Country And Western

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Hank Williams

COUNTRY

&

WESTERN

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This is the music from the country, from the US South and South West and other

regional areas. Often likened to 'White Blues' music, this is above all rural conservative

music - music from and about simple country folk. It is music about their lives, loves

and history (about cowboys, and bush ballads, and the hardships of life).

Click on Jukebox to select your favourite year of Country Music

Top Ten Greatest Country Hits

Patsy Cline

Country & Western (C&W) is a form of folk music that has its centrality in the

pioneering settlers, and the ideology of the Home/the Hearth/ Country values. In many

ways it is nostalgic music and because of that it is generally a conservative force in

Western culture.

Johnny Cash-Ring Of Fire

Country and Western traditionally has a small and regionally well-defined audience.

But these days it is popular all over the world. Its focus or headquarters if you like

Nashville, Tennessee. As such, Country and Western is now a major ingredient in Pop

music, with both music and singers regularly crossing over – in both ways.

Hank Williams - Hey Good Looking

A Short History of

Country &Western

Although there were

C&W radio stations and

performers and recording

companies all over the

nation, by the early

1950s, the South, The

South West and the Mid

West had become the real

centers of development for

this style.

Nashville - The Music Capital

Nashville, Tennessee

The most influential C & W orientated

radio show was the Grand Ole Opry,

broadcast from Nashville’s WSM . In the

late 1940s and early 1950s, the OPRY

attracted more and more C&W

songwriters and performers to Nashville.

The Ryman - The Historic Home of

The Grand Ole Opry

The Ryman Auditorium, Nashville

Led by the Acuff-Rose publishing house, publishers flooded to Nashville. The

recording industry was not far behind. The C& W market had been served largely by

small independent record companies scattered throughout the South, Southwest, and

Midwest. Each of these small companies (called ‘indies’, short for ‘independent’) was

a low budget operation with a few artists under contract. Each specialised in a certain

‘sound’ it hoped would make its products recognisable. They usually produced singles

rather than albums, because that is what they and their consumers could afford. Unlike

the major companies, the indies distribution system was simple and unsophisticated –

but to promote a new record they did not need to blanket the country a the majors did.

They could hit a definable list of radio stations in a specific list of cities in a certain

geographic region. The system worked well. (Sources: Stuessy & Lipscomb)

Hank Williams - Honky Tonk Blues

Patsy Cline - I Fall To Pieces

The Highwaymen - Highwayman

This is not to say that the majors had no interest in

C&W. Indeed the majors produced a number of

prominent C&W acts, often on subsidiary labels. First

Decca and then Capitol, Columbia, and RCA

established Nashville offices. The popularity of the

cowboy western movies in the 19309s and 1940s and

cowboy television shows in the late 1940s and early

1950s had promoted a national market for the singing

cowboy - . ie. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

and Tex Ritter. This created a receptivity within the

national Pop market for the C&W style. As a result a

number of major artists were able to escape the smaller

C&W market and become national stars – Eddy Arnold

and Hank Snow. Like the Pop market, the C&W

market consisted of white adults. Not generally a very

affluent market, what money did exist in the C&W

subculture belonged to the adults. (Sources)

Gene Autry

Roy Rogers

Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Bille Joe

The music of the C&W markets showed both similarities and dissimilarities to Pop

music. As with Pop music, C&W’s melodies and lyrics were of prime importance. The

lyrics were often love orientated – usually tales of unrequited love or the jilted lover.

The harmonies were usually simpler than those of Pop music. The form of the typical

C&W song was similar to that of the Tin Pan Alley Pop song.

Shania Twain & Alison Krauss
- Forever and For Always

Traveling Wilburys -
End Of The Line

Alison Krauss -
Jolene

C&W rhythm was simple and straightforward and usually more prominent than was

typical of pop music. There were usually three or four beats per measure with little or

no subdivision, thus creating a very simple square-cut sound. There was usually a lead

singer, often with a vocal trio or quartet in the background. The musicians often

performed their own original material, although there was also a repertoire of traditional

songs handed down from earlier generations. Generally the music was not notated;

arrangements were worked out in rehearsal and, once set, were performed according to

that plan. When instrumental solo breaks occurred, the solos stayed very close to the

established melody rather than wandering into intricate flights of fancy, as they might in

Jazz.

Perhaps the most recognizable

characteristic of C&W music of the early

1950s was its timbre, much of which

emanated from two specific sources: the

vocalist and the steel guitar. C&W vocalists

often sang with a rather nasal quality.

Instead of carefully intoning each melodic

pitch, they would slide from note to note. A

number of male C&W singers developed

the ability to yodel – a vocal device (used

by earlier C&W and folk singers) in which

the singe ‘cracks’ his voice, allowing it to

move into a female range (called Falsetto).

The steel guitar entered the C&W

picture from the unlikely source of Hawaii

following Hawaii’s absorption into the US

in 1900.

Hawaiian double neck slide guitar

By the early 1950s, the typical C&W band included a vocalist, a vocal backup group,

electric pedal steel guitar, piano, violin, bass (acoustic or ‘stand up’ bass), acoustic and

electric guitars. The obvious omission is drums. Although there were a few exceptions,

most traditional C&W bands avoided drums until the mid-1950s. The rhythm was set by

the bass player, who ‘slapped’ his strings on the accented beats, and by the guitars and

pianos, which reinforced all the beats.

Kenny Rogers

John Denver

Willie Nelson

The Old And The New

Dwight Yoakam - Medley

THE TOP TEN GREATEST COUNTRY SONGS

Listen To And

See Modern

C & W

Performers

Modern C&W Performers

C & W has a rather conservative political culture, emanating from the US white

regional areas and the deep south. Traditionally, rural areas are always resistant to

change. And so has their music, but in the late 20th century and the beginning of the

21st C&W has not only maintained its popularity but increased it nationally and

globally. As such, inevitably performers of Pop and C&W regularly 'cross over'

rendering C&W a major ingredient in modern Western Popular music.

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