Original title: Joseph Stern and the Rise of the Black Songwriter
Joseph Stern ran a music publishing firm with Edward Marks. Marks later said the firm helped bring Black Americans into the entertainment business on a mass scale. The article checks that claim against copyright recordsOfficial records documenting claims to ownership of creative works. and newspaper reports, finding a more complicated story: Stern was not the first or probably the most committed publisherA company or person that produces and distributes works such as songs., but by 1904 Black musicians supplied over forty percent of his new publications. The article says more publishers must be studied to see the wider picture.
Imagine a family telling the story of who did the most work on a shared meal. The story might give one person too much credit, so you check the shopping list and the notes from the day. In this paper, the family story is Marks’s account, and the records help show how much Black musicians contributed to Stern’s publications.
The article checks a publisher’s celebrated story against copyright records and newspaper reports. That matters for understanding Black musicians’ place in the music business: the evidence shows Stern’s firm became heavily reliant on their work, but it does not support the full story told by his partner.
The article’s examination focuses on Stern’s firm, so it does not establish the full picture for other publishers in the period. The abstract says the same methodology must be applied to them. It also qualifies claims about Stern, describing him as probably not the most committed publisher.
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Joseph Stern and the Rise of the Black Songwriter — William Brooks — Journal of the Society for American Music — doi:10.1017/s1752196326101540
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.