Robert Cantwell describes the radio as a tool to bring many different types of people together and take them to a new region or city. I guess I don’t really know how the radio works, but how does a family in North Carolina pick up a radio station out of Chicago?
In many of the readings and especially in this piece by Cantwell, they discuss how the banjo player was often used as comedy relief or that there was a comedy act within the music.
Funny Banjo Players: Five Plucky Pairings of Comedy and Music
They also refer to black face, minstrel acts, and rural medicine comedian acts. Why did musicians feel that just their music wasn’t entertaining enough? Now, people will go to concerts of many genres of music that have no comedy in them at all.