A popular music style. It has its origins in not only country dance tunes and archaic ballads of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic origins, but also 19th-century popular songs, black-American blues and gospel songs, and the sacred numbers that stemmed from the successive waves of religious revivals that began in the 18th century. Over a span of 75 years country music has evolved from a folk-derived art form, performed mostly by rural amateurs, into a complex multi-million dollar industry. The earliest country musicians played for country dances, or sang on street corners to earn a living (fig.1). In contrast, the contemporary stars of country have virtually worldwide name recognition and receive large sums for concert appearances.
1. Early developments: the 1920s and 30s.
2. Western swing, honky tonk and bluegrass.
IVAN M. TRIBE
The development of commercial country music began in 1922 and 1923, when the Victor and Okeh companies recorded respectively the fiddlers Eck Robertson of Texas and John Carson of Georgia. Carson had a rough instrumental and vocal style but enjoyed considerable popularity among the working class in Atlanta and he, particularly, stimulated a search for other rural musicians of quality. Led by Ralph Peer, who worked first for Okeh and then for Victor, and Frank Walker of Columbia rural artists, based in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, began to make recordings for what were labelled ‘old-time tunes’ or ‘old familiar tunes’. String band music dominated the early years with groups such as Gid Tanner’s Skillet Lickers, Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers, and Ernest Stoneman’s Dixie Mountaineers, along with Carson’s band, in the pre-eminent position. Riley Puckett was a popular vocalist in his own right and the singer and banjoist Uncle Dave Macon of central Tennessee popularized a minstrel-derived style. Numerous amateur and semi-professional performers visited either the permanent recording studios in northern cities or makeshift studios in the South. Some recorded only once while others returned for repeated sessions, as what might be termed a star system had not yet developed. In addition to these folk-derived recording artists, musicians with a more or less professional background, such as Texas-born Marion Slaughter (most commonly known on record as Vernon Dalhart), began recording country-oriented material and had the first large-scale success with a two-sided Victor disc, The Prisoner’s Song and Wreck of the Old ’97. Others who followed in the Dalhart style included the vocalist and songwriter Carson Robison and Frank Luther.
In 1927 Ralph Peer of the Victor firm conducted recording sessions in Bristol, Tennessee, for both established performers like Ernest Stoneman and newer acts, of whom two soon rose to prominence. The Carter Family of Scott County, Virginia, consisting of A.P. Carter, his wife Sara and sister-in-law Maybelle, made more than 250 recordings over 14 years and have exercised a continuing influence in the music, partly through their children and grandchildren. The other Bristol discovery, Jimmie Rodgers, a Mississippi-born former railroad brakeman, sang in a style largely derived from black-American blues performers augmented by his distinctive blue yodels. Rodgers died prematurely in May 1933 from the effects of tuberculosis, leaving a legacy of some 110 songs and a number of other significant protégés who began their careers by emulating his style. This latter list includes Cliff and Bill Carlisle, Gene Autry, Jimmie Davis, Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb.
Alongside recordings the genre also spread through the medium of live radio broadcasts. The two most significant early stations, WLS Chicago and WSM Nashville, both developed Saturday night live audience programmes that became mainstays of network radio. ‘The National Barn Dance’ in Chicago produced the first person to achieve major stardom via radio in Bradley Kincaid, and then western cowboy-styled singers, first with Autry and later Rex Allen, who both went on to experience notable careers in motion pictures. They also developed the first husband and wife duo to become stars in the North Carolina-born Lulu Belle and Scotty (Wiseman). ‘The Grand Ole Opry’ in Nashville utilized the services of several Tennessee string bands typified by the Possum Hunters, Uncle Dave Macon, the Delmore Brothers and, from 1938 onward, Roy Acuff who would be the leading country artist in the 1940s. Although ‘The National Barn Dance’ died out in the 1960s, ‘The Grand Ole Opry’ continues to thrive, and it became the major factor in the development of Nashville as the principal centre of the country music industry in the immediate years after 1945.
Two musical subtypes of country that developed in the 1920s included cowboy or western and Cajun, which developed in the French speaking portions of southern Louisiana. Victor recorded the first Cowboy songs in August 1925 by Carl T. Sprague; When the Work’s all Done this Fall became the hit of the session and Sprague returned three more times to the studio. Other early purveyors of cowboy songs included Jules Allen, Harry McClintock, and the Cartwright Brothers. By the 1930s, however, either movie cowboys such as Autry, Tex Ritter, and Roy Rogers or smooth vocal trios such as the Prairie Ramblers or the Sons of the Pioneers came to dominate the field. Female performers made inroads here too typified by yodelling cowgirl Patsy Montana and the duo of Milly and Dolly Good (the ‘Girls of the Golden West’). Cajun music had only a small audience in the 1920s but its earlier sounds, dominated by accordion and fiddle, had a special quality that eventually influenced the country mainstream. Pioneers in this music included Joe Falcon, Leo Soileau, Dennis McGee and, from the mid-30s, the Hackberry Ramblers.
The Great Depression hit country record sales hard as incomes plummeted, for it was the agrarian and working classes who bought the records. Many artists ceased recording and some companies went into bankruptcy, receiverships and reorganizations. By the mid-1930s a modest recovery began, one new firm Decca entered the market in 1934, and sales began to increase. In the Southeast, duet acts with two guitars, typified by the Delmore Brothers, or mandolin and guitar, by the Monroe Brothers and Blue Sky Boys, did well. A somewhat updated version of the older string band persisted, most successfully developed by the North Carolina group Mainer’s Mountaineers.
In Texas and westward a country version of the big band sound evolved into what would eventually become known as Western swing, a style that featured multiple fiddles, electrified instruments, smooth pop sounding vocals, and sometimes horns. After briefly working together Bob Wills’s Texas Playboys and Milton Brown’s Musical Brothers pioneered the style, although Brown’s early death in 1936 limited his fame. The Wills and Brown parent group, the flour company-sponsored Light Crust Doughboys, also adapted this sound, as did Bill Boyd’s Cowboy Ramblers. Numerous other Texas swing bands flourished in the late 1930s, including the Tune Wranglers, Jimmie Revard’s Oklahoma Playboys, and those led by Cliff Bruner and Adolph Hofner. By the 1940s western swing began to flourish on the West Coast, and Wills migrated there leaving his younger brother in Tulsa to form a new group, Johnny Lee Wills and his Boys. Spade Cooley also developed a fine California-based band and actually gave the name ‘western swing’ to the music. While the popularity of the music faded by the early 1950s (except for Hank Thompson and his Brazos Valley Boys), its influence remained and eventually enjoyed a revival of sorts in more recent years.
In part the popularity of western swing reflected the increasing importance of the juke box trade in determining the record market: jukebox distributors became major purchasers of records. The saloons and cafés that dotted the rural South and Midwest as well as working-class sections of cities had tens of thousands of customers who listened to country songs while relaxing there. Texas swing music had considerable impact on the jukebox trade and so did the style that in a sense developed for it, which came to be known as Honky tonk music.
Honky-tonk music, so called from the nickname for the taverns where its listeners gathered, usually consisted of a strong vocal with instrumentations generally provided by an electric steel guitar and a fiddle, with some rhythm support. Song topics increasingly dealt with unfaithful love, broken hearts and rowdy lifestyles to a greater degree than earlier. Early practitioners of the type included Louisianans Jimmie Davis, as he moved away from Rodgers stylings, and Buddy Jones, a Shreveport policeman who performed the more rowdy material while Davis moved more in the direction of middle-class respectability as his political career advanced. The first real honky-tonk widespread hit, however, was Ernest Tubb’s Walking the Floor Over You in 1941, which the so-called Texas Troubadour followed with numerous others over the next several years. Honky-tonk stylings had become dominant by the end of World War II, when a new wave of major recording artists burst upon the national scene led by Hank Williams (fig.2), whose hundred or so original songs included many that became standards. Other major figures in this style included Hank Snow, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Lefty Frizzell and Eddy Arnold. The latter eventually moved toward a more middle-of-the-road style, alienating some hard country fans, but on the whole enjoying more long-range success than any other artist in country music history.
World War II helped increase the audience for country music as the young soldiers and other rural dwellers took it with them to military camps and the urban defence plants. The war and its aftermath also spread the country music horizons to northern American cities, Europe and East Asia.
Beginning in April 1948, another major radio barn dance ‘The Louisiana Hayride’ began broadcasting from KWKH in Shreveport. It soon developed a number of country stars including Hank Williams, Faron Young, Webb Pierce, Red Sovine, Johnny and Jack, Kitty Wells and Johnny Horton. With the exception of Horton, these artists moved on to Nashville and the Opry once they had accumulated a few successful recordings. For a time the Hayride became known as ‘the Cradle of the Stars’ and even Elvis Presley appeared on it as a regular for a year in the mid-1950s. Somewhat later, a prime time ABC network television programme ‘The Ozark Jubilee’ from KWTO Springfield, Missouri enticed Opry star Red Foley to become its principal star. The show flourished from January 1955 until September 1960 and helped advance the careers of several younger performers including Wanda Jackson, Brenda Lee (fig.3), Bobby Lord, Norma Jean, Marvin Rainwater, LeRoy VanDyke and Porter Wagoner.
While the honky-tonk style dominated country music through the mid-1950s, countertrends remained in evidence. Opry star Bill Monroe, formerly of the Monroe Brothers, developed a newer up-tempo form of the older string band sound featuring instrumental leads of mandolin, fiddle and, most notably, the three-finger picked five-string banjo initially played by Earl Scruggs; others soon emulated the style of Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. Scruggs and Monroe’s lead vocalist Lester Flatt formed their Foggy Mountain Boys and, in the mountain regions of western Virginia, the Stanley Brothers had their Clinch Mountain Boys. Don Reno and Red Smiley led another fine group as did Jim and Jesse McReynolds, Mac Wiseman, Jimmy Martin, Carl Story, and the Osborne Brothers. Although bluegrass numbers seldom appeared on national charts Bluegrass music managed to flourish anyway, especially in the Appalachian region and in cities with large contingents of Appalachian migrants.
Another musical strain clung to the more traditional country sounds that had been brought through the World War II era by Roy Acuff. While sometimes adding electrical instruments, their vocal styles and heavy reliance on sentimental and sacred songs reminded listeners of pre honky-tonk country. Early practitioners of this style included the Bailes Brothers and the husband and wife duo of Lynn Davis and Molly O’Day, the latter of whom emerged as a strong solo vocalist. Songwriter Odell McLeod (known as Mac Odell), Esco Hankins, Grandpa Jones, Jimmie Skinner, and another husband and wife team, Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, also exemplified this style. The best, however, were probably the Louvin Brothers who not only had some of the best harmony in the history of country music but also contributed a large number of original compositions to the bluegrass and traditional country genre.
The emergence of Elvis Presley and his other rockabilly emulators in the mid-1950s (Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash (fig.4), Conway Twitty, Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers) dealt mainstream and traditional country music a severe commercial blow as much of their youthful audience was lost to the new fads in sound. Hard country musicians often found a slackening demand for their services and a few even made a sometimes futile effort to perform rockabilly material. By the early 1960s country music had begun to recapture much of its old audience and also win new followers, largely through the development of the Nashville sound, which consisted of a modification of the older country sound through taking off some of the hard edge by using such techniques as a string section or a choral backing to broaden the audience appeal. Chet Atkins, who had won acclaim as both a solo and session guitarist, along with various other record producers played a major role in the evolution of the Nashville sound.
The popularity of the Nashville sound brought vocalists who had already displayed some appeal to pop audiences (Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty and Marty Robbins) closer to their country roots. Ray Price, who had enjoyed success as a honky-tonk singer with songs like Crazy Arms and Heartaches by the Number, moved toward the Nashville Sound in the early 1960s with numbers like Danny Boy and Night Life. Perhaps the most successful purveyor of the new sound, Texas-born Jim Reeves, had strong crossover hits such as Four Walls and He’ll have to go. Others who did well in this styling included the brother and sisters vocal trio The Browns, Ferlin Husky, Eddy Arnold, Hank Locklin, Jimmy Dean and the leading female singer of the early 1960s, Patsy Cline (fig.5), who like Reeves suffered a premature death in a 1963 plane crash. George Jones, another Texan, continued on as a highly successful honky-tonk performer with only slight modernization of his sound.
The 1960s also witnessed a growing number of prominent women in the industry. The earliest female solo performer, Roba Stanley, had recorded in 1924, but the first women to attain renown had been in the forefront of family or vocal groups, such as Sara and Maybelle Carter in the former instance and Patsy Montana with the Prarie Ramblers in the latter case. Women also received attention as part of duos, such as Lulu Belle Wiseman and Wilma Lee Cooper. Molly O’Day, the wife of duet partner Lynn Davis, emerged in the late 1940s as the more dynamic half of the team but her commercial career virtually ended with her 1950 religious conversion. On the West Coast, Rose Maddox likewise became the most salient member of the Maddox Brothers and Rose, but did not really become a solo performer until after Kitty Wells attained stardom in the early 1950s. Since Wells had also emerged from a family group in a sense, Kitty being the wife of Johnny Wright of the Johnny and Jack brother-in-law duet, Patsy Cline could be considered the first to be successful with neither a performing family nor husband.
By the time Cline died the number of country girl singers had begun to increase substantially, including Jean Shepard, Skeeter Davis and Dottie West. Wanda Jackson shifted from hard country to rockabilly and then moved back into the country mainstream while her one-time teenage friend Norma Jean rose to fame on Porter Wagoner’s syndicated television program. Melba Montgomery performed both hard country solo numbers and in duet with honky-tonk singer George Jones. Connie Smith emerged as the most likely female superstar in the mid-1960s, but was eventually surpassed by two mountain girls, Kentucky’s Loretta Lynn and Tennessee’s Dolly Parton, who joined Wagoner’s TV show in 1967. Tammy Wynette and Barbara Mandrell did quite well for some years, but never quite had the long-lived appeal of Lynn and Parton.
The 1960s also saw the rise to prominence of a number of vocal groups. The trend started with the Statler Brothers in the middle of the decade, continuing in later years with the Oak Ridge Boys and Alabama. Family groups such as Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, the Forrester Sisters and the Bellamy Brothers have also made their mark along with the duo of Brooks and Dunn. At the start of the decade the West Coast centre of musical activity had shifted from the greater Los Angeles area to the smaller interior city of Bakersfield: earlier artists such as Ferlin Husky and Tommy Collins had been based there. The moderate success of Wynn Stewart, augmented especially by tremendous popularity of Buck Owens and his Buckaroos, followed by that of Merle Haggard, later firmly established the city’s importance. The partial move of Owens to Nashville to star alongside Roy Clark in the popular television variety-comedy programme ‘Hee Haw’ may have ended Bakersfield’s chances of becoming a second Nashville, but the city’s musical scene still made a significant impact.
The sound of country music through the 1970s seemed to move towards an accommodation with popular styles. New artists such as Ronnie Millsap and Eddie Rabbitt typified this trend among male singers, as did Donna Fargo and Anne Murray among female singers. Charlie Pride, a black American, attained stardom in what had hitherto been an exclusively white genre. Practitioners of the Nashville sound, like Bill Anderson and Porter Wagoner, seemed dated by the end of the decade: country traditionalists commented that the music appeared doomed to extinction, yet a countertrend soon set in.
As Bakersfield threatened Nashville’s dominance in the mid-1960s, Austin, Texas, made an indentation on Nashville’s dominance in the later 1970s. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, native Texans who had enjoyed some success in Nashville but who also acquired reputations as rebels, led what was sometimes also termed the outlaw movement. Forsaking Nashville’s ‘rhinestone cowboy’ image for hippy garb, Nelson revived country standards, such as Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, Remember me, If You’ve Got the Money, sacred standards, like The Uncloudy Day and pop hits, typified by Georgia On My Mind and Blue Skies. He also had new song hits, such as You’re always on my mind, On the Road Again, and My heroes have always been cowboys. Jennings’s hits from this period included Luckenbach Texas, I’ve always been crazy, Amanda, and Good Ol’ Boys. Together they turned out such classic hits as Good Hearted Woman, and Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Lesser figures associated with the outlaw movement included Tompall Glaser and David Allen Coe. Nashville managed to co-opt the Austin Sound and the outlaw movement after a few years, as did its rival musical centres. Although not part of the Austin scene, Hank Williams jr also tended to identify with the outlaw movement, remoulding his image after 1975 from earlier success as a Nashville sound version of his father.
The new country that emerged in the 1980s from the ‘countrypolitan’ prevailing winds in the 1970s contained strong elements of both the western swing and bluegrass styles of a prior generation. The band Asleep at the Wheel had pioneered a western swing revival that reached full fruition in the vocal efforts of performers like George Strait and Reba McEntire. Ricky Skaggs came from a bluegrass background and retained strong elements of it along with the smooth multiple fiddles reminiscent of Texas swing in a series of hits that ranged from old bluegrass numbers, like Don’t cheat in our hometown and Uncle Pen, to honky-tonk classics, typified by I don’t care, Honey, won’t you open that door and I’m tired. Skaggs also had hits with new songs such as Highway 40 Blues and Heartbroke. In the mid-1980s Randy Travis, another neo-traditionalist, dominated the field for a time with such hits as On the Other Hand and Forever and Ever, Amen. Skaggs’s boyhood friend Keith Whitley also had major hits before his death in 1989. Somewhat independently, Dwight Yoakam also personified this sound from his far-western base, reminding Nashville of the Bakersfield influence. Among female performers Emmylou Harris displayed a continuing respect for country music’s roots, while Patsy Loveless provided an equivalent of the neo-traditional approach among women. Another phenomenal but unlikely success came from the mother-daughter duo of the Judds (Naomi and Wynonna), whose harmony seemed both highly contemporary yet reminiscent of a bygone era. After Naomi withdrew from country music in 1991, Wynonna continued to perform and remained popular.
In the 1990s Georgian Alan Jackson probably best personified the continuing tradition of the honky-tonk vocalists with hits like Chattahoochee and Who’s cheating who, seconded by performers like Joe Diffie, Clint Black and Travis Tritt. Popular duos included It’s your love, by husband and wife Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and In Another’s Eyes, a Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood hit. Marty Stuart displays both rockabilly and bluegrass influences in his music and Vince Gill also shows bluegrass roots. West Virginian Kathy Mattea utilized a styling somewhat similar to folksingers of the 1960s. Others continued to exemplify the ‘countrypolitan’ approach such as Lee Greenwood and Tanya Tucker. It is arguable that the musical trends in the industry had begun to reflect a degree of diversity not witnessed since the 1950s.
The most prominent country stars of the 1990s appear to be those who exhibit crossover appeal. Garth Brooks, with 17 number one hits in America up to 1997, has emerged as a major figure, most notably with Friends in Low Places. Billy Ray Cyrus became an international phenomenon in 1992 with his hit Achy Breaky Heart. Lorrie Morgan’s What Part of No, Trisha Yearwood’s She’s in Love with the Boy, Faith Hill’s It matters to me, Shania Twain’s Love Gets Me Every Time, Deana Carter’s Strawberry Wine, and Lee Ann Rimes’ Blue (in which she commendably imitates Patsy Cline) have all gained wide popularity. With new figures constantly appearing and record companies always promoting new talent, each new star is soon replaced with another after an all-too-brief period at the top, and sustaining a lengthy career on the pinnacle of success seems increasingly difficult.
Country music through some 75 years of commercialism has witnessed both continuity and change: what sometimes seems like new innovations are often revivals of nearly forgotten traditions or borrowings from other musical types. Technological changes of the last decade include the rise in popularity of country music videos first seen on the Nashville Network and the increased appeal of CMT (Country Music Television). Potential TV charisma has come to rank with talent as a factor in determining potential for stardom. The more recent phenomenon of Shania Twain (fig.6) having a record that sold nine million copies without her touring may be the wave of the future. The early 1990s also saw the rise of Branson, Missouri, with its numerous theatres as a popular attraction particularly for established name acts whose recordings no longer dominate charts.
B.C. Malone: Country Music, U.S.A. (Austin, 1968, 2/1985)
B.C. Malone and J. McCulloh, eds.: Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriguez (Champaign, IL, 1975, 2/1995)
C.K. Wolfe: Tennessee Strings: the Story of Country Music in Tennessee (Knoxville, TN, 1977)
C. Townsend: San Antonio Rose: the Life and Music of Bob Wills (Urbana, IL, 1978)
B.C. Malone: Southern Music, American Music (Lexington, KY, 1979)
N. Porterfield: Jimmie Rodgers (Urbana, IL, 1979)
N. Rosenburg: Bluegrass: a History (Urbana, IL, 1984)
I.M. Tribe: Mountaineer Jamboree: Country Music in West Virginia (Lexington, KY, 1984/R)
N. D. Cohen: ‘Ragtime in Early Country Music’, and Ragtime: its History, Composers and Music, ed.J. E.Hasse (New York and London, 1985, 294–304)
W. Daniel: Pickin’ on Peachtree: a History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia (Urbana, IL, 1990)
B.C. Malone: Classic Country Music, Smithsonian Collection of recordings RD 042 (1990) [disc notes]
M.A. Bufwack and R.K. Oermann: Finding Her Voice: the Saga of Women in Country Music (New York, 1993)
B.C. Malone: Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music (Athens, GA, 1993)
C. Escott: Hank Williams: the Biography (Boston, 1994)
C. Tichi: High Lonesome: the American Culture of Country Music (Chapel Hill, NC, 1994)
B. McCloud and others: Definitive Country: the Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Country Music and its Performers (New York, 1995) [incl. discographies]
R. Pugh: Ernest Tubb: the Texas Troubadour (Durham, NC, 1996)
J. Whitburn: The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits (New york, 1996)
R.A. Peterson: Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity (Chicago, 1997)