1942-44 musicians' strike

On August 1, 1942, the American Federation of Musicians, at the instigation of union president James Petrillo, started a strike against the major American recording companies because of disagreements over royalty payments. Beginning at midnight, July 31, no union musician could record for any record company.

The strike did not affect musicians performing on live radio shows, in concerts, or, after October 27, 1943, on special recordings made by the record companies for V-Discs for distribution to the armed forces fighting World War II, because V–Discs were not available to the general public.

Background to the strike

Petrillo had long thought that recording companies should pay royalties. As head of the Chicago local chapter of the union in 1937 he had organized a strike there. In June 1942, he was elected president of the national union at the national convention in Dallas. He got the delegates' support for a strike at the convention.

When he announced that the recording ban would start at midnight, July 31, 1942, most people thought it would not happen. America had just entered World War II on December 18, 1941 and most newspapers opposed the ban. By July it was clear that the ban would take place and record companies began to stockpile new recording of their big names. In the first two weeks of July, these performers recorded new material: Tommy Dorsey, Bing Crosby, Charlie Barnet, Jimmy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, and Glen Miller, who recorded his last records as a civilian bandleader. Recording during the last week was a long list of performers, including Count Basie, Woody Herman, Alvino Ray, Johnny Long, Claude Thornhill, Judy Garland, Crosby (again), Glen Gray, Benny Goodman, Kay Kyser, Dinah Shore, Spike Jones, and Duke Ellington, among others. [Peter A Soderbergh, "Olde Records Price Guide 1900–1947", Wallace–Homestead Book Company, Des Moines, Iowa, 1980, pp.136–137]

During the strike

At first, the record companies could release these new recordings to meet listeners’ needs from their stockpile, but eventually this supply was exhausted. The companies also released earlier recordings that had not been already released and re–released records from their back catalogue, including some from as far back as the mid-1920s (the dawn of the electrical recording era). One re–release that was especially successful was Columbia’s release of Harry James’ "All or Nothing at All", recorded in August 1939 and released before James' new vocalist, Frank Sinatra, had made a name for himself. The original release didn’t even mention the vocalist’s name. When the recording was re–released in 1943 with Sinatra’s name prominently displayed, the record was on the best–selling list for 18 weeks and reached number 2 on June 2, 1943. [ Richard Peters, "Frank Sinatra Scrapbook", St. Martins Press, New York, 1982, pp. 123, 157. ]

As the strike extended into 1943, record companies bypassed the striking musicians by recording their popular vocalists singing with vocal groups filling the backup role normally filled by orchestras. Some of the recordings made this way included:
*"Goodbye Sue" by Perry Como
*"Have I Stayed Away Too Long?" by Perry Como
*"Lili Marlene" by Perry Como
*"Long Ago And Far Away" by Perry Como
*"Sunday, Monday, or Always"
** by Bing Crosby
** by Frank Sinatra
*"You'll Never Know"
** by Frank Sinatra
** by Dick Haymes

Frank Sinatra was a special case. He left the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1942 and signed with Columbia on June 1, 1943, with the strike ten months old. And while no new records had been issued during the strike, he had been performing on the radio (on "Your Hit Parade", and on stage—his historic smash opening at New York's Paramount Theater occurred December 31, 1942. Columbia wanted to get new recordings of their growing star as fast as possible, so Sinatra convinced them to hire Alec Wilder as arranger and conductor for several sessions with a vocal group called the Bobby Tucker Singers. These first sessions were on June 7, June 22, August 5, and November 10, 1943. Of the nine songs recorded during these sessions, seven charted on the best–selling list. [ (CD booklet), "Frank Sinatra: The Columbia Years: 1943–1952, The Complete Recordings Vol. 1", 1993]

Ending the strike

Some recording companies did not have an extensive backlog of recordings and they settled with the union after just over a year. Decca Records settled in September, 1943 followed shortly by the new Capitol Records, in October 1943. Capitol had only issued its first records on July 1, 1942, 30 days before the strike began. The two largest companies, Victor and Columbia, held out for another year, but then settled on Armistice Day, November 11, 1944. [Soderbergh, p.138]

Consequences of the strike for record companies

Over the long term the record companies were not hurt by the strike. In 1941, 127 million records were sold; two years after the strike, that number jumped to 275 million in 1946 and it jumped higher in 1947 to 400 million. [Soderbergh, p.139]

Unexpected consequences

Decline of the Big Bands

One unexpected result of the strike was the decline of the importance in popular music of the big bands of the 1930s and early 1940s. The strike was not the only cause of this decline, but it emphasized the shift from big bands with an accompaning vocalist to an emphasis on the vocalist, with the exclusion of the band. In the 1930s and pre–strike 1940s, big bands dominated popular music; after the strike, vocalists dominated popular music.

During the strike, vocalists could and did record without musicians; musicians could not record for the public at all. As historian Peter Soderbergh put it, ”Until the war most singers were props. After the war they became the stars and the role of the bands was gradually subordinated.” [Soderbergh, p.139]

It should be pointed out that before the strike began there were signs that the increasing popularity of singers was beginning to reshape the big bands. When Frank Sinatra joined Tommy Dorsey’s band in 1940, most selections started with a Tommy Dorsey solo. By the time Sinatra left in 1942, his songs with the band began with his singing, followed by any solos by Dorsey or others.

Some critics see the defining moment in the shift to be Sinatra’s performance with Benny Goodman and his Orchestra at New York’s Paramount Theater December 30, 1942. Sinatra was third–billed on the program and although he was America’s most popular singer, Goodman had never heard of him. Goodman announced him and the audience roared and shrieked for five minutes. Goodman’s response was, ”What the hell was that?” Once Sinatra started to sing, the audience continued to shriek during every song. As a saxophone player said, ”When Frank hit that screaming bunch of kids, the big bands just went right into the background.” [Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, "Jazz: A History of America's Music" Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 311 ]

The other major cause of the decline of the big bands is World War II itself—and the resulting loss of band members to the military, curtailment of traveling by touring bands because of gasoline rationing, and a shortage of the shelac used to make records.

Lack of recordings of early bebop

A second consequence of the ban on recording was that a new musical style, known later as Bebop, developed by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and others during the period of the strike, was not recorded and was not available to the general public. James Lincoln Collier says, "By about 1942 it was clear to musicians that here was something more than mere experimentation. Here was a new kind of music. Unfortunately, we cannot pinpoint these developments [because of the strike] . As a result there are few commercial recordings of any of the bob players during the years they were working out their innovations." [ James Lincoln Collier, "The Making of Jazz", Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1978, P.355. ] As Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns put it in "Jazz: A History of America's Music“, "And so, except for a handful dedicated collaborators and a few devoted fans, the new music Parker and Gillespie and their cohorts were developing remained largely a secret". [ Ward and Burns, p. 310 ]

Notes

External references

*Reproduction of [http://www.swingmusic.net/Big_Band_Era_Recording_Ban_Of_1942.html Down Beat magazine article on the start of strike]