Jewish Singers in American Popular Music: The Jukebox Generations

Jewish singers in the history of modern American popular music (that is, music aiming at the masses, arising out of a commercial marketing system, and still retaining some popularity today) can be broadly categorized into three chronological groups: pioneer generations (1900s to 1920s), jukebox generations (1930s to mid-1950s), and rock generations (mid-1950s to the present).

Some singers who rose to prominence between the 1930s and the mid-1950s (with a little natural leeway on both ends of the spectrum) did so through the established routes of vaudeville and Broadway, such as Libby Holman, Lillian Roth, Phil Silvers, and Danny Kaye. However, this era was mainly characterized by the rise of technology-driven straight singers. These generations pioneered the use of modern microphone techniques in concert, radio, and recording performances to establish themselves as pure singers, not as singing comics or singing actors. With the modern microphone, singers could experiment with softer tones, less breath, and an intimate, conversational sound. A general term used to describe this softer singing style was crooning, the most famous exponent being the non-Jewish singer Frank Sinatra, while an outstanding Jewish example was Buddy Clark. Other new-style Jewish singers included Tony Martin, Helen Forrest, Dinah Shore, Mel Tormé , and Eddie Fisher. The growing American enthusiasm for recordings by these singers and by other contemporary popular musicians (such as swing-jazz instrumentalists) led to the proliferation of jukeboxes in bars, diners, and drugstores.

Below are brief bios of some of the most notable Jewish singers, old style and new style, of the jukebox generations. (Caveat: inclusion among the biographees in this series--"Jewish Singers in American Popular Music"--does not necessarily mean that the singer practiced Judaism; it simply means that, according to published reports, the person had at least one Jewish parent or was a convert to Judaism.)