Vintage 40's week: Day 2: 40's music

So I am obsessed with music and everything music related, and I truly believe that music is a great indicator of a nation's culture and status, and the 1940's music definitely showed a lot about the era.
True, there was a war, but the public morale needed to be lifted and that was the job of musicians and entertainers. So you can definitely feel the uplifting vibe in the music....

 Many music genres thrived during that era.  Electric blues, hard bop, serial music, folk opera, country swing, and show jazz were all innovations of the decade, as well as an increased use of the electric guitar. And the boundaries between genres were quite fluid , so musicians would swap genres or incorporate parts of a different genre into their own giving birth to such diversity which was probably seen for the first time during that decade. 

A big genre in that era is "swing" which is a sub genre of Jazz. It quickly became the most popular music genre of the 40's as it spread across the US and the world and actually becoming quite characteristic of the decade as well ( to really get a feel of 1940's music, simply think of the "Tom&Jerry" soundtrack). The 1940's definitely were at the heart of the swing dance era and during that decade was the appearance of the Lindy Hop which quickly became very popular and was pretty much the dance during the 40's and the 50's. The Lindy hop was actually the original swing dance.




Did you know??

• Disney's "When you wish upon a star" was also written and released in the 1940's. and it became the "official" Disney song we all know.
• The first episode of one of my favorite cartoons: "Tom and Jerry" was showed in 1940.

• The 1940's also saw the release of many classic Disney movies such as "Bambi" , "Pinocchio" , "Peter pan" , "Alice in Wonderland" and "Dumbo"       

The most famous singers of the 1940's:


Vera Lynn, Bing Crosby, The Andrew sisters, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Nat King Cole.


And just to give a nice 40's feel....
here's a link to an online 1940's jukebox containing a selection of the era's biggest hits.. go and check it out:
http://upchucky.com/JukeCity/40s/OldJukes/40splayer.htm

The 1940's was definitely a good era for music and you totally feel it's richness and characteristic mood. Chapeau to the great artists of the 40's, your art remains an influence to this day.....

So I hope you enjoyed today's post and stay tuned for tomorrow's post about 1940's slang..
take care

Rue