During the first half of the 1900’s, Country music grew from a small group of naïve country musicians who shared their love of the old songs and the old ways with a country that was coming of age. As even now, the players that created the music Americans loved came from colorful backgrounds, and gave all they had to the music. Along the way, some of them gave too much – guys like Hank Williams who died so young and lived such a hard life – come to mind. The stories they told and created and shared left deep impressions in the hearts of the country – almost like the wagon wheel ruts you can still see in some places out along the prairie. At the same time, they forged a trail for newer sounds, first Honky Tonk, then Nashville that cleared a path for what was soon coming behind them – like Rockabilly and Rock and Roll. By the early 1950’s, you began to hear the first chords ringing out.
Tracks and Interviews In This Episode
Visit Our Facebook Page
If you're enjoying our podcast episodes, you'd probably love our Facebook page!
There, you'll find links to all our research, and many of the interviews we access for our content.
During the first half of the 1900’s, Country music grew from a small group of naïve country musicians who shared their love of the old songs and the old ways with a country that was coming of age. As even now, the players that created the music Americans loved came from colorful backgrounds, and gave all they had to the music. Along the way, some of them gave too much – guys like Hank Williams who died so young and lived such a hard life – come to mind. The stories they told and created and shared left deep impressions in the hearts of the country – almost like the wagon wheel ruts you can still see in some places out along the prairie. At the same time, they forged a trail for newer sounds, first Honky Tonk, then Nashville that cleared a path for what was soon coming behind them – like Rockabilly and Rock and Roll. By the early 1950’s, you began to hear the first chords ringing out.
Tracks and Interviews In This Episode
Visit Our Facebook Page
If you're enjoying our podcast episodes, you'd probably love our Facebook page!
There, you'll find links to all our research, and many of the interviews we access for our content.
Country Music Blazes a Trail
The Carter Family, 'Can the Circle Be Unbroken' (1935)
In the earliest days of Country Music, the music was made by real-life back country folks like the Carter Family. In these days, the name given to this music was ‘hillbilly’. The Virginian, AP Carter gathered songs like a butterfly collector, and along with his wife, Sarah, the Carter Family basically founded country music. The Carters, along with other fiddlers, singers, and guitar pickers from that time and place, like Fiddlin' John Carson, G. B. Grayson & Henry Whitter, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Clarence Ashley, and Dock Boggs were about as homespun and authentic as you could get. They played English, Scottish and Irish ballads that had been passed down to them generation over generation for hundreds of years. The music reflected the character, beliefs, and culture of the people who played it. The songs were as much a part of the land as the people were.
In the decades to come, Country music would go through many changes – both in technology and in the style of the music. The one thing that would never change though, would be the spirit behind the music – a celebration of American values.
This week’s episode is about Country Music between the catastrophic world wars – a time when America grew up and took it’s position as truly the leader of the free world.
(1928)The Carter Family, 'Wildwood Flower'
This song we’re listening to now, Wild Flower, was one that the Virginian mountain man, A.P. Carter, had learned during his many travels through the Appalachias on one of his many adventures out in search of authentic American songs.
Wildflower dated back to 1860, when it was originally called I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets’. The lyrics the Carter Family sang had gone through many organic changes since that antebellum time a little bit like how a message changes during a game of ‘telephone’ - you know, the one where whispering players pass a message from one person to the next through a room?
Mississippi Sheiks - Sitting On Top of The World
We’re now listening to the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930, playing their song Sitting On Top of The World. The Mississippi Sheiks were an African American string band that played sort of a country music/blues hybrid. Along with this song, their other classics included Stop and Listen Blues and Wintertime Blues. Along with some of the other musicians we’ve already talked about, this is the sound of classic pre-Nashville country music. The Sheiks hold an important position in hillbilly music - the original name given to early Country music - because they are one of the few black groups that played country, and because their music is truly cross-over with blues; listen and see if you don’t hear a connection between their music and what we heard the blues man, Leadbelly, was doing in an earlier episode. The Mississippi Sheiks even covered Leadbelly’s Alberta Blues.
You can hear hillbilly beginning to evolve into a more modern form and appealing to a more urban audience, starting in the late 1930’s and moving into the 1940’s. One example of this transition is Roy Acuff’s Wabash Cannonball.
1936; Roy Acuff; Wabash Cannonball
A few innovations in this song from 1936 included the ‘choo-choo’ train sound effects and the harmonica solo of some long-imagined cowboy.
Ernest Tubb, 'Walking the Floor Over You' (1941)
Another song that foreshadowed major movements that would follow in future years was Walking the Floor Over You, by Ernest Tubb, whom they called the ‘Texas Troubadour’, released in 1941.
Ernest Tubbs started his career in the mold of Jimmie Rodgers, imitating Rodgers trademark yodel that we heard in an earlier episode in the song, Yodel No. 9 or Standing on the Corner, that he did with the great jazz musician, Louis Armstrong. Tubbs lost his ability to yodel after a tonsillectomy, but he pushed on, becoming one of pop's first great, wooden-voiced, terrible singers. In a move that pre-dated a lot of teen music from the 50’s and 60’s, Tubbs substituted a beat, and an electric guitar for better singing talent. You can hear that sound in this song, Walking the Floor Over You. Also, like the reputations that a lot of rockers traded on later, Tubb's limited voice just reinforced that he was a regular dude…. The real thing. Compared to other artists, Tubbs still sounds really mainstream to our ears today, I mean, compare his voice to gravel and shredded glass voiced Tom Waits, for instance.
Honky-Tonk
Faron Young – Hello Walls
The 1940s were mainly the years of "honky-tonk" music, a much more driving style than traditional Appalachian music, and the first urban form of country music. The undisputed king of honky tonk was Hank Williams.
Some of the biggest names in country got their start playing in honky-tonks – such as Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, and Ernest Tubb – the first country artists to use an electric guitar – and whom we’ve already talked a little about.
Honky Tonks were rougher types of bars that catered to a mostly white, southern, what you might call ‘red-necked’ crowd. They attracted crowds by offering live music – mostly piano or small string bands, and sometimes they also had hookers. Honky tonks were the white, urban answer to the rural jook joints that catered to southern blacks and featured blues music. We talked about jook joints in an earlier episode, too.
Honky tonk hit its prime during the 1950s, and some of the most famous names from that time and style include Webb Pierce, Hank Locklin, Lefty Frizzell, Faron Young, George Jones, and, of course, Hank Williams.
Originally, the music referred to a piano style a little bit like rag time but more rhythmic than melodic. It had a strong influence in the rise of boogie-woogie music which we covered in an earlier episode. It eventually evolved to include more of an ensemble - built around acoustic and or electric guitar, fiddle, string bass, and steel guitar. One reason for that was because most of the pianos in those bars were broken down wrecks, often out of tune, and often even missing keys!
Honky Tonk vocals often draw from the so-called “high lonesome” sound of traditional country, sounding either rough and nasal (Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb) or smooth and clear (Lefty Frizzell, George Jones). Like the music, honky-tonk lyrics are emotional, simple and direct. The element that it shares with the rest of country music is it’s unflinching commitment to a narrative that is always intimate, and personally true. Lyrically, honky-tonk departs from the ‘family values’ stuff that country traditionally relied on, trading those sentiments for songs about good old boys, getting drunk, fighting and women. Some of the songs are about partying and good times, but a whole lot of them are about heartbreak, ‘my cheatin’ man’ or ‘my cheatin’ woman’.
1946; Harry Choates ‘Jolel Blon’
This song, Jolel Blon’ is affectionately known as The Cajun National Anthem, written and performed in a Cajun patois by the Louisiana fiddler, Harry Choates. The lyrics talk about losing a beautiful young woman to another man, but c’est la vie, if you lose one woman, just throw your line back in the water, because there are plenty more fish out there in the stream, and life is for fly-fishing! The hard-drinking honky-tonk life had a predictable affect on Choates. In 1951, he was jailed for several days for skipping his alimony and child-support payments. Withdrawing from his alcohol addiction, he started banging his head against the cell bars until he put himself into a coma. He died a few days later, aged 28. I wonder if that’s where the phrase ‘a hard headed man’ comes from?
His song lives on though, having been covered by country-legend Roy Acuff, the greaet 70’s-80’s singer-song writer Warren Zevon, and the Boss - Bruce Springsteen. Bruuuuuuccee covered Jolel Blon’ with Gary U.S. Bonds in the ‘80s. Even though Jolel Blon’ is Harry Choates lasting contribution to music, he sold the rights to the song for $100 and a bottle of whiskey.
Honky-tonk reminds us about how lousy it felt to replace the farm and the country – which now loomed like a beautiful, but lost and longed for dream - for big city lights and the disappointment those lights lit up around every corner. Trading the lost innocence of the farm for the emptiness of the city had produced nothing but pain for a lot of these transplanted farmers; country-folk were learning that long dips into alcohol soaked black-outs were not a solution. Saturday night binges were always followed by Sunday morning hang-overs, remorse and religious guilt. It’s hard to say you’re feeling better when you’re spending your late nights and early mornings draped across the porcelain god.
Hank Williams - So Lonesome I Could Cry
Born in 1923, Williams was from a little town in rural Alabama called Mount Olive. He was the third-born, and his family was pretty much broke. His Dad, Elonzo, had fought in WW 1 and came home shell-shocked. He died when Hank was just 17. Diagnosed with spina bifida as a child, Hank had a pretty isolated childhood, unable to play with the other kids. About all he could do was listen to the radio. But Hank was a natural musician and a sponge for music – at age eight, he started playing guitar – over time, he learned to play a mix of styles including folk, country and the blues . At 13, he’d already been broadcast over the radio, and by 14 was winning regional talent shows and had his own band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys.
This is a Hank Williams song called 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' (1949).
It’s been covered by everybody from Bob Dylan to Sandra Bernhard, to a Johnny Cash - Nick Cave duet. Its one of the songs that has led to Hank Williams reputation as the Shakespeare of Country Music; because of his wrenching, poetic majesty. “Lonesome” is one of pop music's most masterfully controlled wails of emotion. Like a lot of Hank’s songs, it’s a stark black and white portrait of heartbreak. He’s singing about his failing marriage to his wife, Audrey. He paints masterful word paintings - a series of deathly images (a whippoorwill too blue to fly, the moon hiding behind the clouds, a falling star silently lighting up a purple sky). Williams shows you each of these images, finally leading us down into an abyss in which he confides in us that he’s "lost the will the live." The song was prophetic. Less than four years later, Hank Williams was found dead in the back seat of his Cadillac after having been driven through the night to a town where he was scheduled to play a concert on New Year's Day.
Hanks songs have become part of the lexicon of American music with songs such as Cold Cold Heart (1950), Why Don't You Love Me (1950), Your Cheating Heart (1952), I Saw The Light (1953.
Hank Williams; Jambalaya
And he also wrote memorable pseudo-blues such as: Moaning The Blues (1950), Long Gone Lonesome Blues (1950), So Lonesome I Could Cry (1949), I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (1952). Finally, he predicted rock and roll – which was just a few years off in the future with up-tempo songs like Move It On Over (1947), Honkytonking (1948), Howlin' At The Moon (1951). Jambalaya (1952) and Fred Rose's Kaw-liga (1952. Unfortunately, Hank had a love-affair with alcohol, and lived a hard life on the road. The combination killed him at the tender age of 29.
Lefty Frizzell; If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time
We’re listening to Lefty Frizzell and a song called If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time. It was his first big hit. Frizzell was the son of a Texas oil-man. His singing style set the direction for a generation of singers who followed him “in the country way. His style sort of smoothed out the rough edges of Honky Tonk by holding out syllables longer, and singing longer. He had a rich tenor range, and he invented his own style of singing within the Honky Tonk canon made it more ‘mainstream’. His popularity opened the doors for a group of singers that followed him, including George Jones, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, and Merle Haggard.
Today, you can hear echoes of Left Frizzell in artists like Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and Clint Black.
Honky Tonk was a transition phase in Country Music, too. It bridged the gap between hillbilly and the much more mainstream, you might say ‘sanitized’ Nashville sound. When rockabilly and rock and roll happened in the mid-fifties, Honky Tonk’s fans kind of did a migration in that direction and the music sort of disappeared until a revival in the 1980’s and 1990’s with artists like Chris Stapleton and Randy Travis.
Community Values Running Through Country Music
I want to talk with you now about the Nashville sound, but I need to set the stage a little bit. Nashville as a sound or form of Country was the result of a lot of give and take between the labels, the stations, and the artists. In the end, the thing that the artists most prized and fought to retain was the spirit and values that had always run through the music. So we need to start there – with understanding the values.
Country’s roots are in the rural, Bible-Belt south, where, besides ‘cotton’, conservative values have always been king . So, when I talk about the ‘spirit’ of Country music, I’m talking about the traditional, cultural values that grew up from the communities where the music was born and raised.
What are these values? Well…
First off, country music was originally created by – and has always been chiefly for – the "regular man or woman” – the small independent business people, family farmers, truck drivers, carpenters and so on. The heroes in country songs work hard, fight to make ends meet. They face hard times and above all, they stay steadfastly devoted to Jesus.
“Single Girl, Married Girl”. The Carter Family
Country music is also about traditional family values - even if the rules were applied unevenly, with more weight on the women, and less on the men - whom it was understood, just had to be expected to stray every now and again. This double-standard also created a feminist counterpoint within the genre. You can hear this perspective in the music, clear through the history of Country, going all the way back to the Carter Family. They did a song called “Single Girl, Married Girl”. You get the point of the song from the very first verse:
“Single girl, oh single girl
She's gone anywhere she please
Oh, gone anywhere she please
Married girl, oh married girl
Got a baby on her knees
Oh, got a baby on her knees”
My Big Iron Skillet – Wanda Jackson
You hear it again in Wanda Jackson’s song, “My Big Iron Skillet”, the song we’re listening to now.
Wanda was an early rockabilly singer in the early 1950’s. Country to her core, she was touring with the likes of Johnny Cash and Elvis in those days.
You can tell from the lyrics to this song, that Wanda was all through being the little woman, content to sit at home while her big blowhard husband went out at night to spend his paycheck, and who knows what else….
“You are doing wrong again it's plain for all to see
And you think here at home is where I ought to be
There's gonna be some changes made when you get in tonight
'Cause I'm gonna teach you wrong from right”
Charley Pride – Kiss An Angel Good Morning
Third, although things are changing, there was a time when country music was very segregated – very ‘white’. The performers and audience are mainly white. At the turn of the 20th century, half of the string bands were black. By the time we were into the ‘20s and ‘30s, that history was lost in time – because the white-run record labels would not sign black musicians. What got recorded was what was remembered, and not many black musicians were getting signed. There was a whole system rigged against them – even more entrenched than it is today. Ford Motor Company founder, Henry Ford, who was about as racist as they come, had a big hand in trying to create a white ethnicity. He’d use his money to stage big fiddle competitions where blacks were barred from entering. So, this music that was actually created from a melding of black music and the old English/ Scottish/ Irish ballads and reels was literally white-washed. Even A.P. Carter, whom we’ve talked about as being a big ‘song collector’ had to rely on a black man, named Lesley Riddle, to take him into the black churches to get exposed to the really great music from the region.
Also, there are plenty of examples where black musicians had a huge hand in how white country musicians honed their craft. For instance, a black street performer and blues musician named “Tee-tot” (his real name was Rufus Payne) taught Hank Williams how to play guitar – you can hear Tee-Tot’s blues influences in a lot of Hank’s music.
So – antagonism and indifference bred more of the same, and black musicians turned their backs on country too. It was like they were saying “Look, if you don’t want us, we don’t want you either.” The way I look at it, with all the great contributions African Americans made to this country’s music in the 20th century, they might have been right and you really didn’t get any commercially viable black Country music stars until Charley Pride finally broke in the late ‘60s.
This is not to say there were no blacks in Country music – it’s just that there were very few. The Mississippi Sheiks, whom we’ve already heard in this episode were one of the earliest examples of African Americans who DID penetrate Country.
DeFord Bailey was another black Country artist that we’ve talked about in an earlier episode of American Song. He was one of the truly great harmonica players – and, get this – he was the first country artist EVER – PERIOD – NO ARGUMENT to appear on the Grand Ole Opry, when the show changed from being called Barn Darn to the Opry, in 1928. Bailey toured a lot with Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe and other early hillbilly musicians.
Charlie Pride’s career as a country musician was right smack-dab in the middle of the tension-filled Civil-Rights 1960’s. Talk about a tough row to hoe! Despite this, Pride had 39 consecutive #1 country singles. He made it through his talent, mixed with a little bit of street-sense. When he released his first singles, his label chose not to include any promo head shots. The label forced Pride’s audience to accept him soley on the basis of what he SOUNDED like, and they loved what they heard! Eventually, the mystery was revealed and – a pleasant surprise – no one seemed to care much!
Fourth, country music longs for the older, simpler times when ‘them good old country values were held in high regard.
Fifth, country music has strong Christian roots. And of course, during war time, there is always a reliance on faith and, as Dylan was to put it twenty years later, having “God On Our Side” – although Dylan meant it in a very sarcastic way, I mean, he penned the line “Even Judas Iscariot had God on his side”.
I’m Proud to Be an American – Lee Greenwood
Sixth, country music idolizes a blind sort of patriotism, where America has seldom been wrong. A love it or leave attitude can be heard in artists like Merle Haggard, Lee Greenwood, and Toby Keith. WW II was probably the last war America fought where public support was so high. Protest songs and public discontent with the military only became a thing starting a little bit with Korea, and then of course, Vietnam – which again, is a topic for a future episode.
There’s nothing like a shared enemy to drive people back to more traditional values, and church, and patriotism. Remember what George Orwell said in 1984…. “Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania…..” Just think of modern-day country artists like Toby Keith and the songs he wrote during the 9/11 era such as “American Soldier” and “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”.
And here, I think I need to digress even more from the through line about how Country evolved during the first half of the 20th Century. But that’s pretty much what WW II did to every other part of life – it interrupted life as the country had known it and it eventually changed a lot of things.
The South had always been the biggest market for Country music, and the war actually proved to be a major catalyst for Country music. The military was the major force in the Southern economy during the war. Historically, an awfully large portion of Southern workers had been employed by the military, or military-adjacent industries and southern factory workers took their love for country music as they migrated north to work in the defense plants in Detroit, Chicago, and California. Obviously, Southern soldiers brought the music with them as they traveled across the world to fight in the battles. Actually, the majority of US soldiers came from the Southeast and the Mountain states – for instance, Georgia provided the greatest number of soldiers per capita. A lot of the GI’s from outside the South got their first exposure to Country on board ships, in barracks, and in other places when the Southerners turned on their favorite music. Also, it didn’t hurt that, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a lot of Country artists started churning out pro-war patriotic songs to support the war effort.
"A Soldier's Last Letter" – Ernest Tubb
We’re now listening to Ernest Tubb’s song, “A Soldier’s Last Letter”.
Ernest Tubb had a streak of ‘soldier songs’ through the course of his career, starting during WW2 and continuing through Korea and Vietnam. This song is one of his most popular country songs from the WW2 period Ernest Tubb truly cared about the troops, and they loved him back. The simple lyrics in this song are all about family values like the love between mother and son, and personal faith. For instance, there’s a lyric that says:
That night as she knelt by her bedside
She prayed Lord above hear my plea
And protect all the sons that are fighting tonight
And dear God keep America free
I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart – Patsy Montana
This is Patsy Montana. Patsy was a trail blazer for women who came later in Country music history. In 1935, she became the first woman in country music to have a million-selling single with this song, "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart". She became a regular feature for decades on Chicago’s radio show, National Barn Dance.. Another song of hers, "Goodnight Soldier", was written to a boyfriend serving over seas. Her songs epitomized the values of loyalty and love.
There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere – Elton Britt
But of all of the heartfelt, war-time country songs, the biggest hit was by this singer, a New Yorker named Elton Britt. This song, one of the most popular tunes from the war years, is "There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere," Britt was a favorite of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In fact, FDR actually invited him to the White House and had him perform the song.
The ‘wear your heart on your sleeve’ lyric says:
“Though I realize I'm crippled that is true Sir/Please don't judge my courage by my twisted leg/Let me show my Uncle Sam what I can do Sir/Let me help to bring the Axis down a peg.”
“Atom Bomb Baby" (1946) by Karl Davis and Harty Taylor
Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan did not satisfy America’s desire to ‘show the Japanese who’s boss’. Even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, country and rockabilly artists kept on mythologizing and, believe it or not, atom bombs became popular imagery. It gives me the chills to think about, but America suddenly had "nuclear bomb" fever! Everybody was talking about it at the family dinner table. In 1957, this song , "Atom Bomb Baby" by the Five Stars was rockabilly song about somebody’s girlfriend – a real “the bomb”.
One verse went
Atom bomb baby, loaded with power
Radioactive as a TV tower
A nuclear fission in her soul
Loves with electronic control
Cute, ‘eh?
Borrowing a line directly from Truman himself, the atom bomb's ability to quickly end the war was celebrated. That actually matched the mood of the nation. Pro-bomb songs matched the zeitgeist that ran through the good old USA in those days - in fact, 85% of Americans were 100% behind Truman’s decision to nuke the Japanese in 1945.
It’s hard to say right now just how America would have reacted to something like that in 2021. Five years ago, I’d have said that the level of protest in America would have been ‘off the charts’. But we’ve just come through the most unexpected – and to me – disappointing - slip back into uglier times in this country, and I’m not sure exactly what to think!
At any rate, history shows that by taking this pro-bomb stance, country music aligned with the national mood and it helped cement Country’s popularity across the country in the ‘40s.
Moving into the 1950’s, the country’s dance crazes were centered on the 'Atomic Boogie' the 'Atomic Polka', the 'Atomic Cocktail,' and there were popular songs like 'Atomic Love,' 'Atom Buster,' and 'Atomic Bomb Baby'". Nuclear bombs were positive metaphors for sex and drinking, I guess with all that going on, it’s no wonder that schools were running atom bomb drills with ‘duck and cover’ under school desks, just in case the Reds ever decided to push the button down!
Thankfully, as the Cold War ground on, people sobered up about the awesome, destructive threat of the atomic age and Country music literally changed its tune. Song writers started comparing the bomb with God. One song from 1950, "Brush the Dust from that Old Bible" by Bradley Kincaid, actually compared the bomb to Jesus and the second coming was compared with an inevitable nuclear holocaust.
Nashville Sound
OK! Now that I’ve walked you through that long explanation, we can rejoin our original path through the woods to talk about how Nashville became ‘music city’ for Country artists, and how it changed the sound of Country!
Marty Robbins – El Paso
As the late 1940’s edged into the early 1950’s there were different commercial forces at play and what became the ‘Nashville Sound’ was heavily influenced by music industry executives trying to find ways to make country music more commercially successful.
Into the 1950’s. The shape of country music in this decade was changed significantly. Fiddles and string bands, and songs about getting drunk were out. Pop orchestration, background singers, strings and love songs were in. The new artists of this watered-down country format included people like Marty Robbins, Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline.
In place of musicians who learned their music the same way that the generations of players before them had learned it – in their homes, and churches, from friends and family members – the Nashville record labels introduced a small set of what were basically ‘session men’. They included Floyd Cramer on piano, Buddy Harman on drums, Bob Moore on bass, and Grady Martin and Hank Garland on guitar. Also included were harmony singing back-up groups like the Jordannaires (later on they backed Elvis Presley). Violins were sometimes brought in from the local symphony. In different combinations, these same musicians played most of the music that came to be known as the Nashville Sound, backing stars like Patsy Cline, Don Gibson, Ferlin Husky, Faron Young, and the we’re listening to now, Mary Robbins.
The Skillet Lickers
The forces that changed country music– from what started out as popularized Appalachian music and became music that appealed to a much broader, national audience – were forged through a series of give and take-type negotiations. The country artists worked to retain the spirit of country music – the one we just spent the last few minutes talking about - handed down over generations, born in the Appalachias, soaked through with regional history.
The Carter Family was a very clear example of that humble, working man spirit.
When they sang, they reminded other people of their own roots and where they’d come from
the old country church, Mama and Daddy, the family fireside, and “the green
fields of Virginia far away.” While they might borrow from other genres from time to time, their music – being a full on reflection of who they were – would only move a little bit away from what people called ‘hillbilly music’ – and when they did, they never stayed away too long.
On the flip side, the record labels were pushing the artists to develop a sound that would appeal to a broader audience. The result is what was captured on vinyl by the best of those country music musicians.
Radio stations playing only country music were popular from the late 1920s on; "barn dances of the air" like the WLS Barn Dance in Chicago, and WSM's Grand Ole Opry, were also popular. These ‘barn dances’ all featured live performances. Then TV came along and changed the way families consumed entertainment at home. Radio audiences started switching to television and the advertisers followed. In response, radio stations started developing formats, and live entertainment over the airwaves was replaced by a steady rotation of the most popular recorded songs. Ratings became the focus and the demand for ‘hits’ grew in order to attract larger audiences. Labels put pressure on artists to produce "hits" because hits meant more profits for the labels and bigger ratings for the stations. At the same time, new recording techniques and new record speeds improved the fidelity of the recorded music. Later in the fifties, country was also threatened by the arrival of rock and roll – a music that drew equally from country and blues. But that – and everything that you could call a ripple effect – are topics for another episode.
Patsy Cline - Crazy
The sound that this negotiation between artists and the developing country music business evolved was softer, and more refined than honky-tonk. It was popular – mass market – and professional – and the connection it had with the original country music was mostly in spirit. But the music, the way it it was redefined in the ‘50s, had lost the steel guitars, fiddles, banjos, nasal twangs and western clothes.
The Nashville Sound eclipsed Honky-Tonk and a lot of were pretty upset about it. "Real" country was being ousted in favor of a "fake" country that had sold out by "going commercial." Of course, there were also listeners who also liked the newer sound better.
To hang onto their original core audience, the artists themselves had to do a lot of appeasing. Some of them did it like Patsy Cline did. After her appearance with the Grand Old Opry at Carnegie Hall, she had a show in an Atlanta with a more traditional country audience. With a dose of old fashioned country humor, she said "Talk about a hen out of a coop!" — and how nice it is to be back among "real" people. The country singer, Hank Snow, simply swore an oath to this audience that he’d never "desert" country music. I think it’s interesting to think about how this same story has played itself out many times across the decades and different genres. I remember as a kid how I felt seeing one of my favorite bands, Genesis, change from their first progressive phase with Peter Gabriel, to their middle phase with albums like Duke and Abacab, and finally their late third stage where they turned themselves into a pop band – a phase I personally found unlistenable, even though that was the zenith of their popularity. And the same thing was true in country music. By moving their sound away from their roots, the industry grew leaps and bounds. In 1961 there were 81 radio stations devoted to country music, in 1966 there were 328. By 1963 one out of every two American records was produced in a Nashville studio.
Western/ Cowboy
Western music - a form of country that steeped in the history, mythology and cattle trails of the Old West rose to prominence because of another Western myth, Hollywood.
In the 19th century, Americans pushed west past the original colonial area, and into the southwest. The music that developed along the trails combined the songs of people with Anglo, Celtic, Spanish, African; Native; and Central American heritage. The cowboys, on their continent-spanning trail drives had their own comic, and serious songs that immortalized their experiences in the wild country of the west. In 1942, the musicologist, John Lomax recorded a cowboy named Harry Stephens. Let’s listen to this recording from the Library of Congress, and have Harry tell us about how he wrote a song called “Night Herding”. It’s a great example of a tradition that had been happening since the mid 1800’s.
https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197221/
These Cowboy songs as well as cowboy poetry flourished – especially after the East-West railroad terminals started transporting the cowboys and their songs about the Western territories and new states.
"Root Hog or Die," https://youtu.be/cZ4Elwdp0XA June Carter Cash
In less than one hundred years, the exploration, discovery and romance of the Old West had faded into history. Just like Buffalo Bill’s Old West show eulogized the passing of the age- with its exploration, Indian tribes, major battles, once-endless herds of now ghostly buffaloes, so did a collection of songs from those places and times and a whole set of new ones by tin-pan alley song writers cashing in on the nostalgia. These songs have names like "Root Hog or Die," and "Freighting from Wilcox to Globe," and the Mormon pioneer song "St. George." There were songs about Texas lawmen, like this one; "The Texas Ranger" songs about the different gold rushes in California, Alaska and South Dakota, for instance "Clementine," and "The Dreary Black Hills”.
When the Work’s All Done This Fall – Roy Rogers
The birth of the film industry gave rise to movies about the old west. The first one, in 1903, was called The Great Train Robbery – at the time, it was 12 terrifying minutes about a posse of bad guys that hold up a steam train - complete with galloping horses, pistol shots, and a speeding locomotive. When ‘talkies’ came along, the westerns included singing cowboys. In 1925, a song called “When the Work’s All Done This Fall” by a guy named Carl Sprague became the first big western hit. Two actors, William S Hart and Tom Mix were the first singing cowboys to make it big in the movies. But Gene Autry was the first major singing cowboy star.
"Tumbling Tumbleweeds
Western music really came into it’s own just as the Great Depression hit. That music just offered people a desperately needed escape. It reminded people of being free; free of mortgage, and debt, and depression and unemployment - just out there and out there in the West answering to nobody but your own conscience and roaming the West. A song like "Tumbling Tumbleweeds"- it perfectly evoked the lonliness of the great western landscapes, and especially the freedom…. The freedom of being unshackled from all the problems of the modern age, and just tumbling, unanchored… drifting like a tumbling tumbleweed. The successful song writers of the day, guys like Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer with the Sons of the Pioneers began writing songs that transformed Western music from songs about roundups and branding to be much more universal – songs about wide-open spaces, and the beauty of nature, and the outdoors, and the free life and fresh air of the cowboy. Tell me that we don’t have a need for that in our lives today, where we’ve become mired in the daily death tolls of the corona virus, or locked behind a steering wheel in miles of grid-lock traffic, and red brake lights, and a steady stream of bad news about politicians who do anything but serve the public interest and embarrass the constitution they’re supposed to defend.
Roy Rogers - "Blue Shadows On The Trail.
The actor – and future owner of the Angels baseball team – Gene Autry grew up on a Texas ranch, and during his career he popularized cowboy music on stage, television, and radio, starting in the 1930s. Some of Gene Autry's biggest hits included "Don't Fence Me In" and "At Mail Call Today" from 1945, "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Buttons and Bows" from 1948, and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" from 1949. Although not cut from the tough, testosterone riddled mold of most leading men, Gene Autry was very popular. He had a singing voice that people liked, a certain kind of on-screen presence, and a clean-cut, guy next door look. That combination won him lots of fans.
And of course, when we see these films today, they seem a little corny… cowboys out on the trail, singing with a big production sound behind them – like ‘where did that orchestra come from’, sometimes he'd be serenading his girlfriend – as if someone is going to burst into full-fledged song in the middle of nowhere… sometimes he and his girlfriend would be singing duets on their horses – poor horses! . Sometimes the cowboy is strumming a guitar by a campfire, in the middle of the desert, and then you get this big orchestral backing…. Come on! But if you’re willing to suspend your inner movie critic just a little, it’s still pretty good entertainment!
(1935) Patsy Montana, 'I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart'
The Arkansas-born singer-songwriter-actress-fiddler Ruby Blevins, a.k.a. Patsy Montana, became the first million-selling female Western artist. Patsy sang in a Kentucky string band called the Prairie Ramblers and adapted the early Western standard "Texas Plains" as "Montana Plains". Patsy Montana had a huge hit in 1935 with a song called "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart," establishing her gun-totin' cowgirl image . This song, "Cowboy's Sweetheart", is one of those ‘chestnuts’; its been covered down many times down through the decades starting with the singert Patti Page, including the Dixie Chicks, and even showing up on The Voice. During Western music continued growing in popularity in the 1940’s with big hits from popular artists including Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry, Woodie Guthrie and Vaughn Monroe and songs like Rainbow at Midnight, Deep in the Heart of Texas, This Land is Your Land and Riders in the Sky.
Even though Country Western was mostly a white genre – by whites, for whites – around Gene Autry’s popularity was so huge that the studios all thought to expand the market to other ethnic groups in the country. So, there was a Mexican singing cowboy, a woman singing cowgirl, Dorothy Page, and an African American singing cowboy who made four movies starring a guy named Herb Jeffries. He was known as the “Bronze Buckaroo”. Jeffries eventually ended his movie career to sing with Duke Ellington’s orchestra – he had that good a voice! And he had a great career in music. He actually lived to be 100.
Western music faded away for many decades but is enjoying somewhat of a revival these days. It’s definitely a life-style music, and popular with a core group of people – the 2% of our population who still make their living working in the cattle industry and working on ranches. While Country has not been loyal to a particular sound - Western music has been and this loyalty is appreciated by loyal Western music fans. Examples of modern-day Western music artists include D.W. Groethe from Montana and South Dakota, The Bar J Wranglers of Wyoming, and Wylie Gustafson and Paul Zarzyski of Montana. These names aren’t as well known as the major Country artists, like Garth Brooks, but their fans are loyal and they’ve stayed true to their roots.
During the first half of the 1900’s, Country music grew from a small group of naïve country musicians who shared their love of the old songs and the old ways with a country that was coming of age. As even now, the players that created the music Americans loved came from colorful backgrounds, and gave all they had to the music. Along the way, some of them gave too much – guys like Hank Williams who died so young and lived such a hard life – come to mind. The stories they told and created and shared left deep impressions in the hearts of the country – almost like the wagon wheel ruts you can still see in some places out along the prairie. At the same time, they forged a trail for newer sounds, first Honky Tonk, then Nashville that cleared a path for what was soon coming behind them – like Rockabilly and Rock and Roll. By the early 1950’s, you began to hear the first chords ringing out. But that’s a story for a future episode. I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode – Country Music Blazes a Trail.
I’m Joe Hines, and it’s been a pleasure to be your host today.
Hey, if you’re listening for the first time, there’s already a number of episodes you might like to download and listen to! You’ll find them on your favorite podcast provider, as well as on this podcast’ Facebook page. Just search for American Song Podcast. There, you’ll find interesting pictures of these long-gone musicians and song-crafters, as well as a lot of links to the sources we’ve used in our research. Last but not least, maybe you’ve got friends who’d enjoy what we’re doing here! We’re into every kind of music, and we love to tell the stories about where it came from. Help us grow our audience by telling your friends!
See you next time!