The Urban Cowboy Era

The Urban Cowboy era, so called following the John Travolta film ‘Urban Cowboy’ released in 1980, was little more than a flash in the pan, but as flash in the pans go it was very successful – if it actually existed at all!

With the ‘Outlaw’ music of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and others beginning to be less popular, the country music scene was ready to move on to the next ‘new sound’.

This period saw country music start to move away from its roots and border almost on pop culture. Essentially Urban Cowboy music was 60’s and 70’s country ‘polished up’ to sound more pop, with a sort of hip rock beat.

The more successful songs at this time were almost ‘crossover’ tunes, with ‘Elvira’ by the Oak Ridge Boys and ‘Queen of Hearts’ by Juice Newton being good examples. At this stage the ‘new’ sound didn’t actually have a genre name of its own, but following the release of the ‘Urban Cowboy’ film, and the songs it contained, it was a natural progression to name this the ‘Urban Cowboy Era’.

Having what has been described as ‘the saddest voice in country music’, John Conlee had a number of hits during this time, such as ‘Busted’, ‘Common Man’, ‘Working Man’ and ‘American Faces’.

Alabama, one of the most successful country acts of all time with 21 consecutive number 1 hits, used this new style brilliantly. Although Alabama had been around for some time (founded in ’69 as Youngcountry), it wasn’t until they signed with RCA in Nashville in April 1980 that they began to achieve such success.

As Urban Cowboy music was at best a mix of many other country styles, it was never really recognized in its own right, and does not appear as a stand-alone genre in many purists’ eyes.

To search for recordings from Alabama, John Conlee or any other of your favourite country heroes go to www.countrysongscountrysingers.com    

The 'Outlaw' Movement

Contrary to popular belief, the ‘Outlaw Movement’ of the 1960’s and 1970’s had absolutely nothing to do with having long hair, dressing scruffily or getting large tattoos. Neither did it have much to do with lyrics about drinking, drugs or hardworking men.

It was all to do with creative control of music.

By the mid 60’s Nashville or ‘Music City’ as it had become known, controlled just about every country music output of any note. (!) If an artist wanted to ‘make it’, they had to play by the rules of the establishment, mainly set up by RCA and the record producers, who controlled just about everything.

In 1966 a young country singer called Bobby Bare won the creative rights to his own music and broke away from Nashville. The tide was turning and more established artists such as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings followed suit and broke their restrictive ties with ‘Music City’.

Nelson signed with the Atlantic label, and although Jennings stayed with RCA he won his right to creative control too. There followed a number of others including Kris Kristofferson, and to distance themselves from Nashville, and all it stood for, many based themselves around Austin, Texas and became known collectively as the ‘Outlaw Movement’.

 Female country singers of the period also joined in this revolution, the most successful being Tanya Tucker, Sammi Smith, Emmylou Harris and Jessie Colter (wife of Waylon Jennings).

It was thanks to these renegade ‘outlaws’ that future country artists could take control of their own destiny, and not be tied to unscrupulous record producers in Nashville or elsewhere.

To find the music of these low down critters just mosey on over to my country music store at www.countrysongscountrysingers.com  or click on the right.

The Bakersfield Sound

Originating in and around Bakersfield, California in the mid 1950’s, what became known as the Bakersfield Sound was a direct response to the slick, smooth Nashville Sound, and unsurprisingly quite the opposite.

An interesting mix of rockabilly, rock and roll and honky-tonk, this new genre of country music was altogether rawer, grittier and twangier than anything else at the time, and would itself later spawn another style called country-rock.

What made the Bakersfield Sound so different was the use of a heavy backbeat and other stylistic elements borrowed from rock & roll. This consisted of twin Fender Telecasters and ‘in your face’ pedal steel guitars among other things.

In 1954 a song called ‘Louisiana Swing’ was released by Bud Hobbs, and this is believed to be the first recording in the new ‘Bakersfield Sound’.

In the early 1960’s Buck Owens and the Buckaroos along with Merle Haggard and the Strangers bought the ‘Bakersfield Sound’ to mainstream audiences. By way of interest, Buck Owens played guitar on ‘Louisiana Swing’ with Bud Hobbs in 1954.

Unlike the elaborate compositions associated with the Nashville Sound, the Bakersfield Sound depended largely on individual musicians’ talents and spirit, and was considered quite rebellious for its time.

  

To explore all the different facets of country music and find your favourite artists just go to www.countrysongscountrysingers.com or click the link to the right.

The Nashville Sound

By the mid 1950’s country music took another sharp turn and steered away from honky-tonk music with what became known as the Nashville Sound.

This new sound did away with the fiddles, steel guitars and distinctly nasal lead vocals of honky-tonk, and replaced them with something altogether smoother. In came string sections, backing singers and crooning lead vocals.

Lush orchestrations and great storytelling lyrics were made for the crooners of the time such as Eddy Arnold, Jim Brown and Jim Reeves. Some say Jim Reeves recording of ‘Four Walls’ in 1957 and shortly afterwards Don Gibson’s ‘Oh, Lonesome Me’ heralded the beginning of the Nashville Sound.

Others point to Elvis Presley’s ‘Don’t Be Cruel’, released in July 1956, and say this was the first record to successfully use this ‘new’ Nashville Sound, but whichever is true it marked yet another twist and turn in the story of country music.

  

To explore all the different facets of country music and find your favourite artists just go to www.countrysongscountrysingers.com or click the link on the right.

The Rise of Honky-Tonk

Early honky-tonk music is believed to have begun in clubs and bars in the southern states of America and was played on piano’s that were generally worn out or had keys missing. It concentrated more on rhythm than quality of lyrics and was generally all about lost romances,drinking and unemployment. A popular piano of that period was made by an ‘Ernest A Tonk’ of Chicago and New York, so it’s possible that this influenced the name, but it’s not certain.

 By 1940 the music industry began to refer to the Honky-Tonk played in Texas, Oklahoma and the west coast as Hillbilly, and more recently as the primary sound in country music.

In 1941, Ernest Tubb's recording of “Walking the Floor Over You” made him an overnight sensation, which thrust Honky-Tonk into mainstream prominence.

Hank Williams

Hank Williams (one of the most important country music artists of all time), further popularized Honky-Tonk with his emergence in the late ‘40s, and Lefty Frizzell became so popular in the 1950’s that he rose to almost  god-like stature in country music circles.    

As new and varied styles of country music came along, Honky-Tonk remained very popular and no country club or venue is ever without at least one Honky-Tonk band on the bill.

Take a peak at all the country music stars and their songs by paying a visit to my store at www.countrysongscountrysingers.com or click the link on the right hand side.

What part did Hollywood play in promoting Country Music?

Films made during the 1930’s and 1940’s saw Hollywood (never one to miss an opportunity) embrace the ever more popular country music scene. Superstars of the day, such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry (along with Rogers’ wife Dale Evans) combined their movie stardom with a number of hit country songs.

Roy Rogers
Dale Evans

Gene Autry

Many of these country songs were especially written for the films, but both Rogers and Autry cashed in on the movies popularity by getting the soundtracks of these films released, which was a great success as far as their careers were concerned, and popular with the paying public.

Roy Rogers (real name Leonard Franklin Slye) and Dale Evans (pictured left) went on to have very successful careers on television with their own country show, whilst Gene Autry (The Singing Cowboy, pictured right) also found lasting fame with singing and acting. He was most famous for his signature tune ‘Back in the Saddle Again’ and author of ‘The Cowboy Code’.

Both Rogers and Autry passed away within months of each other in 1998, but their contribution to the furtherance of country music is undeniable.

To find these and many other country stars why not mosey on over to my Country Music Store at www.countrysongscountrysingers.com and make yourself at home.

Blue Grass - Why Blue Grass?

Like a lot of the early ‘country’ music sounds, Blue Grass has its origins in a blend of folk music from Great Britain and tribal music from the slaves in West Africa, and was a form of old-time mountain hillbilly.

One of the earliest pioneers of the Blue Grass sound was Bill Monroe and the name ‘Blue Grass’ comes from his band ‘The Blue Grass Boys’.

In later years this band would include two future country legends Lester Flatt (guitar) and Earl Scruggs (banjo). In early 1948, after about six years of playing with the Blue Grass Boys, Flatt and Scruggs left to strike out on their own and formed ‘Foggy Mountain Boys’ and the rest, as they say, is history.

As a mark of respect for his influence on this style of music, Bill Monroe was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970 and significantly also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 as ‘an early influence’. He died in 1996 following a stroke just four days before his 85^th birthday.

To see which artists were in which category, and to find recordings of these same legends just go to www.countrysongscountrysingers.com and browse the different styles.

Western Swing and its influence on music styles

A wonderful blend of Big Band sounds; New Orleans Jazz, Blues and Dixieland, became known as ‘Western Swing’ and hit its peak in the early 1940’s. Later, with the addition of drums, a Hawaiian steel guitar, a few saxophones and a piano, Western Swing became extremely popular with the public and influenced many musicians to experiment with other different styles.

Among the well known figures in the world of western swing during this period were Bob Wills, the Light Crust Doughboys and Milton Brown (often referred to as the ‘Father of Western Swing’).

For an insight into the various country music styles that followed this early period, and the artists that recorded these country classics that withstand the passage of time, take a browse at www.countrysongscountrysingers.com 

How Country Music Began - A Brief History

Some people love country music, some people hate country music but most people like country music. With its simple melodies and catchy tunes country music has always found a way into most peoples lives in one form or another. 

How did it all start? Was it always like this or has it evolved much over the years?

An unlikely mixture of traditional folk music from the British Isles, African slave music and other ethnic sounds are believed to be the origins of country music. These tunes, generally played on homemade banjos and fiddles, began their long journey to what we now call country by many twists and turns, with a number of different styles emerging as a result.

Although very early recordings of Southern Appalachian fiddle playing (made around 1910) were discovered, more traditional country sounds and better recording techniques didn’t appear until the early 1920’s.

Eck Robertson and Vernon Dalhart were early pioneers of recording country music with some success, but it wasn’t until Victor Records signed The Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers that things started to happen on the country scene.

Simply called ‘The Carter Family’, they were the first family vocal group to record what we now know as country music. They also developed a new style of playing the acoustic guitar, known as ‘Carter Picking’, and this method became very popular amongst upcoming musicians for many years.

As well as the ‘Carter Picking’ guitar style, The Carter Family sang all  their songs in a simple harmony that also became very popular with other ‘family’ groups during the 30’s and 40’s, and it’s believed this influenced many other styles such as folk, bluegrass and rock during this period.

With the signing up of both the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers by Victor Records, country music was now officially born.

Known as the "Father of Country Music," Jimmie Rodgers was an instant success and is credited with the first million-selling single, “Blue Yodel #1.”

His complete catalog of songs, all recorded between 1927 and 1933, established Jimmie as the number one voice in country music. Sadly Jimmie Rodgers died from tuberculosis in 1933 after suffering complications.