Stylish and beautiful Juke Box machines are a bright sign of the rock and roll era! In the 40s and 60s, they could be found in every first American bar, restaurant or club. Using the buttons on the control panel, the visitor chose the song he liked, which was played automatically for a coin. Juke boxes are considered an important component of the musical culture of the 20th century, and therefore they deserve special mention!

Juke boxes and juke joints

The word "juk" entered America in the second half of the 19th century, when, after the Civil War, black workers began to move to the Mississippi Delta to develop cotton plantations. Strict Jim Crow laws that existed in the southern states did not allow African Americans to have fun with whites, as a result, “black” establishments began to open in local villages, as a rule, poor shacks that worked only on weekends. Their name was juke-joints!

The rare white visitors were horrified by the tightness and filth that reigned in the juks. Instead of traditional American whiskey, they often had plain moonshine, and black folk dances had a more than frivolous look! The name was also a match, because in the dialect of the Galla, which was spoken by immigrants from Jamaica, "juke-joint" meant "house of the mess." Over the years, the word "juke" has lost its original negative connotation. Musicians who played juke-joints became known as "juk-bands", and the jukeboxes that replaced them were called "juke-boxes".

However, this name did not immediately enter into everyday use. In the northern states, where they were not familiar with the southern slang, it penetrated only in the 1940s.

History of juke boxes

The classic juke box played vinyl records, but long before the invention of gramophones, coin-operated jukeboxes already existed! In fact, these were large music boxes, the melody in which was born by a rotating cylinder with needles and holes. Since the first musical mechanisms were chiming wall clocks, for a long time musical devices were considered the craft of watchmakers.

At the end of the 19th century, the so-called Polyphones became widespread, in which, instead of cylinders, there were replaceable metal disks with holes, which made it possible to change the melody without replacing the entire machine. Some devices, such as the Orchestra (or Orchestra), combined several instruments at once.
Disc-based jukeboxes were made in England, Italy and America, as well as in Switzerland, Prussia and Austria. But, which is very characteristic, it was the Americans who first thought of charging a fee for playing a melody!

At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the Polyphons and Symphonies briefly replaced the self-playing mechanical pianos or pianolas (in Western literature they are often called Nickelodeon), which are well known to the Russian audience from the film by Nikita Mikhalkov. They were much louder and more melodic (especially when well tuned).
But the era of musical mechanisms was already coming to an end. They were replaced by phonographs, which did not contain any instruments, but allowed them to reproduce not only the melody, but also the voice. The pioneer of sound recording is considered to be Thomas Edison, whose phonograph became the harbinger of the gramophone and gramophone. By the way, the phonograph appeared in Russia almost immediately after its invention. It is thanks to him that the recordings of the playing of S. Taneyev and A. Rubinstein, the voices of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and other historical figures have come down to us. In 1886, the famous inventor of the telephone, Bell, and his assistants created a graphophone - a kind of phonograph in which a wax cylinder replaced a tin one. The graphophone was far superior in quality to Edison's machine. For mass production, the Columbia Graphophone Company was created, which in 1931 would become the famous EMI media concern.

In 1890, Louis Glass and William S. Arnold patented the first commercial phonograph, which was equipped with a "Coin Actuated Attachment for Phonograph". Inserted into the slot, a coin allowed the listener to turn a lever that operated a mechanism that placed the stylus of the loudspeaker in the desired groove. The device was equipped with headphones or a large copper pipe, which served as both an amplifier and a speaker. Most of these players allowed only one melody to be played, but in 1918 Hobart Niblack patented a device that could automatically change records.

On September 26, 1877, Emil Berliner patented the gramophone, the recording of which was played from records, originally zinc. The quality and clarity of sound, in comparison with the phonograph, has increased several times. At the beginning of the 20th century, serial production of gramophones began in Europe, America and Russia.

In 1907, the French company Pate introduced the gramophone - its own version of the gramophone, often without the bulky copper pipe. The pipe of such gramophones was built-in and placed in the case. In 1913, DECCA offered a portable gramophone that fit in a small suitcase. Originally intended for use in the field by the British Army, it was later touted as an indispensable companion for picnics and boating.

In 1925, Berliner, together with RCA, offers an electric gramophone (later an electrophone) equipped with an amplifier, an electric motor and a full-fledged acoustic system. It was he who became the basis of the first juke boxes!

As early as 1927, the National Automatic Music Co (later AMi) introduced the first coin-operated juke box that allowed you to select records. The metal disc selector, originally used in mechanical pianos, has been successfully adapted for vinyl records.

A year later, Justice Seaburg, whose firm had previously dealt with mechanical pianos, combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with an electrophone. His "Audiophone" included 8 separate turntables and was very bulky. Its later modification - "Selectophone" allowed you to select up to 10 entries. The choice was made by positioning the tonearm up and down. The device from AMi was also designed for 10 records, but due to the fact that it played them on both sides, the listener could choose from 20 records.

With the improvement in recording quality and the rapid development of tube electronics, which made it possible to amplify the sound, the demand for paid players continuously increased, naturally giving rise to an increasing supply. By the mid-40s, up to 3/4 of all records released in America ended up in juke boxes! As soon as some hit novelty appeared, it immediately appeared in jukeboxes! However, oddly enough, the juke boxes were not only pop music. Although they are considered a sign of the rock and roll era (some machines even had “Rock’N’Roll” written on them), you could always listen to classical records, as well as opera and jazz!

Design

One of the reasons for the popularity of jukeboxes was their puffy design! If back in the 30s jukeboxes were polished wooden boxes, then in the 40s they began to be lined with plastic. Large multi-colored buttons, shining nickel-plated levers, flashing lights of color music, mirrors, pictures and inscriptions turned slot machines from simple record players into a real interior decoration!

During the war years, when metal and plastic became needed for the military industry, jukeboxes practically ceased to be produced. Factories where juke boxes were assembled yesterday were given over to military needs. It got to the point that the 1942 Wurlitzer 950 machine did not accept coins, but wooden tokens! Soviet military pilots who were trained in Alaska and went to local bars in the evenings could see them there.

Even advertising has become military - on the posters of the 40s, soldiers and sailors listen to jukeboxes, which probably stimulated the command to purchase machine guns for military bases. A three-year shortage of jukeboxes created an incredible demand, as a result, one of the first post-war machines "Wurlitzer 1015" (also known as "1015 bubbler"), designed by engineer Paul Fuller, designed for 24 records, became a bestseller - it was sold out in less than two years over 56000 pieces!

Due to such a wide distribution, it is this model that many people still associate with the classic juke box! Its competitors were the "Model A" from AMi, released in the same 1946, and the "Magic Glow" series from Rock-Ola.
But that was only the beginning! The American boys were returning home. Tired of the hard times of war, they wanted to have fun, and the production of juke boxes began to work with renewed vigor! Three years later, the M100A from Wurlitzer offered a choice of 100 entries!

In 1949, RCA developed its own 175 mm 45 rpm record format. It has become widespread among jukebox manufacturers; from now on, all new machines lost only "forty-five"! With the spread of stereo sound, jukeboxes began to be equipped with large stereo speakers to provide the listener with better sound quality. Long before the advent of the Internet and websites, jukeboxes were equipped with "pop counters" that informed the owner of the establishment which records were in the most demand, and which were outdated and needed to be replaced. In a word, as long as jukeboxes were in fashion, they continued to use all the latest achievements in electronics and electromechanics!

In the 1950s, a popular design concept was the famous "car" style, where a curved chrome panel resembled a car bumper, and the player was behind a glass that resembled a windshield.
In the "space" era of the 60s, jukeboxes and other machines were stylized as flying saucers and spaceships. A striking example of such devices was the Continental series by AMi, in which the menu was designed as a locator!

An important element of post-war jukeboxes was the so-called "wall boxes" - remote control panels with many buttons, which included a coin acceptor and an alphanumeric keyboard to search for a song and artist. They were located autonomously from the machine - on the wall of the institution, the bar counter or even on the cafe tables, playing the role of a remote control. It was now possible to order your favorite song without getting up from the table, and coins from several remote controls were collected much more “fun” than from one! One of the popular wallboxes was the Seeburg 3W1 device by the same Seaburg company. Some wall-boxes were combined with stylish clocks that decorated the interior; as usual, Coca-Cola advertising was not without - red wall-boxes with the logo of this fizzy drink were quite common! Such wall boxes can still be found in American restaurants stylized as 50s like Johnny Rockets.

Manufacturers

The most famous juke box manufacturers were: Wurlitzer (in business since the 1890s), AMi (since 1909), Seeburg (since the 1920s) and of course Rock-Ola (since the 1930s). Click on the logo to read the manufacturer's history.

AMi

Founded in 1909 as the National Automatic Music Co., originally engaged in the production of mechanical pianos. With the beginning of mass production of gramophones and the development of the record market, the previously developed mechanism for changing metal discs was successfully adapted for vinyl records. This invention was so successful that it was used with minor modifications for the next 30 years!

The first juke box rolled off the company's assembly line in 1927. It was designed to play ten records on both sides, allowing up to 20 records to be selected. One of the most striking and memorable design of AMi machines was the Singing Towers, produced by the company from 1939 to 1942. Paneled with molded glass, with a body stylized as a stone, it resembled a New York skyscraper. While playing music, the backlight smoothly changed its color. Unfortunately, due to problems with the mechanism, this beautiful jukebox was not a commercial success.

After World War II, the company changed its name to AMi (Automatic Musical Instrument Company). In 1962, AMi acquired The Automatic Canteen Company, merging it with its subsidiary, ROWE AC Services, which developed and manufactured coin acceptors. Rowe International continues the business successfully with state-of-the-art digital jukeboxes.

BAL-AMi

Although jukeboxes are considered an American "trick", they were also produced in other countries. It is worth saying a few words about the British BAL-AMi assault rifles. In the difficult post-war years in the UK, serious import restrictions were introduced. To create as many jobs as possible, the government banned the import of goods that could be produced at home. Partial imports were allowed, but at least 53% of any product had to be made at home.

After the war, the demand in England for juke boxes was huge, but since more and more of them were produced in the United States, their importation into Foggy Albion was extremely difficult. London-based entrepreneur Sam Norton saw this as a great opportunity for profit - on the basis of his company Balfour (Marine) Engineering, together with John Haddock of AMi Corporation, he organized a joint production of juke boxes under the license of AMi. In 1955, the first BAL-AMi assault rifles went on sale.

Externally, British jukeboxes were no different from American ones, being their complete clones, but the electrics and amplifiers in them were British. A distinctive feature of the "British" was their color. If in America the jukeboxes were produced mainly in green, BAL-AMi were pink.

The last two models: Super 100 and New Yorker, released in the early 60s, were already absolutely authentic developments of BAL-AMi, but in 1962, due to the death of Norman, production of juke boxes at Balfour was curtailed.

In addition to BAL-AMi, AMi also had other joint productions: IMA-AMI - Jensen (Denmark) and EDEN-AMI (France).

Seeburg

Company founder Justice Seaburg was born in Sweden in 1871. At the age of 16, he moved to the United States, settling in the city of Chicago, where he worked as a mechanic at a piano factory. In 1907, Seaburg founded his own production, and soon J.P. Seeburg Piano Co. became the leader in the production of orchestras. Unlike other automata, Orchestrions had several instruments inside, allowing them to play like a small, well-coordinated orchestra.

Until 1927, the company produced mechanical pianos, until Seaburg refocused it on paid gramophones. In 1928, he became one of the first manufacturers of juke boxes, introducing his Audiophone to the public. This bulky 8-section box was controlled by pneumatic valves, which made it something of a cross between a nickelodeon and a gramophone. The model has had some success.

The appearance on the market of the first juke boxes from other manufacturers prompted Seaburg to create the next model - the Selectophone. It was a failure.

Deforming spindles drove operators crazy and almost killed the entire business. In the late 1930s, Seaburg handed over his business to his son Noel. He was a very experienced and shrewd businessman who managed to competently reorganize the company, making it more successful than Wurlitzer and Rock-Ola.

In the early 40s, the Seaburg company released fundamentally new juke boxes, which differed from their predecessors in the reliability of the mechanics and a large number of recordings. The machine of 1949, which allowed playing up to 100 records, made Seaburg a real market leader!

With the advent of the 45 rpm format, Seaburg introduced the M100B, the first jukebox designed for magpies. In 1955, another revolutionary model came out: the V-200, which supported as many as 200 records! However, success cannot last forever. In the 70s, when the demand for jukeboxes fell, Seaburg and his competitors practically stopped their production in the USA.

rock ola

Oddly enough, but the name Rock-Ola does not come from the rock and roll style at all! Rocola is the real name of the founder of the company, David Rocola, which was a very good fit for a jukebox company! Born in Canada, David Rocola worked as a shop mechanic from a young age, fixing vending machines.

By 1926, Rokola already had his own business for the production of scales - of course, also paid. In the 1930s, Rokola switched to the production of slot machines like pinball. The serious demand for jukeboxes has become a great temptation to engage in their production. But it was not by chance that juke boxes cost a fortune, their device was very complex and kept secret by manufacturers, and Rokola did not have his own developments in this area. Having bought the rights to a ready-made mechanism that played 12 records from a man named Smythe, Rokola began to manufacture his own juke boxes.

The appearance of a new manufacturer on the market alerted Farnie Wurlitzer, who saw Rockall as a threat to his business. He tried to negotiate with David so that he would leave voluntarily, convincing him that there was no place in the market for another firm. However, the ambitious Rokola was not going to leave, and Wurlitzer filed a lawsuit for $ 1 million, accusing Rokola of patent infringement on the Smythe mechanism. Rokola won the process (although the services of lawyers cost him almost half a million). He continued production with the highly successful "Luxury Light-Up" in 1939.

During the Second World War, when all the factories were occupied for military needs, Rokola took up devices for transmitting music over a telephone line. But as soon as the last shots died down, a new Magic Glow series (models 1422, 1426 and 1428) was launched into production.

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Jukebox

Jukebox "Wurlitzer", model 1936. Designed for a repertoire of 12 records at 78 rpm.

Jukebox- electromechanical apparatus for automatic playback of gramophone records. The mechanism of the apparatus consists of an electrophone, an amplifier, a loudspeaker and an electronic device for selecting a gramophone record. Powered by coin or token.

Jukeboxes are installed, as a rule, in cafes, bars, restaurants, dance clubs and other places of recreation. An important feature of the jukebox is its stylish design.

Other names for the jukebox in the United States: "automatic phonograph", "nickelodeon" (Eng. nickelodeon), "juke-box" (eng. juke box).

The term "juke box"

The English word "juk" has been known since the 19th century. In the time of Queen Victoria, it was somehow connected with dancing. In the 20th century in the United States, it also began to mean "disorder or horror"; juke house (English) juke-house) - African Americans said, describing the mess in the house. When "blacks only" eateries appeared next to the cotton fields, they were nicknamed "juke joint" (Eng. juke joint). They were played, respectively, by "juk-bands" (Eng. juke-bands listen)) are musical ensembles of colored musicians. Then the musicians were replaced by a jukebox - a jukebox.

The spread of the term was uneven. For example, when in 1937 the Wurlitzer firm received an order from Texas for an apparatus called the juke box, the office wondered for a long time what it was until they realized that the customer wanted an "automatic phonograph."

History of creation

Manufacturers in the USA

Jukebox
"Wurlitzer 1015"

The mechanism of the machine, designed for gramophone records

The mechanism of the machine, designed for CDs

In the US, one of the most popular juke boxes is probably the 1946 Wurlitzer 1015 or Bubbler, which means “Bubble” in English. He had a repertoire of 24 78 rpm records. Today, the company produces a similar model called "One More Time", and it can play CDs.

The Wurlitzer company was founded by a German immigrant, Rudolf Wurlitzer. In the US, he opened stores in all major cities, and began to sell musical instruments. In 1896, the company introduced the Tonophone to the market, a mechanical piano powered by coins.

In the early 1930s, this company bought a patent for the music box mechanism, and attracted its creator Homer Capehart and designer Paul Fuller, who developed the design of the Bubble, to cooperate. In 1946-1947, 56,000 of these machines were produced, and they were sold out in 18 months.

The 1930s is considered to be the golden age of jukeboxing. It has become customary for a visitor to a restaurant or bar to have a nice bedside table from which music sounds.

The second most popular company, Rock-Ola, was founded by Canadian David Rockola. He started his business by manufacturing pinball machines, and in 1936 switched to jukeboxes.

After the war, the Seaburg firm, founded in the early 1920s by the Swede Justice Seaburg, gained popularity. The first jukebox of this company was in 1928 the Audiophone model. A few years later, a new model appeared, but the design developments did not lead to the desired result, and the company began to fade until Seaburg's son, Noel, took over the board.

Being a successful businessman, he put the company on its feet and produced several successful models in the first half of the 1940s. In 1949, Seaburg revolutionized the M100A, which could play both sides of 50 records; in other words, it was the world's first 100-song jukebox. In 1950, Seaburg made the first juke box for magpies, and in 1955 introduced the first 200-song machine.

Notably, these three major jukebox companies in the United States were based in the city of Chicago.

Manufacturers in Europe

Jukeboxes in the USSR

Jukebox Single Hole Recording Record

An insert that allows you to play a single with a large hole on a conventional turntable

Photo gallery

Notes

Links

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

• Musical intervals
• Music video

See what "Jukebox" is in other dictionaries:

The jukebox screams love (film)- The jukebox screams love Juke box urli d amore Genre comedy, musical Director Mauro Mo ... Wikipedia

The jukebox screams love- Juke box urli d amore Genre comedy, musical Director Mauro Morassi ... Wikipedia

As a rule, a jukebox in our time is a regular computer installed in the original case. Usually, a monitor, an amplifier, and further additional devices are connected to it, expanding its functionality (see the section "additional equipment").

jukebox or "Juke box" was born at the end of the 19th century and is still popular, decorating bars, restaurants, cafes and many other places for cultural recreation. Thousands of compositions, color music and much more for one coin entertain visitors, and its bright creative design rarely goes unnoticed by visitors.
Before the invention of players, jukeboxes were a real cult, and in the 30s they were even called “concert hall for a little person.” So, let's dive into the history of this unusual but legendary thing.

The prototype of the first jukebox was created by the great inventor Thomas Edison in 1889. It was a tonograph - a mechanical machine for recording music and reproducing voice. The invention was received with great enthusiasm, and, a few years later, the first jukebox using a tonograph mechanism and a small piggy bank for money was installed in San Francisco. Such a device, at that time, for only fifty cents could play only one song lasting two minutes, and cost about $ 1,000.
Later the name "Juke box" appeared, it came from the Negro dialect. "Juke" means dance, the process of dancing. After working on the cotton plantations, many workers went to rest in local eateries called juke joints, where juke boxes, jukeboxes, were played for them.

However, the classic jukebox would never have existed without an American company. "Wurlitzer" which was established in 1856. Its founder, Rudolf Wurlitzer, had been importing musical instruments to America for a long time, opening shops, and one day he started manufacturing his own pianos. In 1896, he introduced the tonophone, a piano powered by the insertion of a coin.

tonophone

In the early 1930s, jukeboxes flourished. This happened thanks to Wurlitzer Jr. - Farney, who was famous for his entrepreneurial spirit, he bought the patent for the "Music box" device and attracted the engineer Homer Capehart to develop the juke box.
Farni Wurlitzer immediately thought that the jukebox should look interesting, so he also invited the famous designer Paul Fuller, who subsequently designed many of the Wurlitzer jukeboxes.
In 1933, the Wurlitzer P10 was invented, a jukebox designed specifically for bars and cafes. The music was recorded on ten shellac records, and the visitor could insert a coin into the machine and choose the song they liked. In the 30s, such a jukebox was in almost every drinking establishment.

Wurlitzer P10

In the post-war years, the production of jukeboxes only grew: having survived the war, people wanted joy and relaxation, which means music. Then the famous juke box "1015" or "Bubbler" ("Bubble") was created, on which 24 records were placed. The machine was distinguished by its bright design and light-music, developed by Paul Fuller.

"Bubbler"

Jukebox in the interior

Jukeboxes were so popular in the 20th century that the National Jukebox Museum was opened in Utrecht in 1956. It presents a large collection of still working jukeboxes, as well as its closest "relatives" - music boxes, hurdy-gurdies and clocks with melodies.

At the same time, the jukebox hit the cinema: in the late 50s, two musical films were shot in Italy: "Guys and the Jukebox" and "The Jukebox Cries of Love", where Adriano Celentano plays episodic roles. On the posters for the film, the main characters sit on a 1951 Seeburg juke box:

"Jukebox screams love", 1960

"Guys and jukebox", 1959

Sometimes funny stories happen with the jukebox: for example, in February 2013, two young criminals from California decided to steal an ATM at a local restaurant in San Diego. However, this did not happen, because instead of an ATM, the robbers mistakenly took the juke box. The police assumed that such a strange abduction was due to the alcohol intoxication of the criminals and because of the darkness in the room.

Today's jukebox is a collection of thousands of songs based on computer programs. The design can be both modern, slightly reminiscent of payment terminals, and retro-style - like the same multi-colored Bubbler.
Well, if you want to listen to your favorite songs in the bar - do not pass by the jukebox.