In 1940 The American Society of Composers, Lyricists, and Publishers (ASCAP), which represented high-class Broadway writers and established Tin Pan Alleymen announced high rates for the use of their music on radio. Too high for the broadcasters who started their own rival society, Broadcast Music Inc. ASCAP, closed like a country club to rude outsiders like country music and blues, scoffed that BMI could never match their precious library of America’s music--Gershwin, Berlin and George M, Cohan, and the like. But BMI cunningly plumbed country and black rhythm & Blues thus opening the way to rock & roll. And so, curiously, American business acumen ushered in a new era of popular culture.