This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1943.
Specific locations
1943 in British music
1943 in Norwegian music
Specific genres
1943 in country music
1943 in jazz
Events
January 1 – Frank Sinatra appears at the Paramount Theatre causing a mob of hysterical bobby soxers to flood Times Square and block midtown New York City traffic for hours. Sinatra becomes a featured singer on the popular Your Hit Parade radio program, and co-star of the series Broadway Bandbox. By fall, he will have left Bandbox to star in his own series Songs By Sinatra. January 23 – Duke Ellington's orchestra performs for the first time at New York City's Carnegie Hall. During the concert, which raises money for war relief, Ellington premieres his most famous and revered extended composition, Black, Brown and Beige. June 1 – A performance of Darius Milhaud's suite for two pianos Scaramouche at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in Nazi occupied France is billed anagrammatically as Mous Are-chac by 'Hamid-al-Usurid' to evade the ban on works by Jewish composers. June 17 – Perry Como signs with RCA in the United States. September 27 – Decca Records is the first label to come to terms with the American Federation of Musicians, which has been on strike since August 1942 over music royalties. The first song to be recorded is "Pistol Packin' Mama" by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. October 30 – "Pistol Packin' Mama" by Al Dexter goes where no "Hillbilly" record has ever gone, to the top of the National Best Selling Retail Records chart in the United States. Despite fighting a World War in Europe and the Pacific, civilian and armed forces alike are caught up in a national craze not seen again until Elvis and the Beatles. But not everyone is excited about Country music: Dexter's publishing company sues The Hit Parade radio show for ignoring their record. November 14 – Leonard Bernstein, substituting at the last minute for ailing principal conductor Bruno Walter, directs the New York Philharmonic in its regular Sunday afternoon broadcast concert on CBS. The event receives front-page coverage in The New York Times the following day. Jo Stafford and The Pied Pipers sign with the newly formed Capitol Records (having broken from the Tommy Dorsey band in 1942). Fredda Gibson takes her professional name, "Georgia Gibbs", and begins appearing on the popular Camel Caravan radio program in the United States, hosted by Jimmy Durante and Gary Moore (It is Moore who bestows the famous nickname "Her Nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs" upon her, a playful reference to her diminutive stature of barely over 5 feet). The Ward Singers first tour nationally in the United States. Carter Family disbands. William Schuman's cantata A Free Song wins the first Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Albums released
Oklahoma – Original Broadway Cast, 1,000,000 sales
Reveille with Beverly – Original soundtrack
Top popular recordings 1943
1941 was a great year for the United States recording industry, as bad memories of the Depression-tainted 1930s were replaced by record-setting sales. Then came Pearl Harbor, and on August 1, 1942, a strike by the American Federation of Musicians, which ended all recording sessions. Record companies kept business going by releasing promising recordings from their vaults, but by mid-1943, alternate sources were running dry, as the strike continued. Decca was the first company to settle with the union in September, but year-end statistics showed a 50% drop in charted records from 1942.
For each Year in Music (beginning 1940) and Year in Country Music (beginning 1939), a comprehensive Year End Top Records section can be found at mid-page (popular), and on the Country page. These charts are meant to replace the charts Billboard prints at the end of each year, because they are better. Keep reading.