Truly Random YouTube

YouTube.


I've spent some time randomly strolling through the endless pathways of YouTube's voluminous and endless possibilities. I had never put anything on it, but often wondered who is putting all this crazy stuff and who are all these people making comments about these videos.


One day last fall I came across a video that had to do with something about Muzak, or something related to it. I don't know what overcame me, but I had to make a comment all of a sudden, which in turn meant I needed to sign up for an account.


Now, my grandfather, Ben Selvin was a big band leader in the 20's and 30's, and went on to be a recording executive. One of the jobs he had was working for Muzak at the beginning of its inception. More on that later.

My grandfather's tenure there had never really been discussed growing up, but it was always known. I never really knew what he did for them, but I did know what pop culture thought of Muzak, elevators and all. Don't ask, don't tell, right?

Well, one evening when I was in my teens working as a busboy at the Seafood Shanty, I had a moment of realization of a few things: As I was cleaning tables in a room that was being in the process of closing out, the background music began to filter into my consciousness. The song, at first unidentifiable to me, suddenly became disorienting; It was Muzak's version of Dardanella, my grandfather's song that was the first pop song to go gold back in 1919! The shock and irony of hearing and recognizing this was very strange. Hear the original version of Dardanella.

Anyway, I wrote a comment about this as it related to the video (of which I don't remember) and that was that.

A few weeks later, I got an email from a bloke named Joe Carter at Muzak... "Are you Ben Selvin's grandson?" Joe Carter, I later learned is from the band Joe Public, and is a programmer for Muzak. It turns out that 2009 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of Muzak and they were planning a big year-long celebration. My grandfather was at the beginning of this venture and as I found out, very important for a lot of what they recorded.

I then got in touch with a fellow named Bruce McKagan, (who's brother is Duff McKagan, bassist from Guns n Roses!). He was spearheading this whole 75 anniversary celebration where they were planning of highlighting each decade. He was interested in finding out any information about my grandfather's background and experiences that could help them along. He flew me down to their HQ's in near Charlotte, NC. Bruce was a wonderful host and showed me around the place and I got to meet some really cool folks and check out their archives and research. (their place is worth an entry of its own)

I learned that Muzak shed its elevator music identity and how my grandfather's work changed the music environment. When my grandfather started out, the music on records was not licensed for the airways. This meant that a radio station was not allowed to play recorded music. Music you heard was usually live performances, and if you played pre-recorded records, the musicians couldn't get properly compensated. Muzak changed that by recording (called transcriptions) their own music for distribution out to businesses through mostly telephone lines. Since the music was their property, they could play whatever they provided. The problem was, in the beginning, they had no music. In comes Ben Selvin. He was already a successful musician, bandleader and executive. He came in and began to record massive amounts of material. He had the best musicians, composers, arrangers and connections in the music industry, and he virtually recorded them all. I would go as far to say that during the depression, between his bands and work at Muzak, he kept a lot of musicians employed. He recorded thousands of songs on these transcription disks during his tenure there. The names read like a who's who: Dorsey Brothers, Joe Venuti, Fats Waller just to name a few off the top of my head without looking it up. Many of them recorded under various different names, sometimes unlisted or not credited.

The music that was recorded in the early years was virtually the same stuff that was being played during the time. It could all stand up to the pop music of the time, but was only heard through the service. I got a chance to look at a few of the binders my grandfather kept of the production of these transcription disks. (the disks were like metal/acetate records) Each disk could hold a number of tracks. In the binders, I could see his remarks that rated something they could use or not -- NG for no good, don't use, for instance. These recordings were it. Each take had to be flawless because there were no do-overs or edits at that time.

It wasn't until after he left Muzak, did they stray from his model of production and selection did they go elevator on us. Bruce told me that at some point in the 90's (I think) they decided to ditch that type of music and go back to using original artists doing their original work.

So, all this brings me to February 12. My sister and I were invited back to HQ to participate in Muzak's kickoff celebration which focused on the 30's and featured prominently Ben Selvin and his contribution. They had a high school big band there, presented a large check through their Heart and Soul Foundation (to support music education), video and history presentations. My sister and I were there as a link to Ben Selvin and it was very touching to see my grandfather get some recognition for his contribution to the industry.

On a somber note, the day was exactly one year to the day of the passing of my father. I'm sure he would have wished he could be there to see that.