A jukebox! If you walk into a themed restaurant where they have jukeboxes, it’s still a thrill. The thought of choosing some tunes that remind us of our teen years can’t help but bring back fun memories.
But times have changed. We all have phones that carry a multitude of our favorite songs, and personal earbuds let us listen anytime and anywhere to what we want. Opportunities for communal listening are rare.
When the first jukeboxes (then called “nickel-in-the-slot phonographs”) were created, it was very exciting. The first version played music from a single cylinder. Only the machine owner could change it. What’s more, there was no way to amplify the sound. To listen, the customers inserted a nickel and then had access to one of four listening tubes attached to the machine.
These phonographs were far from the jukeboxes of today, but they were a great novelty.
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Who Thought of the Jukebox?
The inventor of the first nickel-in-the-slot phonograph was a man named Louis Glass (1845-1924). He grew up in northern California, and as soon as he could work, he took a job as a telephone operator. (Young boys were initially hired as operators because telephones were expected to replace the need for messengers. The boys proved to be too rambunctious to work in offices since the telephones were not yet very busy. Soon women were hired.) Glass held the job long enough to set aside savings that he put toward investing in telephone companies in Oakland and San Diego.
Glass also worked as an agent of the Edison General Electric Company and was manager of Pacific Phonograph Company when it was founded in 1889. As a result, he was very familiar with Edison’s inventions. He often demonstrated the Edison phonograph for prominent San Francisco citizens.
Thomas Edison initially envisioned the phonograph as a machine that would be used for playing back information in an office setting. But Glass, working with business associate William S. Arnold, was experimenting with another use for the machine. What if they could rig it to be a coin-operated music-playing machine?
Music-Playing Machine
As early as 1871, inventors created mechanical toys that operated when coins were inserted. This likely inspired Glass and Arnold. The machine they used for their device was the Edison Class M electric phonograph. If someone deposited a coin in the box attached, this activated the cylinder so that music played. Unfortunately, there was no way to amplify the sound. Listeners had to use one of four listening tubes attached to the machine, inserting the tube in their ear.
An article in Popular Mechanics described the machine as “encased in a lead-lined oak cabinet. It had a 25-lb sulfuric acid battery that provided electricity through wires to the motor.” The cylinder needed to be changed manually by an operator.
Despite these drawbacks, Glass and Arnold were excited by their invention. They got permission to install the first “nickel-in-the-slot” machine in a San Francisco bar near their offices, called the Palais Royale (1889).
Glass told others that during the first 6 months, the machine made $1000. This was an astounding amount of money for the day. Bar owners likely received a percentage of the take, but having one of the phonographs in their establishment would also help build traffic and sell more drinks.
One bar owner had a worthy suggestion: He said that in order for the device to be installed in his establishment, he wanted the recording to add a line at the end: “Go over to the bar and get a drink…”
Over the next 18 months, Glass approached other locations and placed at least 13 more of these devices. They were in bars, restaurants, and even ferries traveling between Oakland and San Francisco.
Changes and New Uses
There were no great advancements on these devices for awhile, but there were new uses. Carnivals were thrilled to have a new attraction to feature, so they purchased them and created new cylinders with their own offerings. Because they were hands-on with the machines, they could record new songs or silly speeches and lure customers back again and again.
The Next Advance
The next big change in the coin-operated music machine was spearheaded by a man named John Gabel. He was 12 when he and his family arrived in America from Slovakia in 1884. He eventually moved to Chicago and worked for a company manufacturing calculators. From there he moved on to a novelty company that made coin-operated vending machines.
In 1898, he left the company and started The Automatic Machine and Tool Company, also selling vending devices.
Gabel was convinced he could create a coin-operated music machine that offered choices. The machine was patented in 1906 as the “Automatic Entertainer” and was a marvel.
“The Automatic Entertainer”
The machine had two stacks of 12 10-inch records, offering 24 selections. The customer used a large dial on the front of the cabinet to choose a song. When a customer deposited a coin, the wonder began. A mechanical arm retrieved the selected record from its stack and placed it on the turntable. The tone arm came down on the outer rim of the chosen record, and the song began to play.
Needles on these machines became dull very quickly and could damage the next record. Gabel created a system where the needles changed automatically. At the end of the record, the old needle dropped out of the tone arm, and a new one was put in place automatically from a “birdcage-like structure” on the side.
Gabel’s other innovation was the addition of a large horn to amplify the sound emanating from the machine. This was a huge leap forward.
The Automatic Entertainer not only offered customers a choice of songs, but it offered a way to amplify sound. Gabel’s system was soon being placed in bars and dance halls.
New Companies
Justus Seeburg’s (1871-1958) background was in manufacturing player pianos. As records were produced, he knew it was time to change his business model and step away from the player pianos. His early phonograph combined an electrostatic loud speaker with a coin-operated record player. It had eight separate turntables mounted on a rotating Ferris wheel-like device that permitted patrons to select from eight different 10-inch 78 rpm records.
In 1938, Seeburg introduced the Symphanola “Trashcan” jukebox. It held 20 10-inch 78s that slipped into a shallow drawer when chosen and that drawer rose up to meet the playing arm.
Seeburg created the first device that could play 45s. It had a sideways moving carriage for pulling the requested records.
Perhaps most memorably, the Seeburg company created the iconic table-mounted machines from which customers could select jukebox choices remotely.
Wurlitzer Jukeboxes
The Wurlitzer name is strongly associated with the jukeboxes of memory.
The Wurlitzer family had a long history in the music business. In Europe the family was well-respected for making musical instruments. They came to the United States and settled in Cleveland in 1853. They continued to make instruments but by the late 1930s, the company added jukeboxes to their line.
Wurlitzer’s biggest contribution to the industry may have been the design work. They hired a man named Paul Fuller who came to the company from store design and started with Wurlitzer in 1935. His design ideas forever changed the look of jukeboxes.
His most famous and often-copied model was the 1015, known as the Bubbler. The Wurlitzer 1015 offered a choice of 24 records (78s). It was introduced in 1946. In the following two years, Wurlitzer sold an astounding 56,000 units.
All of Fuller’s designs featured finely polished wood with spectacular designs in chrome, colored plastic, and glass. The Bubbler featured ornate, Art Deco touches. The most distinctive feature of the 1015 was a set of eight transparent, colored tubes on either side of the grille. Inside these tubes, a heated fluid created a continuous stream of bubbling action. The unit’s glass section also held revolving, spotlighted pieces of colored plastic, adding to its visual appeal.
Customers could see into the jukebox and watch the machine move to pull the record that they selected.
And Then There Was Rock-ola
Rock-ola was founded in 1927 by David Cullen Rockola. The company initially manufactured coin-operated scales, slot machines, and pinball games for amusement parks and arcades.
Rock-ola introduced its first jukebox in 1935. It, too, featured great looking jukebox cases that were perfect for what became the “Golden Age of Jukeboxes.” (1940-50s)
And certainly, the company name was an asset as rock-and-roll became part of the culture. Who wouldn’t want a jukebox from “Rock-ola?”
Today Rock-ola is the last jukebox maker in the business. They are the main suppliers of the Johnny Rocket-themed restaurants. There are more than one hundred diners in the U.S. and a reported 225 worldwide.
The Name “Jukebox”
For almost 40 years, the industry resisted calling these phonographs “jukeboxes.” “Juke” came from the Gullah (Creole) language, and “juke joint” referred to a place for music and dancing (and perhaps drinking and gambling). But eventually, the catchier name of jukebox replaced the very awkward “automatic coin-operated phonograph.”
The Military and Music
Jukeboxes changed the music world in many ways, and one of them happened because of the way jukeboxes were used on military bases.
The military in World War II needed an unimaginable number of soldiers, so both the Army and the Navy accepted people from all parts of the country representing many ethnicities. All of them had different tastes in music.
Jukebox makers saw that their machines needed to offer a wide variety of choices. Soon jukeboxes were loaded with records featuring American blues, gospel music, country music and pop records.
Over time, musicians, too, began answering this need. Music began combining styles and tempos to grow into the ever-changing music we hear today.
Jukeboxes and the Record Business
In the 1940s, 75 percent of all records manufactured went directly to jukeboxes. It was an important market-testing device for new music. Jukeboxes could tally the number of plays for each title. Those that were popular on the jukeboxes also sold well to the public. It was a win-win situation. Record producers loved them.
Jukebox “play” during the 1950s, became so significant that Billboard magazine began printing a weekly record chart that listed jukebox plays.
The music industry also took lessons from what worked and what didn’t. They soon saw that the most popular songs had memorable words and catchy tunes. Listeners particularly loved a chorus that repeated frequently. That way, even if they couldn’t remember some of the verses of a song, they could join in on the chorus.
Times Change
While most of us still enjoy buying a hamburger at a 1950s-style diner with a jukebox, customers are no longer reliant on this for their music.
First came in-home record players and radios. Then came the transistor radio. Suddenly people had “music in their pockets.”
Today of course, the easy availability of digital music is almost all anyone knows. Despite that, the jukebox is still an enormously fun stroll down memory lane.