage in Vaudeville. In the late teens and throughout the 20's Cantor was a top performer for Ziegfeld Follies and was performing with Will Rogers, Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields. Already he was singing hits such as “Whoopee” and “If You Knew Susie”. In 1923 he appeared in the first short sound films performing his song and dance and was the one of the era's most successful entertainers credited as a singer, songwriter, dancer, composer, actor and the highest paid comedian of the 1930's. His relentless drive and ambition kept him going through the decades, even after loosing everything in the stock market crash of 1929 and adapting to the changing mediums of radio, film and television. Through his extensive charity work Cantor helped create the March of Dimes in the 1950's  Cantor married Ida Tobias in 1914 and had five daughters together which Eddie would mention jokingly in his radio act. They were married until her death in 1962. Cantor died two years later at the age of 72.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify 

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1919: Nora Bayes

Nora Bayes – 1919

1880-1928

By the age of 18, Nora Bayes was touring Vaudeville from New York to San Francisco and became a star on Broadway. In 1908 she helped pen the popular composition “Shine On, Harvest Moon” with her first husband Jack Norworth. She would eventually marry four other times. Her popularity peaked during the war when she was the first performer to record the international hit “Over There” and performed shows for the soldiers. Nora Bayes recorded many songs up until her death from cancer in 1928. 

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify 

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1918: Al Jolson

Al Jolson – 1918

1886-1950

Influencing the likes of Bing Crosby, Bob Dylan and David Bowie, one of the first great pop sensations, Al Jolson was dubbed the “The World's Greatest Entertainer”a fact hard to dispute. Born in a small Jewish village in Lithuania around 1886 (Jolson never officially stated his date of birth), his father moved the “Yoelson” family to America in 1894. Soon after, Al and his brother Harry sang for coins on the streets of Washington DC. By 1902 Joson was performing professionally with his energetic singing and on-stage charisma drawing the attention of many producers. By 1914 he was a star on Broadway earning over $2000 a week. With his enthusiasm for Blues and Jazz, Al Jolson is credited with introducing African-American music to white audiences. Though short films with sound had appeared as early as 1922 it was Al Jolson's 1927 feature film “The Jazz Singer” that introduced the first “talkie” to the world. In that film and throughout his career, Al Jolson performed in Black Face which was, at the time, an acceptable form of entertainment but has obvious connections to racism in America. He was, by no measure, racist and in fact, help introduce African-American music to white audiences and used his celebrity status and power as the era's greatest entertainer to advocated on behalf of black musicians and performers. Jolson had entertained millions around the globe and had been the first performer to entertain troops during WWII. His death in 1950 brought out over 20,000 mourners.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1917: Enrico Caruso

Enrico Caruso – 1917

1873-1921

Enrico Caruso was an Italian opera singer who released almost 300 recording between 1902 and 1920. He recorded the hit patriotic song “Over There” in 1917. At the peak of his fame he was paid $10,000 American dollars for a single night performance in Havana Cuba. In the fall of 1920, after an accident on stage, Caruso's health quickly deteriorated. He died in August of 1921.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1916: John McCormack

John McCormack – 1916

1884-1945

Born in Ireland and studying voice in Milan, Italy, the world famous operatic tenor John McCormack performed around the world before beginning his American career in 1909. There he began to perform concerts if front of thousands earning millions from his performances and recordings. Thousands would pack venues to see McCormack perform. He made hundreds of recordings between 1904 and the 1920's. He was known for his breath control and could sing 64 notes on one breath!

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

100 Years of Popular Music - 1915: Morton Harvey

Morton Harvey – 1915

1886-1961

A vaudeville performer and singer from Omaha Nebraska, Morton Harvey was one of the earliest contracted recording artists. His recording were not best sellers but he is noted for being the first singer to record a 'blues' song. In 1915 he recorded the protest song “I didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier” which was popular with those wishing for America to stay out of World War I, but once America entered the war, the anti-war sentiments were no longer popular and Harvey's recording career ended.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1914: Arthur Collins

Arthur Collins -1914

1864-1933

Arthur Collins was an American baritone singer that recorded music from the late 1890's to the early 1920's. Growing up in Barnegat, New Jersey, Collins' parents sent him to Philadelphia for formal musical training. After his studies, Collins spent 15 years touring and performing without much long term success. After marrying actress and singer Anna Leah Connelly in 1895, Collins gave up performing to take up bookkeeping only joining an occasional production for some extra cash. Talent scouts for Edison Records auditioned Collins in May of 1898. Arthur Collins became one of the most productive and successful singers of the time and specialized in African-American dialect numbers called coon songs. He also performed caricature voices and vocal effects that left the impressions there there were multiple persons on the recording. He formed one of the first 'super-groups' called the Big Four Quartet. He is heard in this collection performing the 1914 hit “Aba Daba Honeymoon”.

100 Years of Pop Music on Spotify

The years 1914-1924

These 10 years were dominated by two things; the First World War and the beginning years of America's Prohibition. Initially, the sentiment in America was to stay out of the chaos erupting in Europe and elsewhere but with the sinking of American ships in the Atlantic the United States was drawn into the conflict in the spring of 1917. The songs of that time reflected first, the isolationist attitudes of the nation and then second, the switch to pro-war propaganda. The horrors of this War to End All Wars left the returning veterans shell-shocked, restless and bored. Rural Protestants and Social Progressives in both parties inadvertently solved their problems with the Volstead Act of 1919 making Alcoholic beverages illegal thus opening the flood gates of clandestine breweries, bootlegging, political corruption, speakeasies and the rise of the American Gangster.  This period also saw the rise of the the recording artist in pop celebrities such as Al Jolson, Ruth Etting and Eddie Cantor.

Evolution, Comics and 100 Years Of Popular Music

One of my great joys in life is discovering the evolution of elements of popular culture.

It all started when, growing up, we had in our record collection the first American Beatles album "Meet the Beatles" and "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band". I remember the day that I realized the this was one and the same band yet two entirely different expressions of music.  I was intrigued and perplexed as to how this band went from Mop-top rock-n-roll pop to some bizarrely psychedelic painted musical landscape. This lead to an exploration of the evolution of a pop band from young drunken bar room rock-n-rollers, to studio wizards - which, as it turns out, is quite the journey.

This lead to the evolution of all things 60's - from pop music, to fashion, to film, art, politics, drugs and social change; a tumultuous time of cultural evolution in a relatively short period.

I explored the same thing with Marvel Comics in the sixties.  I grew up reading these comics in the 70's with many reprinted books from the that birth of the Marvel Age of Comics.  I read a mixture of stories by Jack (The King) Kirby from his weird 70's period and odd bits from his late 60's era and was always a bit baffled as to why he was called the "King".  It wasn't until I read his early and mid-60's era books that I fully understood his well-deserved nick-name.  Kirby's artwork style evolved quite a bit from his early 40's output to his 60's explosion to his weirdly bizarre 70's productions.  Again, it was within this period between 1962 and 1970 that an intense change had taken place and I began to explore that;  when did Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's collaboration blossom, how did the Marvel Method of storytelling change the way comics were produced, what was Steve Ditko's influence during this process, when did the stories become drown out soap-operas spread out over multiple issues, the evolution of the single page splash-panels, how do all these changes tie win with the music and social upheavals of the time?  All of this can be seen within the pages of these great classic comics.

So now I'm looking at a larger picture.  How has popular music changed of the past century?  When did Jazz and Blues become an influence?  How often did white performers 'mimic' black musicians?  When did African-Americans step into the spotlight of popular music?  When did the guitar begin to become the expressive instrument of choice?  The synthesizer?  When and how often did drugs play a roll in musical style? Hundred of questions that need answering in my mind. 

So how will I be exploring that? 

I was looking for a focus for my drawing.  I love to draw but if I don't have a focus or destination then it just end up doodling away my time until I get bored.  So with this focus on 100 years of popular music, drawing a portrait of the artist that had a large influence for that year or pushed popular music forward into some uncharted direction would be my penciling pastime.  That would be 100 drawings, a long term and obtainable goal and since these would be on smaller trading card style illustration boards, quite portable and easy enough to work on at any time and at any place.

To go along with these drawings I've put together a playlist of music on Spotify (my music collection source of choice these days).  These songs stretch from 1914 through 2014.  It was a very interesting process just putting these songs together and I learned quite a bit just in that.  But I think spending a bit more time with each individual artist and time period will give me even more insight.  So the music will be available for you to listen to and I'll be posting the artists here as well as a brief something about them.

I'm pretty enthusiastic about this project and am looking forward to sharing this.