Best of the Welcome Columns


Best of the Welcome Columns

Author: Alston, Ed
Jukeboxes then….and Now

Remember jukeboxes? Those colorful and wonderfully intricate devices of your youth that played then-popular songs in your favorite pubs and diners? Well, they’re back! In a somewhat evolved form, anyway. The jukeboxes of yore – back in the electronic stone age, when portable cd players and i-pods weren’t even dreamed of – provided the primary means of sharing your favorite recordings in public places. For a mere nickel….or a dime, if you’re a bit younger than I….you could select a two- or three-minute song from a menu of about a hundred 45 RPM records. With the proper coin’s deposit, a dormant jukebox would spring to life. That’s not to say music immediately commenced. But you could observe the jukebox’s sound-prompting machinations through its wide expanse of plate glass: First, the vinyl repository would slowly rotate until it finally stopped at the requested record. Then a mechanical lever would smartly retrieve that disc, and position it on the turntable for access by a needle arm. When the arm lowered its needle onto the spinning record, the jukebox’s speakers briefly transmitted scratchy sounds. After a couple seconds the needle reached the music-laden grooves – whereupon glorious melodies magically emanated from the speakers. Voila! For a mere silver coin you could share the divine sounds of Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Shirelles, the Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, the Platters, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, the Drifters, Little Richard, et al. I suspect most folks can recall when they first heard a jukebox playing. Myself, I’ll never forget that moment. ‘Twas an evening in 1957 when I heard Sam Cooke’s singularly enchanting voice from a restaurant’s jukebox in Lincoln, Nebraska. The song was “You Send Me”, now a classic. Let’s pause for this mid-column trivia question: To win a free lunch with Rick Cornish, payable at or before our 35th annual Father’s Day Festival, be the first to name the bluegrass group that recorded “You Send Me” a cappella on its 2001 album. [And if someone can name a bluegrass group that earlier recorded a secular song a cappella, I’ll buy that lunch.] The jukeboxes of yore – along with the 45 RPM records they held – have all but disappeared. Precious few diners and pubs may still have them as artifacts of a by-gone era. But the demise of record-playing jukeboxes didn’t stop the music. During the last two or three years – maybe farther back, I don’t get out much – a new generation of jukeboxes has proliferated. This contrivance mimics the outward appearance of predecessor jukeboxes, but contains neither records nor cd’s. I’m not certain how it works. But it evidently features a computer that obtains music remotely, through an internet connection. However this new-generation jukebox works, it can access and play untold thousands of recorded songs. At this point, readers of this column might – and should! – ask whether contemporary jukeboxes can be used to play bluegrass recordings in public places. The answer, based on my semi-diligent research, is YES! But don’t get too excited, not yet. If you’re looking to hear some classic Bill Monroe or Flatt & Scruggs or the Stanley Brothers, an internet-connection jukebox will serve you well. And if you want to hear the more modern sounds of Ricky Skaggs or Alison Krauss & Union Station, you’ll do okay. But beyond those rare examples, you’re not going to find much. The latest generation of jukeboxes enables music fans to access something like 30,000 different albums….which probably equates to 300,000 different songs. My rough estimate of accessible bluegrass albums is less than 100, probably closer to 50 or 60. That means about 99.8% of all jukebox albums contain no bluegrass. Some details to keep in mind if you want to hear the high lonesome sound on internet-connection jukeboxes: No bluegrass albums appear among the 200 or so high-lighted ones on which you can play tracks for “one unit” (a unit works out to be about 40 cents, provided you deposit five or ten bucks). Tracks on the other 30,000 or so albums will cost “two units” each. Among the very best bluegrass albums, at least in terms of number of tracks available, are “Music of Bill Monroe, 1936-1994” (68 tracks), and “Stanley Brothers’ Complete Mercury Recordings” (33 tracks). At the other extreme, for Rhonda Vincent & The Rage just one album can be found – “Raging Live” (only 5 tracks available). Similarly with James King, for whom only “Lonesome and Then Some” can be accessed (just 7 tracks available). Want to hear anything by Jimmy Martin, Reno & Smiley, J. D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, or Del McCoury? If so, you’re out of luck. Incredibly, not even the Osborne Brothers are available – if you want to hear “Rocky Top”, that iconic bluegrass standard will be performed by Conway Twitty or Chet Atkins. For various-artists albums, try “O Brother Where Art Thou” (all 17 tracks available). Or “Will the Circle Be Unbroken, vol. 1 and 2”. Or “Gloryland – 30 Bluegrass Gospel Classics” (but just 6 of those 30 tracks are available). Kindred souls surely share my disappointment at these new jukeboxes’ dearth of bluegrass options. But we probably should remember that the 100-plus records contained in old-style jukeboxes generally featured nary a bluegrass song. So where we once had nothing, now we’ve got something. I’ll close with a telling anecdote, one that demonstrates the potential of such bluegrass songs as we can now access in jukeboxes. It happened when I’d flown to Nashville for the 2008 IBMA convention. The day after IBMA ended, I wandered around town with a few other members of the CBA contingent who had yet to fly home. We sought a light lunch in a pub on lower Broadway. After ordering my meal I sauntered over to the curiously idle jukebox (internet-connected variety). I’d hoped to play some bluegrass songs. But I thought twice upon seeing an ominous, hand-printed note taped to the jukebox face. It read something like this: “WARNING: PUB STAFF WILL REJECT ANY SONG YOU PICK THAT MOST OTHER PEOPLE DON’T APPRECIATE.” I consequently proceeded to select some rock-n-roll songs, ones I knew to enjoy wide popularity (e.g. by artists like Bob Seger, Elton John and Roy Orbison). However, for my final selection I chose Flatt & Scrugg’s classic “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”. And I made sure it was the original 1947 Mercury recording – I eschewed the 1968 version which had been refined somewhat, with harmonica break added, to serve as theme song for the movie “Bonnie & Clyde”. When “FMB” finally played, I was finishing my lunch. As this raw, rollicking recording ended, the pub’s waitress strode toward me with an agitated look on her face. I winced as she loudly inquired, “Are you the one who played that last song?” I gulped, and bravely nodded. The waitress replied, “Oh, thank you for playing that! It seems we NEVER get to hear bluegrass anymore.” That remark made my day in Nashville. And ever since I haven’t hesitated to invest five or ten bucks in jukeboxes elsewhere. Much as I’d like to find more bluegrass recordings offered, I’m going to share those presently available. And I’ll hope enough other bluegrass fans do likewise, so jukebox concessionaires eventually witness an ever-increasing demand for that high lonesome sound. It’d sure be nice to play some Jimmy Martin next time I’m in that Nashville pub….even if that sign is still taped to the jukebox.

Posted: 1/21/2010