Broadway to Main Street

Overall, this book helps the reader learn more about the Broadway musical and how it came to be a part of American popular music through the distribution of sheet music and recordings. The book is a great overview of American popular music and how it has coexisted with Broadway in all aspects... * Jennifer Martin, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Music Reference Services Quarterly *
Maslon writes in a scholarly yet warmly human style, and throughout he contrasts the experience of listening to a recording with the experience of seeing the show itself. A companion website provides audio examples, excellent photographs enhance and support the text, and endnotes furnish documentation. Summing up: Recommended * CHOICE *
By the way, if cast albums aren't a Christmas option for your friends and relatives because they have every one of them (well, all my friends do) you can always give them Laurence Maslon's excellent new book Broadway to Main Street: How Show Tunes Enchanted America. * Masterworks Broadway *
When and how did America discover Broadway? Laurence Maslon, a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, tells part of the story in Broadway to Main Street: How Show Tunes Enchanted America, a fully sourced, engagingly written study that is a model of its kind. It is as fine a book as could possibly be written about the way in which the Broadway musicals of the 20th century have come to be woven into our cultural fabric. * Commentary *
Broadway to Main Street: How Show Tunes Enchanted America (Oxford University Press) is the first book I know to focus exhaustively on the rise of the modern cast album . . . Well-researched and well-written by Laurence Maslon, an Emmy-nominated producer and author-educator, the book tells a fascinating and little-known story about how Broadway theater rose to an influential position in American culture via records, television and Top-40 radio, all fueled by bestselling cast albums . . . The book fills a gap in history about an undervalued subject: the challenges of using limited technology to capture and preserve popular recordings for the masses and later generations. * The Columbus Dispatch *
Maslon's book explains the phenomenon of how show tunes have endured as an integral part of our popular culture. He also addresses the influence of the range of media on show music's popularity - from sheet music, radio and 78-rpm recordings to television, CDs, the Internet and streaming. * The Albuquerque Journal *
A valuable contribution to our understanding of the rise and importance of Broadway in American culture. And its more than just a book: Notations scattered throughout the text direct readers to visit a companion website that includes performances by artists from Jolson to Jay-Z. Anyone interested in American popular culture will be able to appreciate Maslons virtual libretto for giving our regards to Broadway. * The Weekly Standard *
This is the book Ive been waiting for since the day I found my mother's Original Broadway Cast Album of Carousel in our record cabinet - but this book is about so much more than the history of cast albums, although it's a glorious examination of that world. It's about the development of the entire music industry, and, indeed, popular culture itself throughout the twentieth century. Comprehensive, delightful, and deeply personal, this is a fabulous book - the only thing that kept me from reading it in one sitting was my inability to stop jumping up and playing all the recordings mentioned in the book. * Malcolm Gets, Tony Award-nominated actor *
Laurence Maslon, who knows as much as about the American Musical Theater as anyone on Planet Showbiz, explores the multi-layered bond between the phenomenon of the original cast album from Oklahoma! to Hamilton and its impact on the music industry. By focusing on the 'business' part of show business, Maslon opens a fascinating new door into the history of what just might be America's Greatest Treasure. * John Guare, Playwright *
Anyone who refers to the beloved album of Hamilton as a 'soundtrack' needs to read Larry Maslon's remarkable book. He explains in historical, factual, and humorous detail what an original cast album is and what an important part of musical theater history it continues to be. There are nuggets of new information here to surprise us all. Maslon explains the fascinating rivalry among the record companies through the years and how the original cast album remains one of Broadway most important export tools. The book is fun, informative, and--dare I say it?-- important. * Ted Chapin, President, Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization *
Broadway to Main Street is a fascinating look at show music's hold on the American imagination, and at the people who have brought its magic to the public, from Jerome Kern to Lin-Manuel Miranda, from Tin Pan Alley song pluggers to Ed Sullivan and Goddard Lieberson, from Al Jolson to Julie Andrews to John Legend. Laurence Maslon probably knows as much about American musical theater as anyone alive, but he also loves it, and it's that love, as well as his erudition, that makes Broadway to Main Street such a treat. * Amanda Vaill, author of Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins *