“One thing can be said for the influenza,” Musical America magazine noted a few months later. A columnist in Musical America back then estimated that the financial damage to music from the influenza outbreak amounted to around $5 million nationwide, the equivalent of approximately $85.5 million today. The pandemic’s effects on pop music are less well documented, though Bomberger found records of early jazz bands having tours cancelled. Earlier in 1918, Musical America had called soprano Geraldine Farrar the “high priestess of patriotism,” with photos of her sewing bandages and hawking war bonds. What made the 1918 flu so lethal also made its impact on the arts less dire: It moved with stunning swiftness.

Source: bd News24 May 07, 2020 05:26 UTC