By the late 1800s people were already using crude recording devices invented by the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Emile Berliner, and by the early 20th Century the old Victrolas were playing scratchy marches by John Philip Sousa, classical artists such as Enrico Caruso, and popular vocalists like Billy Murray. However, it wasn’t until the 1920s when electrical recording methods replaced the traditional acoustic approach that had required musicians to position themselves close to the open end of a giant funnel that the recording industry really began to take off with improved quality of sound. It was this new, recorded music boom in conjunction with the rise of radio, first deemed a threat but later recognized as a boon, that created an expanded market culture for recorded music. Hence, we can say that the rise of the recording artist really begins in earnest a century ago in the 1920s with such giants as George Gershwin, Al Jolson, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, and Louis Armstrong beginning to come into listeners’ homes.    -Steve Williams