TIN PAN ALLEY
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The name originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Flower District of Manhattan; a plaque on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it. After many years, the term came to refer to the U.S. music industry in general. Some consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued into the 1950s when earlier styles of music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll, which was centered on the Brill Building.(More from Wikipedia)
There are two cool “flower power” songs on the Queen Anne’s Lace album that were written by singer-songwriter Peter Cofield (whose first album came out on Coral Records the previous year), “Thank the Beautiful People (Thank the Young)” and “The Power of the Flower”. These songs celebrate the best of the hippie spirit at least as well as the Tin Pan Alley-ish “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” (written by John Phillips – no relation, once again apparently – of the Mamas and the Papas and beautifully sung by Scott McKenzie).
(August 2010)
