A
jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a
coinA coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons with letters and numbers on them that, when entered in combination, are used to play a specific selection.
History
Coin-operated
music boxesA music box is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons à musique...
and
player pianoA player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...
s were the first forms of automated coin-operated musical devices. These instruments used paper rolls, metal disks, or metal cylinders to play a musical selection on the instrument, or instruments, enclosed within the device. In the 1890s these devices were joined by machines which used actual recordings instead of physical instruments. In 1890, Louis Glass and William S. Arnold invented the nickel-in-the-slot phonograph, the first of which was an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph retrofitted with a device patented under the name of
Coin Actuated Attachment for Phonograph. The music was heard via one of four listening tubes. Early designs, upon receiving a coin, unlocked the mechanism, allowing the listener to turn a crank which simultaneously wound the spring motor and placed the reproducer's stylus in the starting groove. Frequently exhibitors would equip many of these machines with listening tubes (acoustic headphones) and array them in "phonograph parlors" allowing the patron to select between multiple records, each played on its own machine. Some machines even contained carousels and other mechanisms for playing multiple records. Most machines were capable of holding only one musical selection, the automation coming from the ability to play that one selection at will. In 1918 Hobart C. Niblack patented an apparatus that automatically changed records, leading to one of the first selective jukeboxes being introduced in 1927 by the
Automated Musical Instrument Company, later known as AMI. In 1928, Justus P. Seeburg, who was manufacturing player pianos, combined an electrostatic loudspeaker with a record player that was coin operated, and gave the listener a choice of eight records. This
Audiophone machine was wide and bulky, and had eight separate turntables mounted on a rotating Ferris wheel-like device, allowing patrons to select from eight different records. Later versions of the jukebox included Seeburg's
Selectophone, with 10 turntables mounted vertically on a spindle. By maneuvering the tone arm up and down, the customer could select from 10 different records.
Greater levels of automation were gradually introduced. As electrical recording and
amplificationGenerally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
improved there was increased demand for coin-operated phonographs.
The term "jukebox" came into use in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
around 1940, apparently derived from the familiar usage "
juke jointJuke joint is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African American people in the southeastern United States. The term "juke" is believed to derive from the Gullah word joog, meaning rowdy or disorderly...
", derived from the
GullahThe Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....
word "juke" or "joog" meaning disorderly, rowdy, or wicked.
Song-popularity counters told the owner of the machine the number of times each record was played (A and B side were generally not distinguished), with the result that popular records remained, while lesser-played songs could be replaced.
Wallboxes were an important, and profitable, part of any jukebox installation. Serving as a remote control, they enabled patrons to select tunes from their table or booth. One example is the Seeburg 3W1, introduced in 1949 as companion to the 100-selection Model M100A jukebox. Stereo sound became popular in the early 1960s, and wallboxes of the era were designed with built-in speakers to provide patrons a sample of this latest technology.
Initially playing music recorded on wax cylinders, the
shellacShellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...
78
rpmRevolutions per minute is a measure of the frequency of a rotation. It annotates the number of full rotations completed in one minute around a fixed axis...
record dominated jukeboxes in the early part of the 20th century. The
Seeburg CorporationSeeburg was an American design and manufacturing company of automated musical equipment, such as orchestrions, jukeboxes, and vending equipment.- History :...
introduced an all 45 rpm vinyl record jukebox in 1950 leading to the 45 rpm record becoming the dominant jukebox media for the last half of the 20th century. 33⅓-R.P.M., C.D.s, and videos on DVDs were all introduced and used in the last decades of the century. MP3 downloads, and internet-connected virtually unlimited playlists came in the new, 21st century. The jukebox's history has followed the wave of technological improvements in music reproduction and distribution.
Jukeboxes were most popular from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, particularly during the 1950s. By the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in America went into jukeboxes. While often associated with early
rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
music, their popularity extends back much further, including classical music, opera and the swing music era. In 1977,
The KinksThe Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...
recorded a song called "Jukebox Music" for their album
SleepwalkerSleepwalker is a 1977 album by the English rock group, The Kinks. It marked a return to straight-ahead, self-contained rock songs after several years of concept albums. It is the first album in what critics usually call the "arena rock" phase of the group, in which more commercial and mainstream...
.
Styling progressed from the plain wooden boxes in the early thirties to beautiful light shows with marbelized plastic and color animation in the Wurlitzer 850 Peacock of 1941. But after the United States entered the war, metal and plastic were needed for the war effort. Jukeboxes were considered "nonessential", and none were produced until 1946. The 1942 Wurlitzer 950 featured wooden coin chutes to save on metal. At the end of the war, in 1946, jukebox production resumed and several "new" companies joined the fray.
Models designed and produced in the late 20th century needed more panel space for the increased number of record titles they needed to present for selection, reducing the space available for decoration, leading to less ornate styling in favor of functionality and less maintenance.
Many manufacturers produced jukeboxes, including 1890s Wurlitzer, 1920s Seeburg, 1930s "
Rock-OlaThe Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation was, along with Wurlitzer, a top maker of jukeboxes. The company, which originally made slot machines, scales and pinball machines, was founded in 1927 by Coin-Op pioneer David Cullen Rockola....
" whose name is actually based on that of the company founder, David Cullen Rockola, and Crosley.
Notable models
- 1946 Wurlitzer Model 1015 --- referred to as the "1015 bubbler" offered 24 selections. More than 56,000 were sold in less than 2 years and it is considered a pop culture icon. Designed by Wurlitzer's Paul Fuller.
- 1953 Seeburg M100C - This was the jukebox exterior used in the credit sequences for the sit-com Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
. It played up to fifty 45 rpm records making it a 100-play. It was a very colorful jukebox with chrome glass tubes on the front, mirrors in the display, and rotating animation in the pilasters.
- 1967 Rock-Ola 434 Concerto - This was the jukebox interior used in the intro sequence for the sit-com Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
. Like the Seeburg M100C, it played up to fifty 45 rpm records, but featured a horizontal playback mechanism unlike the M100C.
- Gables Kuro --- 4 or 5 are known to exist and are valued at US$125,000.
- Rock-Ola President --- only one known to exist and valued at at least US$150,000
- Rock-Ola Premier --- 15 known to exist and valued at US$20,000
- Wurlitzer 950 --- 75-90 known to exist and valued at US$35,000
- 1927 LINK --- valued at US$40,000 and extremely rare.
Demise
Jukeboxes once received the newest songs first. They played music on demand without commercials. They offered a means to control the music listened to beyond what was available through the technology of their heyday.
Jukeboxes seem to have been superseded by personal digital audio players, and the easy and free access to music on demand. There is less incentive to pay a jukebox to reproduce music.
While jukeboxes maintain popularity in bars they have fallen out of favor with what were once their more lucrative locations—
restaurantA restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
s,
dinerA diner, also spelled dinor in western Pennsylvania is a prefabricated restaurant building characteristic of North America, especially in the Midwest, in New York City, in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey, and in other areas of the Northeastern United States, although examples can be found throughout...
s, military barracks, video arcades and laundromats.
External links