The Last Scene of the Titanic: Vernacular American Phonograph Recordings

Titanic Ballads as Folk Tradition

The article examines Titanic ballads recorded by rural black and white musicians, noting their roots in oral traditions and their capacity for social critique. These ballads often used the Titanic as a symbol to critique class, race, and technological hubris.

Commercial Context

It highlights the role of phonograph companies in commodifying folk music. Record labels sought rural talent and repackaged traditional themes to cater to nostalgia and the desire for “authentic” folk expression, often fabricating authenticity to suit market demands.

Themes and Variations

Songs varied in their interpretations of the disaster. Some framed the sinking as a moral lesson about human arrogance, while others embraced a more modern perspective, celebrating technology and its thrills without moral judgment.

Cultural Tensions

The article situates these ballads within the broader cultural landscape of the time, contrasting them with the rise of jazz and ragtime, which embodied urban modernity. Jazz, with its improvisational style and association with urban life, symbolised cultural dissonance, while Titanic ballads represented a nostalgic connection to a vanishing rural past.

Artistic Innovation and Identity

It discusses how artists like Frank Hutchison and Jimmie Rodgers navigated identities between tradition and innovation, blending old-time music with contemporary styles. Hutchison’s Titanic ballad, for example, embraced a playful and modern take on the disaster, eschewing moral lessons in favour of entertainment.

The article argues that Titanic ballads encapsulated the complex interplay between nostalgia and progress, folk tradition and commercial enterprise, and regional and national identities in early 20th-century America. These recordings serve as cultural artefacts reflecting the anxieties and aspirations of their era.