Interestingly, music wasn't hit-driven in 1920. A person could earn a decent but not lavish middle class living as a musician, through things like performance, teaching, theaters, and so forth.
An example was that Miles Davis grew up in a middle class family -- his dad was a dentist -- who thought that becoming a musician was an OK career.
Sure, there were stars -- for instance in sheet music publishing -- but since then the working-class musician jobs have nearly vanished.
this is true in some urban settings agree. Rural people had barter and fell into patterns of farm labor. A wild guess is that the bar and the church were social magnets where cultural arts and entertainment could be done professionally to some extent. A very large base factor is "humans do culture, how to include monetary compensation for things that people do already" ?
An example was that Miles Davis grew up in a middle class family -- his dad was a dentist -- who thought that becoming a musician was an OK career.
Sure, there were stars -- for instance in sheet music publishing -- but since then the working-class musician jobs have nearly vanished.