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Why Are They Called Jukeboxes?
Home » Game Rooms » Jukeboxes » Why Are They Called Jukeboxes?A jukebox is a partially automated music playing device that is usually a coin operated machine that can play specially selected songs from self-contained media. The traditional jukebox is large with a rounded top and has colored lighting going around the front of the machine on its sides. The classis jukebox has buttons with letters and numbers on them that when combined, are used to indicate a specific song from a particular record
Manufactures did not call them jukeboxes, they called them Automatic Coin-Operated Phonographs. The term jukebox appeared in the 1930s and originated in the southern United States. Conventional wisdom determined that the origin either comes from the African work joot, meaning to dance, jute which is a fibrous product grown in the south or jook which is a word used by descendants of African slaves and meant disorderly or wicked. A jook house was a term used to describe out of the way shacks used by southern field workers for dancing, drinking and also used as brothels. No matter which term you choose, it clearly originated as a slang term used by southern field workers for their entertainment. The jukebox provided the only outlet for black recording artists, as mainstream as radio was, through most of the 50s, radio was pretty much a white medium.
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