George Martin On Record

How records put spin on musical history

Originally published in Current, March 24, 2008
By Katy June-Friesen

In 1900, if you wanted to hear a favorite song, you most likely bought piano sheet music. By the early 1920s, you could buy a record of Bessie Smith or tune in to the National Barn Dance radio show.

Recording technology brought music to the masses. It determined what people heard, and how. On Record: The Soundtrack of Our Lives, an eight-hour cultural history of America’s popular music hosted by Beatles producer Sir George Martin and narrated by Kevin Spacey, will revisit this technology. The series comes to PBS in 2010.

Beginning with Edison’s 1877 phonograph cylinders and ending with digital files, the series will link recording to musical and social trends, such as how records popularized country music in the 1930s, how the rise of teen culture fueled rock ’n roll, and how listening to music across the color line helped pave the way for the civil rights movement.

The series has the potential to be “one of those season-defining tent-pole series” that appeals to viewers old and young, says John Wilson, senior v.p. of programming.

PBS announced the deal last month after discussing it over several years with Wildheart Entertainment, a company founded for the project and headed up by Maxim Langstaff, who has produced music events for Martin and John Denver. Funded primarily through private equity, Wildheart has a partnership with EMI Music and will soon announce other partners — including an international broadcaster. On Record continues a popular music-in-culture strand that has included The Blues and American Roots Music, says Wilson, but On Record’s technological focus sets it apart.

Recording technology was pioneered in the U.S., and Langstaff wants to bring this history to youngsters. He believes they see music as “data just to be transferred across computers, among friends, through social websites,” and they don’t have a full concept of the creativity and labor that goes into producing it. In the ’60s and ’70s, he remembers listening to new records over and over and poring over the liner notes.

On Record aims to illuminate—for all ages—how albums are made and genres have developed. Langstaff hopes the people who still love Rosemary Clooney will understand more about the work of Jay-Z.

Changes in recording technology and the music marketplace have shaped the sounds distributed in each period. In the 1920s, for example, competition from live radio programs forced recording execs to scout new markets, such as the blues, and the female blues voice — think Ma Rainey — survived the limitations of 78 rpm records. Mid-century, multitracking changed what was possible in the editing booth. MTV’s visuals changed the job description of recording stars.

Power brokers in the recording business — including some “amazingly nefarious characters,” Langstaff says — molded artists and genres for commercial appeal. “We didn’t get the music we got because it was the best music, or the music everybody liked the most,” he says.

What Americans heard was indicative of the country’s diverse immigrant culture. “All the music we think of today as American was sourced from other places,” says Langstaff. Later, the Beatles—a strong presence in On Record—took this recorded music, reinvented it and brought it back to America, he says. “They were absorbing this music that had been percolating . . . in the Appalachian Mountains or West Texas or the deep South,” he says.

On Record will be more of a narrative “tapestry” than a linear chronicle, Lanstaff says, relying more on interviews with well-known musicians than talking-head experts. To tell a fast-moving, “three-dimensional” story, Wildheart will use green-screen technology to play images and footage behind interviewees as they speak.

Wilson thinks the series will attract all ages but especially baby boomers who grew up with rock. Martin, he surmises, will draw new viewers to pubTV. Producers also plan to create a radio program based on the series.

And PBS has secured rights to create educational modules, bringing the musical life of the past into today’s classrooms. That’s one reason, Langstaff says, why Wildheart wanted to work with PBS instead of HBO or the BBC. “What better way to understand your history,” he says, “than through music?”