Paul Robeson's Microphone Voice and the Technologies of Easy Singing

This article offers an historical account of Paul Robeson's appropriation of electroacoustic technologies, which he encountered in the recording studio, film sound stage, and radio work, for use in song recital on the concert stage. Attending to the ways in which technologically-engaged musicians like Robeson employed emergent sound technologies in concert performance in the first half of the twentieth century, it thus supplements the history of sound technologies, which has focused on recording and broadcasting. It argues that Robeson's sometimes novel use of these technologies, on the one hand, was tied to specific aspects of his own vocal identity while, on the other hand, also produced a voice that functioned within the soundscape of modernity.