Crankin' It Up: The End Of A Musical Era?

February 21, 2014 is the 98th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle Of Verdun, which had something like 700,000 to 1,000,000 casualties.  War was no fun after August, 1914.  Here is a recording of Prince's Band which gives a glimpse of the world view of war before the Great War changed everything.




Prince's Band recorded this lively march on January 11, 1916. War was much more fun before the Great War, which began in August 1914. America was catching the fever for Europe's war in January of 1916, after the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915, but hadn't yet jumped in. The battle of Verdun began in February 1916, and there were over 700,000 casualties. The battle of the Somme began in July 1916, and it bled England white. The century of modern war that began with WWI pretty much ended the celebratory mood of war music, so you might look at records like this one as the end of a musical era. Tin Pan Alley continued to celebrate to whip up war fever in the U.S. in 1917 and 1918, but that was before the reality of the horrors of war were visited on America.