}The technological and economic revolutions of the twentieth century have transformed the music business many times over. Pennies from Heaven is the definitive account of those transformations, from Thomas Edison's cylinders to Digital Audio Tape, from the rise and fall of vaudeville to the advent of the huge entertainment conglomerates, from the sale of sheet music to the marketing of music videos. The book describes the workings of the performing rights organizations ASCAP and BMI; the growth of new genres, from rock to rhythm-and-blues, rap, and metal; the transformation of music radio from AM to FM; the strange career of the FCC; and trends to watch for in the music business as it enters the twenty-first century. The product of years of research, Pennies from Heaven undoubtedly ranks as one of the most essential and comprehensive books on American popular culture. }