Crossover

I was delighted to see, at this evening’s Tony Awards, Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man finally recognized as an early progenitor of rap music. Hugh Jackman brought out L.L. Cool Jay and T.I. to join him in rapping “Rock Island”, the brilliant opening number of Wilson’s masterpiece.

The moment was all the more sweet when you consider Wilson’s full history. More than ninety years ago he was a member of John Philip Sousa’s band, playing a style of music that couldn’t be further in our collective cultural consciousness from the edgy streetwise milieu of rap. Which makes the achievement of “Rock Island” — first widely heard in 1957 — all the more impressive.

Of course Meredith Wilson’s association with edgy modern popular music long predates this year’s Tony awards. In 1963 — more than half a century ago — the most famous rock band of them all, the Beatles, recorded “Till There was You”, also from The Music Man.

We have always had a vague sense in American culture that rap is the successor to rock and roll. It’s fascinating that Wilson’s music has managed to connect them together, more than half a century apart in time, after having first emerged out of the era of silent movies.

And there is at least one more connection here between rap and the era of classic rock: In order to use “Rock Island” in this evening’s Tony Awards broadcast, the show’s producers would have needed permission from the person who has long held the rights to Meredith Wilson’s entire catalog.

That would be none other than Sir Paul McCartney.