[From: Chapter 1, “FEAR OF MUSIC,” pp.6-8]
…Without a doubt though, the starkest example of a thoroughly brutal anti-music policy was the one imposed on Afghanistan by an unimaginably conservative coalition of religious zealots — the now-infamous Taliban regime. After overtaking the capital city of Kabul in 1996, these ultraconservative nutcases imposed harsh cultural restrictions on the people—beginning with the barring of women singing in public—using religious decrees (or fatwas) enforced by the new Ministry of Justice’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Elimination of Vice. All forms of modernity—including the use of radio, TV, the Internet, video players, film projectors, or secular music—were strictly outlawed, and the Taliban immediately began to display their disdain for westernized culture by draping trees with lengths of magnetic tape that had been ripped from confiscated music cassettes. Some musicians were reportedly so intimidated that they burned their beloved instruments, and music fans buried their cassettes and CDs in their backyards. One cleric explained that “according to Islam, one of the worst sins is to encroach on a person’s consciousness. When someone listens to music, his state of mind changes.” Music was considered to be so distracting from holy thoughts that the ancient and widely popular Afghan practice of keeping caged songbirds in the home was banned because of the pretty melodies they provide. The ringing of bells or chimes was outlawed. Even humming a tune to oneself was a risky gamble. Transgressors faced potential punishments that included severe beatings, imprisonment, and public executions.

This international roster of shame certainly gives one pause. While citizens of the United States can be proud that we’ve never sunk as low as most of those nations, we ought also be humble enough to acknowledge that the US does in fact have a blemished track record on censorship issues. While American society has thus far escaped the worst sorts of governmental intrusions, our own “secret police”—the Federal Bureau of Investigation—does have a long and well-documented history of illegally targeting musicians for surveillance.

While cultural activities are closely monitored and officially regulated by their respective governments in many countries, it remains unlikely that the US government will ever be allowed to grossly overstep its authority by, for example, generating a list of officially censored songs. The main reason—in addition to the strong free speech protections provided by the Bill of Rights—is a fairly effective (albeit informal) system of censorship that is already established here.

Existing not as a list of rigidly restrictive rules imposed by politicians and enforced by bureaucrats, the American system is instead based on a process comprising the everyday decisions made by artists, the record and radio industry, and retailers. It is not, however, a toothless system, and punishment for artists who cross the line is meted out in our own capitalistic terms. The price exacted for these infractions often amounts to some form of financial sacrifice. Rarely are cops brought in to bust heads; instead, the system itself turns the screws: a hostile reception from citizens groups, boycott threats, forfeiture of radio support, canceled concert tours, curtailed distribution, withdrawal of corporate promotional or advertising support. The key result: lost revenues.

Whether initially savvy about such business practices or not, most artists come to recognize the ground rules in due course. In practice, the first links in the “censorship” chain are the innumerable decisions that any artist makes in his/her creative efforts. In the process of composing, every musician makes countless choices regarding variables that include the song’s potential chord structure, key, and melody contour. When crafting lyrics, the artist creates quite freely, yet some level of editing—potentially including considerations about current marketplace viability—occurs along the way, shaping the tenor, tone, and content of the lyrics...

[From: Chapter 2, “BEAT CRAZY,” pp.18-22]
Public dancing was an issue well before the wild fashions and immoderate imbibing of the Roaring ’20s’ drew the wrath of the fuddy-duddies. It was the rise of the waltz as a popular dance step that riled up an opposition who railed and flailed in such publications as 1892’s From the Ballroom to Hell (which included chapters like “From the Ball-Room to the Grave” and “Abandoned Women the Best Dancers”), 1904’s The Immorality of Modern Dances, 1912’s From Dance Hall to White Slavery: The World’s Greatest Tragedy, and various pamphlets by the prolific Dr. R. A. Adams, including Fighting the Ragtime Devil and his damning The Social Dance of 1921.

And much like the scandals that erupted long ago over that “reckless” new dance called the waltz, jazz dance steps too became a point of social contention. Around 1913 a number of New York City–based dance instructors—who had been quite successfully promoting old-school waltzes and schottisches—felt their livelihood was being threatened enough to come together and call for bans on new dances (as well as the halting of further publication of ragtime sheet music). And in time the censors enjoyed a few successes: A number of new dances—including the faddish “animal dances” (like the bunny hug, the turkey trot, the kangaroo hop, the camel walk, the lame duck, the chicken scratch, the raccoon, and the grizzly bear) and even the exotic tango—were formally outlawed by municipal morality codes enacted in various American cities.

In the Pacific Northwest—the area I am most familiar with and which can be seen as typical—the morality patrols were quite active. In Portland, Oregon, dancehalls were raided, dancers arrested, and trials held. In 1913 local headlines blared: “No More Tango and No More ‘Wiggles’”—“Hugging Barred at Public Dances in Proposed Law”—“Dancing Position Is Deemed Menace”—“Dancehall Held Evil.” [Note: It was also in Portland that the famed burlesque star and “hoochie coochie” dancer Sophie “The Last of the Red Hot Mamas” Tucker was hauled off to the local jail on indecency charges in 1916. That arrest was but one of three in her career—the first had been in 1910 for singing “The Dance of the Grizzly Bear”—and apparently was not an uncommon occupational hazard, as her peer, Mae West, also was jailed a time or two.] A press account on July 12, 1915, reported that “officers of Tunica County, Mississippi, have issued an order prohibiting young society folk from dancing a strange waltz. The dance was originated by Negro cotton pickers and is dubbed the ‘boll weevil wiggle!’ It is the combination of the grizzly bear, the chicken slide and a waltz.”

A humorous incident in Bellingham, Washington, should have exposed the whole dance-ban trend as the ridiculous farce it was. Around 1913 local dance instructor H.O. Morrison was arrested at the Armory for doing a “four-step” dance move, when a city ordinance limited people to a “three-step.” While being booked, he met the mayor and complained, asking, “What kind of laws do you have here that go against the laws of music?” The mayor showed him the rules, and then surprised Morrison by asking if he could serve as an expert witness in the prosecution of some others who’d been arrested for doing the bunny hug and the grizzly bear at a Socialist Hall dance. Morrison agreed, but actually had other ideas in mind. When the trial opened, Morrison requested of the presiding judge that a demonstration of the particular moves of the bunny hug be made. Granted the opportunity, he asked that two policemen do the demonstration. And then, just when the two clasped hands and went cheek-to-cheek, a newsman snapped a photo, and Morrison announced that the dance move they were doing was in fact the coatie park—a dance step not specifically outlawed—and the next day, that ridiculous image graced the front page of the local paper. But Morrison didn’t stop there; he then sent a copy of Bellingham’s many blue laws to a national newspaper that took an interest in the story, published the same photo, and even called the rather embarrassed judge for a quote. Ultimately the lunacy of the whole situation was clear and charges against the dancers were quietly dropped.

One particularly sexy new dance step, the tango (which was, early on, even banned in its place of origin, Argentina), was also attacked in America. In 1915 the Reverend Billy Sunday saw fit to aim his ire at women in particular and really took them to task: “On the ballroom floor you allow liberties to men that you never allow them elsewhere. You grant them liberties on the ballroom floor that if a man other than your husband would attempt them in your home and your husband would find you at it, he would have no trouble securing a divorce, and if he shot the man no jury in the world would convict him for it.”

There were news reports of dancers being fined because “their Turkey Trots were interpreted by the courts as disorderly conduct.” In another instance, fifteen working girls were fired from their jobs with the Philadelphia song publisher Curtis Publishing when they were caught doing the turkey trot—even though the dancing took place during their lunch break. Trying, one supposes, to console themselves a bit, dance teachers attending an annual meeting in 1919 solemnly “announced that jazz dancing was waning and soon jazz music would be a memory.” One song of the era, 1913’s “Anti-Ragtime Girl” went so far as to exalt an honorable gal who rejected any sort of new dance [‘…She don’t do the Bunny Hug, nor dance the Grizzly Bear / She hasn't learned the Turkey Trot / …She can't tell a Tango from a Can Can or a Jig / …She's my little Anti-Ragtime Girl…’].

In 1927 the London Daily Mail bemoaned the growth of the whole jazz fad, insisting that “Victims of the dancing craze multiply with the frequency of adapted jazz ‘melodies.’” Another account of the era noted that “new steps replaced outlawed ones in rapid succession, however, as young Americans raced dance censors to the ballrooms. Recognizing the futility of the situation, authorities changed tactics and began regulating the dance halls rather than particular dances.” The music’s foes also tried the tactic of equating the music with chemical addictions. In 1921 some activist society ladies in Seattle declared that jazz “is a menace as serious as the narcotic menace and even worse than liquor.” Indeed, one of their leaders—the music chairman of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs—stated that “as dearly as she loved music, she would rather see it wiped out of existence than to have it succumb to jazz."