ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Since this book has been over a decade in the making, there are many people to thank.
First appreciations must go to the various good people at archives around the country for their help and expertise. I began this project while at the National Humanities Center, which offers easy access to the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University. I would like to thank all the good people at the NHC, and, at the Hartman Center, Jacqueline Reid and Ellen Gartrell. I would also like to thank Suzanne Adamko and Mike Henry at the Library of American Broadcasting, University of Maryland; Richard L. Pifer at the NBC archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison; David Haberstich, Kay Peterson, and Wendy Shay at the National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; Jeanette M. Berard and Klaudia Englund at the Thousand Oaks Library in Thousand Oaks, California, repository of the Rudy Vallée Collection; Michael Oppenheim, Collections Reference Services Librarian, Rosenfeld Management Library, University of California, Los Angeles; and Gerald Fabris of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park. If I have forgotten anyone, I apologize. Librarians and archivists rule.
Deepest thanks also go to friends across the country who housed me on my trips to archives: Louise Meintjes in Durham, North Carolina, and Ron Radano and Colleen Dunlavy in Madison, Wisconsin.
Joyce Kurpiers was of great assistance more than once when I needed additional materials from the Hartman Center at Duke University. And she kindly provided me with her excellent dissertation on advertising music, which has been very helpful in writing this book.
Many students helped over the years as research assistants and music digitizers, and I would like to name them here: Rachel Adelstein, Hyun Kyong Chang, Kate Grossman, Elizabeth Keenan, Toby King, Julianne Lindberg, Maria Sonevytsky, Wyatt Stone, and Melanie Work. Liz Macy and Chloe Coventry also deserve recognition for their expert skills in transcribing the interviews.
The audio examples for which original recordings do not exist (“Hurrah for the Wonder Bakers!” and “The Cantor Cantata”) were recorded by Hyun Kyong Chang, piano, and Jeremy Mikush, tenor. The recording was engineered by Jan Stevens in his studio and coproduced by Jan and me. Thanks are due to all for bringing these old tunes back to life after many decades.
I am also indebted to Nancy Tomes, whose advice and encouragement helped a great deal when the research for this project was in its early stages at the National Humanities Center in 2000.
I am grateful for various audiences in different venues who allowed me to try out some of these chapters as presentations. I am also indebted to graduate students at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles, who took courses on the subjects represented in this book.
I am especially grateful to all those in the commercial music industry who gave me their time and shared their experiences, and I would like to name them all here: Brian Albano, Bill Backer, Georg Bissen, Andy Bloch, Anne Bryant, Marit Burch, Dan Burt, Suzanne Ciani, Randy Crenshaw, Ron Dante, Nick DiMinno, Fritz Doddy, Bernie Drayton, Roy Eaton, Herman Edel, Scott Elias, Janie Fricke, Victoria Gross, Susan Hamilton, David Horowitz, Jessica Josell, Steve Karmen, Chuck Kinsinger, Andrew Knox, Bernie Krause, Mitch Leigh, Joey Levine, Barry Manilow, Tom McFaul, Spencer Michlin, Shahin Motia, Hunter Murtaugh, Linda November, Loren Parkins, Anne Phillips, Ben Porter, Josh Rabinowitz, Sid Ramin, Artie Schroeck, Howard Schwartz, David Shapiro, Ron Smith, Marissa Steingold, Anthony Vanger, and Chris Washburne. Interviews with research subjects were approved for this study by the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects at the University of California, Los Angeles, as study number G08-06-065-02.
This research was supported by grants from the National Humanities Center and the American Council of Learned Societies in 2000, the Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship for 2004–6 from the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Academic Senate at UCLA.
Special thanks need to go to those few people who read the entire manuscript: Linda Scott, who was gracious, supportive, and extremely helpful; one anonymous reviewer for the University of Chicago Press, and the other, the unanonymous Charles McGovern, whose ideas and recommendations were most useful. Douglas Mitchell, editor extraordinaire, was a pleasure to work with, as were Tim McGovern and Renaldo Migaldi at the University of Chicago Press. Thanks also go to copy editor Susan J. Cohan.
Last and most of all, I thank Sherry B. Ortner for her many insights throughout this project, but especially for her unflagging devotion, support, advice, and dedication for, now, many years.