I Found One of My Masters Degree Thesis Papers...
To set the scene: In 2003, Nicole and I left Wisconsin to go to Colorado. I started my graduate degree and Nicole got her first teaching job. I signed on with the Musicology program at University of Colorado for a few reasons. 1) I wanted to study music history, but I wanted a program where jazz, popular music or folk music was welcome. 2) I liked the outdoors, the west and someplace that wasn’t Wisconsin, so Boulder seemed cool. 3) Two of my undergraduate mentors, Jane and George Ferencz, were friends with Tom Riis, the head of the department. He made me and my ideas feel welcome, although I went without any scholarships, fellowships, etc…Which was a bad idea in hindsight.
I was responsible for writing two thesis papers, the second of which I will find for you soon. This one grew out of my interest in styles of music that I heard growing up played by “Guy’s All Star Shoe Band” on Prairie Home Companion. These folks mixed jazz, blues and pop music with string band music and folk. They had violins, mandolins and acoustic guitars playing jazz. What was going on? This led me to a pile of CD compilations by a British outfit called Proper Records. They collected old American 78 records and then re-released them (copyright laws?) as box sets that covered a style or artist. I was obsessed with a few box sets of early Western Swing, which was basically white people in Texas playing jazz in the 1920’s-40’s. My favorite band was Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies, so I went about tracing their repertoire and puzzling out their musical influences.
