“That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and the music comes out of the jukebox . . . that’s what Robert Frank has captured.”
-Jack Kerouac, Introduction, The Americans
Robert Frank punctuated his seminal 1958 book The Americans with resonant visual motifs repeated strategically throughout: among them the American flag, the automobile, and, as in the image offered here, the jukebox. The jukebox was a feature of the American cultural landscape that Frank encountered again and again in his cross-country travels, no matter what the region: in Candy Store, 86th Street, it is a jukebox in Manhattan, surrounded by teenagers; in Beaufort, South Carolina, a jukebox in a Southern café, a baby crawling on the floor. The Western jukebox in Bar—Las Vegas pictures a man and machine in profile, and in Bar—New York City, the glowing jukebox takes up nearly the entire height of the frame. In Frank’s photographs, we see the “hydrogen jukebox” of Allen Ginsburg’s 1956 poem, Howl.
In 1950s America, the jukebox was a ubiquitous presence in bars, restaurants, and diners. With their sleek curves and glowing facades, they were undeniably photogenic. From jukeboxes came the pulsating new sounds of rock-and-roll: a congregation of teenagers crowding around this music machine, as in Candy Store, 86th Street, could not have been more quintessentially American. For Frank, a room with a jukebox was fertile territory to riff on this theme.
An additional print of this image is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.