thedrifter
05-16-07, 08:34 AM
Roll Over, iPod
There's nothing like a genuine jukebox.
BY HERB B. BERKOWITZ
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The jukebox that sits in the conference room just outside my office rolled off the J.P. Seeburg Corp. assembly line sometime in 1953--two years before Apple Inc. CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs was born. It was rescued from a warehouse in Mexico in the early 1990s after years of neglect, restored to near-original condition in a shop in Northern Virginia, and joined our family in 1995, since which time it has been loved, Elvis would be happy to hear, both tender and sweet.
All together, 20 record players, two vintage radios, six radio-phonograph consoles and one Seeburg HF100G "Select-o-matic" High Fidelity Deluxe jukebox are displayed in the three-room suite, along with a 40-year accumulation of rock 'n' roll memorabilia.
While others listen to music on an iPod, there's nothing like a jukebox. And most of the people who have seen and heard the big beauty understand why. A jukebox is something you love forever; an iPod is something you'll discard some day.
Indeed, while Apple Inc. may be one of the world's most successful companies, a generation from now both its iPod portable "media player" and iTunes music library will probably be forgotten, part of the great technological blur known as progress.
A vintage jukebox, on the other hand, will still be a work of art, a source of passion, and a powerful reminder that great American roots music--jazz, blues, doo-wop, hillbilly, R&B, rock 'n' roll--is best enjoyed on a great American sound machine. And when it comes to sound, even an Apple iPod Hi-Fi is no match for a 1953 Seeburg high-fidelity boom box with a 15-inch woofer and five-inch tweeter. Crank it up: Oh what a night; twist and shout.
Seeburg, which built some of the most stylish jukeboxes ever made in America, was, like Apple, a leading innovator of its time. In 1948, for example, Seeburg introduced the M100A, the first jukebox to offer 100 song choices--that is, both the A and B sides of 50 different records. Other jukeboxes at the time offered just 20 to 24 selections.
Seeburg broke new ground again in 1950, when it introduced the first all-45-rpm vinyl-record jukebox. Until RCA introduced "45s"--the little vinyl records with the half-dollar-sized holes in the middle that resemble CDs on steroids--records were made of hardened shellac, which broke, chipped and scratched easily.
The term jukebox first gained currency in the U.S. in the 1930s, borrowed, apparently, from an old African-American word, "jook," meaning "to dance." Earlier pay-per-tune record players were called "coin-slot phonographs." These were mass-produced starting around 1890, and played phonograph cylinders, a technology developed by Thomas Edison. The cylinders were phased out in the 1910s in favor of gramophone records--first the 10-inch shellac disk, and later the seven-inch vinyl disk, which was the jukebox standard until the late 1980s when records gave way to the compact disc.
The earlier jukeboxes, including the classic 1946 Wurlitzer 1015 "bubbler," played 78 rpm shellac records. Later machines, such as mine, played vinyl 45s. Today's jukeboxes, manufactured by Deutsche Wurlitzer USA, Rowe International and others, mostly play CDs. There are even iPod compatible models, such as the Wurlitzer "One More Time" 1015 Special Edition. But they're very expensive, costing thousands of dollars. And most of the commercial venues where jukeboxes used to be so popular--drugstore soda fountains, ice cream parlors, diners, roadhouses--no longer exist. So they're no longer a part of the common experience, as they were in the 1950s and '60s, when rock 'n' roll was young and fun.
Besides, calling a machine a jukebox doesn't make it so. For example, you don't download or "use" a jukebox--you play it. That's what music should be all about: play. You're supposed to have fun--enjoy, dance, clap your hands, snap your fingers, sing along with Dion--not spend your time surfing the iTunes library, uploading, downloading, saving and plugging in. When you turn on your jukebox, you're turning on: perhaps with a little help from a friend. When you download to your Nano, you're performing a task.
It may be low-tech, but I'll take my Seeburg--with its elegant arched glass front, midcentury industrial hot-rod chrome, rotating pastel side columns, and rich booming sound, big and boisterous enough to fill a dance floor and another generation of pounding hearts--over any competitor any day of the week.
Ellie
There's nothing like a genuine jukebox.
BY HERB B. BERKOWITZ
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
The jukebox that sits in the conference room just outside my office rolled off the J.P. Seeburg Corp. assembly line sometime in 1953--two years before Apple Inc. CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs was born. It was rescued from a warehouse in Mexico in the early 1990s after years of neglect, restored to near-original condition in a shop in Northern Virginia, and joined our family in 1995, since which time it has been loved, Elvis would be happy to hear, both tender and sweet.
All together, 20 record players, two vintage radios, six radio-phonograph consoles and one Seeburg HF100G "Select-o-matic" High Fidelity Deluxe jukebox are displayed in the three-room suite, along with a 40-year accumulation of rock 'n' roll memorabilia.
While others listen to music on an iPod, there's nothing like a jukebox. And most of the people who have seen and heard the big beauty understand why. A jukebox is something you love forever; an iPod is something you'll discard some day.
Indeed, while Apple Inc. may be one of the world's most successful companies, a generation from now both its iPod portable "media player" and iTunes music library will probably be forgotten, part of the great technological blur known as progress.
A vintage jukebox, on the other hand, will still be a work of art, a source of passion, and a powerful reminder that great American roots music--jazz, blues, doo-wop, hillbilly, R&B, rock 'n' roll--is best enjoyed on a great American sound machine. And when it comes to sound, even an Apple iPod Hi-Fi is no match for a 1953 Seeburg high-fidelity boom box with a 15-inch woofer and five-inch tweeter. Crank it up: Oh what a night; twist and shout.
Seeburg, which built some of the most stylish jukeboxes ever made in America, was, like Apple, a leading innovator of its time. In 1948, for example, Seeburg introduced the M100A, the first jukebox to offer 100 song choices--that is, both the A and B sides of 50 different records. Other jukeboxes at the time offered just 20 to 24 selections.
Seeburg broke new ground again in 1950, when it introduced the first all-45-rpm vinyl-record jukebox. Until RCA introduced "45s"--the little vinyl records with the half-dollar-sized holes in the middle that resemble CDs on steroids--records were made of hardened shellac, which broke, chipped and scratched easily.
The term jukebox first gained currency in the U.S. in the 1930s, borrowed, apparently, from an old African-American word, "jook," meaning "to dance." Earlier pay-per-tune record players were called "coin-slot phonographs." These were mass-produced starting around 1890, and played phonograph cylinders, a technology developed by Thomas Edison. The cylinders were phased out in the 1910s in favor of gramophone records--first the 10-inch shellac disk, and later the seven-inch vinyl disk, which was the jukebox standard until the late 1980s when records gave way to the compact disc.
The earlier jukeboxes, including the classic 1946 Wurlitzer 1015 "bubbler," played 78 rpm shellac records. Later machines, such as mine, played vinyl 45s. Today's jukeboxes, manufactured by Deutsche Wurlitzer USA, Rowe International and others, mostly play CDs. There are even iPod compatible models, such as the Wurlitzer "One More Time" 1015 Special Edition. But they're very expensive, costing thousands of dollars. And most of the commercial venues where jukeboxes used to be so popular--drugstore soda fountains, ice cream parlors, diners, roadhouses--no longer exist. So they're no longer a part of the common experience, as they were in the 1950s and '60s, when rock 'n' roll was young and fun.
Besides, calling a machine a jukebox doesn't make it so. For example, you don't download or "use" a jukebox--you play it. That's what music should be all about: play. You're supposed to have fun--enjoy, dance, clap your hands, snap your fingers, sing along with Dion--not spend your time surfing the iTunes library, uploading, downloading, saving and plugging in. When you turn on your jukebox, you're turning on: perhaps with a little help from a friend. When you download to your Nano, you're performing a task.
It may be low-tech, but I'll take my Seeburg--with its elegant arched glass front, midcentury industrial hot-rod chrome, rotating pastel side columns, and rich booming sound, big and boisterous enough to fill a dance floor and another generation of pounding hearts--over any competitor any day of the week.
Ellie