- Record companies begin more fiercely competing for radio airtime. [406]
- The first radio stations aimed exclusively at black listeners begin in the South, especially Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, Nashville and Miami. [474]
- Paul Bigsby creates an electric guitar for Merle Travis, a country singer. Though the exact date is not known, it may be among the earliest solid body electric guitars. [261]
- Eddie Jefferson becomes the first prominent performer of vocalese, songs in which new vocal tracks are set to instrumental jazz recordings. [475] [476] [477]
- The "idea that music could have an essence separate from the way it sounded in performance", an idea long seen as exclusive to Western classical music, comes to be applied to jazz through performers like Charlie Parker, focusing on "creation and performance, in the manner of classical musicians letting reception take care of itself" [21]
- Many country performers begin experimenting with a pedal steel, a steel guitar on a stand set up so that the guitarist can change pitches and chords. [49]
- The Old Regular Baptists of Jesus Christ, a small sect in eastern Kentucky, move in large numbers to Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. They preserve traditional Christian music techniques derived from 18th century New England, such as the heterophonic performance of monophonic tunes and the lining out of hymns. [478]
- George Herzog sets up the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University, which will be the largest ethnographic archive in an American university. [209]
- Inspired by pioneer Bill Monroe and his band, a generation of younger prformers, many of them working-class and frequently migrants from rural areas to cities, form a number of important proto-bluegrass bands. [479]
- The technology behind electric loudspeakers and amplifiers begins progressing rapidly. [60]
- Gospel jubilee singing groups end their last period of great popularity within the field of African-American Christian music. [480]
- The genre now known as rock and roll begins to reach its breakthrough form. [481]
- The guitar becomes the most prominent instrument in the blues. [10]
- The nascent bebop jazz scene comes to include a number of defining cultural characteristics, including the "unfortunate fashionability of heroin", which was inspired, in large part, by the success of addict Charlie Parker, the use of African-American vernacular-derived slang, and criticism of the racial politics of the era. [124]
- The independent record labels that dominate the African-American music industry begin targeting the growing teenage demographic by signing performers from that age group. Jesse Stone and Dave Bartholomew are among the legendary talent scouts from this era. [371]
- Tony de la Rosa adds the drum set to the Tejano conjunto style, forever changing the genre's sound; he will later add amplification and the bass to the field. [199]
- German American bands begin performing in a manner influenced by swing and jazz. [13]
- Slovenian American dance bands, until now dominated entirely by the accordion, come to include banjo, string bass and drum set. [13]
- The accordion polka craze in the United States peaks. [13]
- The Holocaust has several effects on Jewish music in the United States, namely leading to a decline in Yiddish language music and a rise in cantors being trained at home rather than in Europe. [299]
- Turkish Armenian 'ud player Oudi Harrant moves to the United States, becoming one of the most popular Middle Eastern musicians in the country. [98]
- The Yale Collegium, though not the first of its kind, is the most influential in beginning the American collegium movement, and is an important early institution in American early music. [147]
- A series of country boogie hits – country songs with an uptempo beat – become popular, including recordings like Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Shot Gun Boogie" and "Blackberry Boogie". [482]
- The term hi-fi , referring to high fidelity , comes into use, associated with the spread of LPs. [483]
- Latin jazz musicians like Chano Pozo and Juan Tizol develop a style known as Cubop. [114]
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