1940s! Billboards & Broadway!
The early 40’s were years ravaged by war. Propaganda lined the streets, and young men shipped off overseas to fight for freedom. While all of this went on, music took no time to rest in it’s constant evolution. Wartime music seized the airwaves and captivated the listeners back home and on the battlefield. The music of the time was written with what seems like two purposes: to distract peoples from the hardships of wartime, and to boost morale. Songs such as “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” or “Chatanooga Choo Choo” thoroughly encompass the big-band vibe of the 1940’s. These songs were full of big brass and drums that you could dance your heart out to, keeping clubs bustling with activity and giving people a few minutes at a time to dance away their worries.
Now you can’t touch on the 1940’s without a tip of the hat to the crooners of the period, like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra. Men like this were known as “Radio Favorite’s” and really blew into popularity when the big-band craze ended after the war. Their silky smooth voices melted the hearts of women and was essentially the pop music of the day. Crosby’s “Swinging on a Star” contains some of the band elements of the early 40’s, but is a lot more laid back with light vocal content you can smile and tap your feet to.
After the war, music began taking a more positive turn with other lighthearted songs like “Rum and Coca-Cola” or “My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time”, both songs with instrumental aspects to it but telling more of a story lyrically that a lot of the wartime boogie tunes.
In 1943, a musical that was sure to be a flop was in the making, being written under the name “Away We Go”. The show hit Broadway March 31st 1943 under the name Oklahoma! and was to be one of the most innovative musicals released, with over 2000 performances over the next 15 years. The show was very risky, considering this would be the first production Richard Rodgers would write without his partner Lorenz Hart. Hart became an alcoholic and had many personal problems preventing him from writing in 1942. The show had no big name actors in it, and strayed away from traditional musicals in a way that the music and dance was integrated into storytelling rather than to be a spectacle. Instead of opening with a bang, the show started with a lone cowboy singing about corn and meadows.