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TELL TCHAIKOVSKY THE NEWS

Rock 'n' Roll, the Labor Question, and the Musicians' Union, 1942â?"1968

Duke University Press

Solidarity Forever?

The Musicians' Union Responds to Records and Radio

I'm proud to be a union man. —NEIL YOUNG

In June 1942, the musicians' union sent the following letter to record company executives in the United States and Canada:

Gentlemen:

Your license from the American Federation of Musicians for the employment of its members in the making of musical recordings will expire on July 31, 1942, and will not be renewed. From August 1, 1942, the American Federation of Musicians will not play or contract for any other forms of mechanical reproductions of music.

Very Truly Yours, James C. Petrillo, President, American Federation of Musicians

"ALL RECORDING STOPS TODAY!" Those words ran across the front page of DownBeat magazine on August 1, 1942. The AFM was officially on strike against the recording industry. Session musicians and recording artists/ instrumentalists all across the states walked out of recording studios and stayed out for the better part of a year. The timing of the strike was particularly significant because musicians walked off the job in spite of the no-strike pledge made by the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) on behalf of all union workers while the United States was at war. The musicians remained on strike in spite of numerous demands made by President Roosevelt that they return to work in the name of "national security" and "morale." The strike of 1942 was one of the most important events in the history of the American labor movement, including such notable events as the wave of strikes in 1919, the great sit-down strikes conducted by the auto workers in 1937, and the mass strikes among textile workers in the South the same year. The recording ban was significant for the organizational power displayed by the musicians as well as for the widespread implications of their 1944 labor agreement for all workers in all industries who were threatened by management's use of technology to wrest control of the shop floor from skilled workers and to replace workers altogether, as labor-saving technology steadily and dramatically reduced the demand for labor in all areas of production.

As stated above, the main issue for the AFM during the recording ban was the loss of jobs due to technological developments in music recording technology. Tens of thousands of musicians lost their jobs in vaudeville theatres, silent movie houses and radio stations as a result of the improvement of sound recording and playback technologies that allowed radio stations to drastically cut back on their staff of live musicians, while "talkie" movies eliminated musicians from movie houses altogether. The invention of the Vitaphone by Western Electric in the 1920s made it possible to sync the sound on a sixteen-inch disc recording with images on film, allowing movie theater operators to play records to accompany films rather than use a pit orchestra, as was common practice prior to the Vitaphone. Seltzer estimates that by 1934 the application of the Vitaphone had displaced roughly 22,000 musicians, which accounted for almost a quarter of all the musicians in the United States who were employed exclusively (full-time) as musicians. Coin-operated jukeboxes also took their toll on the musicians' union. Consumer demand for records in jukeboxes grew steadily as technologies improved the sound quality in the late 1930s and 1940s. Jukeboxes provided inexpensive pleasures for working-class "hepcats" looking for places to dance to their favorite swing tunes. By the early 1940s, some 6,000 jukebox operators had roughly 400,000 jukeboxes in operation in the United States. The AFM estimated that roughly 8,000 of their members lost their jobs as a result of the introduction of jukeboxes in taverns and hotels. The demand for records also materialized in the rapid growth of home-use machines, as the number of record players manufactured for home rather than commercial application grew to 3.4 million by 1947.

The story of the recording ban in 1942 begins a few years before, at the AFM convention of 1937 in Louisville, Kentucky. It was there that rank-and-file musicians turned up the heat on their leadership in the AFM to do something about the hemorrhaging of job losses. At the musicians' union's annual convention in 1937, delegates from numerous locals began pressing President Joseph Weber to do something more aggressive about the problem of the application of sound recording technologies. Although demand for musicians remained strong in the main media centers of the country, in smaller market areas professional musicians' livelihoods were devastated by the application of the new technologies. For instance, membership in the New York (local 802) and Los Angeles (local 47–767) branches was growing as a result of the emerging recording industry that increased demand for session musicians in recording studios, but for most locals across the country, membership was down dramatically. According to Kraft, by 1936 smaller market locals like Minneapolis (local 30–73) and Atlanta (local 148–462) were half the size they were in 1928, and most other locals had membership declines of 20 to 35 percent. Weber had estimated that more than 13,000 members of the AFM were on public relief. The drastic drop in demand for musicians meant stiff competition between musicians for waged work. In 1929, for every job opening in a symphony orchestra, more than twenty musicians applied, whereas just three years earlier, symphony managers had struggled to fill such positions. Of course, the Great Depression accounted for the rise in unemployment among musicians, but the loss of jobs in movie theaters at the hands of movies with sound predated the Depression by a few years. While Weber realized the magnitude of the problem, he was slow to move toward doing something about it, angering many rank-and-file members, and this eventually led to his removal from office.

The AFM's first response to the commercial use of mechanical recordings in the late 1920s was to conduct a public relations campaign that touted the superior quality of live music over recorded music. Weber made this argument on the grounds that records simply sounded bad. He did not foresee the radical improvements made possible by electronic recording technology. For the consumer of music looking for quality entertainment, it was argued by the AFM leadership that there was no doubting the priority of live music to records.

The AFM's public relations strategy had two other dimensions. First, it was claimed that the cultural experience of live music was a far more enriching and "uplifting" experience than listening to "canned" music. The strategic move here was to appeal to high-culture sensibilities; the desire among music listeners to ascend the cultural status ladder was targeted as a way to try to boost consumer demand for live music. This particular strategy was part of the union's history of positioning itself as a taste-making institution, "educating" the "masses" on matters of music as art. Here, Weber was arguing a case for what Walter Benjamin refers to as the cultural significance of the "aura," or the presence and authenticity of the piece of music that follows from the specificity of time and place of the live music performance. However, in opposition to the position taken by cultural theorists like Benjamin, Weber took the position that maintaining the "aura" of live music is an important cornerstone in the protection and advancement of "culture." He made this case in two ways: on the one hand, he argued that the public would benefit from the experience of listening to live music—jazz and classical music in particular. It was argued that live performances of music were educational because they allowed people who lacked cultural capital to develop the skills necessary to understand and adequately experience "true" art. Once educated, music consumers would be able to begin the accumulation of cultural capital and climb the status ladder. Recorded music, on the other hand, was portrayed by Weber and the union's leadership as a simulacrum, lacking aesthetic value, a poor substitute for the real thing. The mechanical reproduction of the work of music was a "perversion, which constituted a fatal blow to musical culture," the union insisted.

Second, the AFM argued that it was in the national interest to protect musicians from the threat of recorded music. It was claimed that if records reduce the demand for live music and if, consequently, potentially talented musicians find that they cannot make a living playing music because there is no demand for their labor, then music with true aesthetic value ceases to exist, which in turn leads to the decline of high art and the degradation of civilization into moral depravity. It was on these grounds that Weber argued that America could not afford to allow its most promising musicians to fail. He appealed to nationalism and the desire for upward mobility. True patriots, according to Weber, would never allow the culture of their nation to degenerate, and individuals who desire access to the discourse of the middle and/or upper class must first learn how to recognize authentic art. Knowing the difference between "art" and "entertainment" is a principal ritual of upward mobility in the American class structure. The musicians' union's first strategy to save their jobs was to appeal to that ritual tradition.

It is important to note that Weber didn't believe that it was realistic or desirable to resist the advancement of sound recording technology, which he saw as inevitable. Rather, for Weber, the musicians, like all workers, had to find ways to adapt to the new technologies. "The development of machinery cannot be hindered," argued Weber in 1930. "There is no force on earth—or ever will be—able to do this." The task was to negotiate an arrangement with record companies that could be beneficial to both labor and capital. The question was: which strategy should the union pursue, a strike or some other means? Weber sought to appeal to the public interest as a means to gain leverage in AFM negotiations with employers rather than use the threat of strike. Rather than risk the perceived possibility that union members would simply be fired if they went on strike, Weber hoped to build up public support for the AFM in the hope that public pressure would bring record companies to the bargaining table.

Weber's position was in stark contrast to James Petrillo, who at that time was president of Local 10 in Chicago but would eventually replace Weber as AFM president. Petrillo was calling for a ban on recording as a means to create a bargaining chip with the record companies. Petrillo and his circle in Chicago felt that it was absurd for one group of union members to put another group out of work, which was essentially the case with session musicians working in recording studios who were making it possible to eliminate the jobs of other musicians who played either on radio or in live venues like taverns, hotels, and movie houses. Weber didn't have the confidence that Petrillo had, since he was concerned that the union might be defeated if they went on strike and that defeat would end in disaster. Accordingly, Weber's strategy was to pursue a publicity campaign on behalf of the superiority of live music, because he thought consumers of music would agree that live music was better than canned music. Ultimately, Weber and other leaders in the musicians' union believed that in the long run there wouldn't be any conflict between records and live music, since they believed that records would be a passing fad, more a curiosity for hobby enthusiasts than legitimate entertainment. Weber was not alone in this belief. Many professional musicians—with the exception of Petrillo and his circle—believed records were a temporary craze. For example, members of the Los Angeles Theater Organists' Club believed that mechanical music would never be a viable money-making enterprise, claiming that owners of theaters that played "talkie" movies would "lose their shirts in this latest folly." Organist Gaylord Carter said, "We thought it [talkies] was just a fad ... we all thought it would pass."

In late 1929, the AFM embarked on an advertising campaign to boost demand for live music, a campaign that cost them close to $1 million. Rather than take control of the issue at the point of production via a strike, as Petrillo had already done in Chicago, Weber's plan was to give consumers the power to save live music. Indeed, Weber claimed that he would "spare no expense" in his appeal to consumers. Most of the money was spent on advertising space in 798 newspapers and 24 magazines. In the ads, the AFM warned about the impending doom associated with the "debasement" of art if live music were to fall victim to recorded music. The AFM also appealed to the federal government to save live music, in order to preserve a legitimate, robust national culture. Writing to the Federal Radio Commission in 1929, the union argued that "the invasion of the radio field by canned music is destroying the advancement of art at its base by depriving musicians of the necessary means of livelihood." It seemed at first that the ad campaign was gaining momentum since many of the newspapers that ran the ads also supported the AFM with editorials that argued for the superior cultural value of live music. Part of the advertising campaign involved the establishment of the Music Defense League, an organization created by the AFM for the public. The union printed membership coupons inside their ads so that anyone concerned with saving live music could clip the coupon from the ad, sign it, mail it to the union, and become members of the League. In all, the union collected over 3 million membership coupons, which led Weber to argue that he had made the right choice in rejecting the plan to organize a general strike on the recording industry.

Meanwhile in Chicago, Petrillo began to make it public that the Chicago local would pursue a recording ban in the city if necessary. On New Year's Eve in 1931, Petrillo threatened to call a strike on local radio stations, which led to a minor victory as radio stations agreed to terms with the local before a strike materialized. In 1935, Petrillo was able to get radio stations in Chicago to agree to keep full staff orchestras on hand, as well as to agree to destroy some records after just one use. In addition to music, the other main use of records on radio was advertising; most radio stations used recorded "transcriptions," which were recorded commercials that often used music. Petrillo was able to get Chicago stations to use these recordings one time only, discarding them after one airplay. This was Petrillo's first attempt to find a way to regulate the use of records on radio. In 1936, Petrillo also led a nationwide legal campaign by the AFM, which brought a series of lawsuits that attempted to establish the rights of musicians to restrict the use of commercial recordings to "in-house use only," a legal strategy that mirrored the successful regulation of the use of records in Chicago.

Petrillo's reputation for not backing down from fights made him a popular figure in the union. He always considered himself a union man first and a musician second. He did play the trumpet, but he described himself as a mediocre musician who was better suited to negotiating labor contracts with employers than playing trumpet. Petrillo had also been a saloon owner and a cigar stand owner, which gave him a familiarity with the harshness of street life, a skill set that he used effectively in his negotiations with management in the broadcasting and recording industries.

By the mid-1930s, in spite of the positive response to the Music Defense League, the AFM lost an additional 4,100 jobs nationwide since the beginning of the ad campaign for saving live music. The campaign did relatively little to stem the tide of massive job losses. As a result, Petrillo's circle in the union was attracting more attention and more followers. In 1937, Petrillo had successfully led a recording ban in Chicago, which contributed to a growing militancy among the rank-and-file at the union's 1937 convention, forcing Weber to take a more militant stand. Many proposals for action were considered at the convention, ranging from striking radio and/or the record companies, to enforcing minimum size limits for staff orchestras at radio stations, a system that would impose a tariff on affiliate stations that carried network shows, to the creation of a royalty system for the union that was based on record sales. Weber's tenure as union president was becoming tenuous as early as 1934, when the union lost 50,000 members and $60,000 of annual revenue as a result of declining membership, which was down to around 100,000. Weber did take a more aggressive posture at the convention by hinting he would be willing to consider using the strike. He was pushed in that direction because more and more locals like Local 174 in New Orleans were backing Petrillo's call for an industry-wide recording ban. Weber moved cautiously by exploring the strike option in radio before a strike on the recording industry. He argued that if radio stations did not maintain staff orchestras, the AFM should strike all of radio. But a ban on recording was already underway in other locals besides Chicago, including Local 802 in New York. Both locals required their members not to take recording engagements in their jurisdictions, a sign that Weber was beginning to lose control of the international.

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Excerpted from TELL TCHAIKOVSKY THE NEWS by MICHAEL JAMES ROBERTS. Copyright © 2014 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
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