Almost the entire first volume is concerned with the business of American instrumental popular music when there wasn't much popular music as we know it now, when there wasn't a United States, and when there wasn't much business in the national music trade. Sanjek clearly wished to make his case from the ground up. His work on early developments in the business is about its contexts, especially social and economic, which were so often fundamental to the formation of the music. Given Sanjek's personal involvement in many of the issues, it should not be surprising that this volume, dealing most with the nuts and bolts of the music business, is especially strong. There is a wealth of data here, much of it never collected together before.
Details abound, and they usually speak to the story.
The indexes are nicely done and are bound to become reference aids on the music business in the United States. Binding the project is Sanjek's skill as a writer, no small point after fifteen hundred pages. His prose is assured, lucid and refreshingly straightforward. Sanjek's primary approach to the vast material he collected follows from his career near the centers of music-business power. The story he tells is that of the rise and development of urban, centralized business.