Early History of Country Music

1
Early History of Country Music

• Roots of Commercial Country Music
• Commercial Beginnings 1922-1930
• No Depression in Heaven 1930s

Will the Circle Be Unbroken Country Music in
America. Eds. Paul Kingsbury and Alanna
Nash. New York DK Publishing, 2006.
2
Roots of Commercial Country Music

• Country music did not exist prior to the 1920s
  that is, there was no cohesive, commercially
  marketed product in American popular
  entertainment that bore that name, nor any body
  of music that consistently projected a rural
  flavor or sound. (14)
• Rural ballads a long, impersonal, narrative
  song that tells a story, usually with concise by
  dramatic clarity (15)
• When commercial country music emerged in the
  early 1920sit had a decidedly southern sound and
  complexionThe romance of the South and the
  presumed exoticism of its peoplegenerated an
  interest in the region that has really never
  flagged. (16-17)
• Blackface minstrel shows the principal
  purveyors of pop music in the USA (23)
  Camptown Races, Old Dan Tucker, Dixie,
  Yellow Rose of Texas, Old Folks at Home (25)
  see pictures

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Roots of Commercial Country Music

• minstrelsywas eventually supplanted by its more
  urbane descendant vaudeville theatre (27)
• New York served as headquarters for the most
  famous vaudeville theaters and chains (27)
• Vaudevilles ascendancy accompanied the
  emergence of Tin Pan Alley as the center of
  popular music publishing in the USA. (27) see
  pictures
• Songs written therewere aimed originally at
  big-city music purchasers. However, they became
  increasingly available to rural southerners (27)

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Roots of Commercial Country Music

• The fiddle was the preeminent rural instrument
  in North America (32)
• fiddling was a highly respectable profession in
  the South (32)
• Fiddle contests provided public exposure for
  talented musicians, and some fiddlers became
  widely known far beyond their home locales (32)
• The earliest documented contest in North America
  occurred on November 30, 1736, in Hanover County,
  Virginia (32)

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Roots of Commercial Country Music

• The fiddle (sound) and banjo (sound) remained a
  popular combination among rural musicianswell
  into the 1920s. (36-37)
• But in the early 1900s, musicians gradually
  began to adopt other instruments, a consequence
  of the greater exposure and availability made
  possible by urbanization, improved communications
  between town and country, technological progress,
  and mass production. (37)
• Piano, accordion (sound), cello (sound) (37)
• Guitar, mandolin (pic sound), harmonica/French
  harp (sound), autoharp (pic sound), steel guitar
  (pic sound) (pedal steel guitar) (37)
• http//www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/experie
  nce-museum-programs-school-instruments.aspx

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Roots of Commercial Country Music

• they probably did not identify themselves as
  country bandsstigma associated with southern
  rural life (41)
• Consequently, they may have identified
  themselves variously as ragtime, minstrel, or
  even Hawaiian bands. However, most groups were
  known simply as fiddle bands (41)
• Radio and recording gave these country bands a
  focus, providing a new kind of commercial
  exposure that brought disparate groups together
  (41)
• the first radio barn dance to air on American
  radio was broadcast by WBAP in Fort Worth in
  1923 (41)

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Commercial Beginnings 1922-1930

• Henry Gilliland Eck Robertson auditioned at the
  Victor Talking Machine Company in NYC on June 29,
  1922. (44)
• Atlanta radio station WSB (est. March 1922),
  auditioned local fiddlers, including Fiddlin
  John Carson, who was quickly signed by OKeh
  Records. (47-49)

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Commercial Beginnings 1922-1930

• Vocalists were soon to follow, often signed at
  local audition and recording sessions. (51-52)
• On successive days in Bristol, Tennessee, 1927,
  record executive Ralph Peer discovered two of the
  first superstars of country music the Carter
  Family (songs) and Jimmie Rodgers. (53-55)

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Commercial Beginnings 1922-1930

• April 12, 1924 Sears Roebuck first broadcasts
  WLS (Worlds Largest Store) from Chicago and
  soon aired The National Barn Dance. (61)
• October 5, 1925 National Life and Accident
  broadcasts WSM from Nashville and by early 1926
  aired The Barn Dance on Saturday nights, which
  was renamed in 1927 The Grand Ole Opry. (65-68)
• KVOO (the Voice Of Oklahoma) went on the air June
  23, 19261
• By the late 1920s, radio and recordswere
  heading in opposite directions. After the
  stock-market crash in 1929, record sales began to
  fall off Radio, on the other hand, was starting
  to learn how to promote its acts, attract paying
  advertisers, and offer its artists a way to make
  a modest wage. (69)

1http//tulsatvmemories.com/tulrkvoo.html
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No Depression in Heaven 1930s

• Even through the Depression, radio continued to
  flourish.
• The first prerecorded radio programsdate from
  the 1930s By allowing performers to make
  seemingly live broadcasts hundreds of miles from
  their home bases, they helped many regional
  radio artists become nationally known. (75)
• Even the earliest overseas junkets by country
  artists were undertaken in the 1930s. (75)
• However, not all elements of the country-music
  business were booming. Record sales plummeted
  during the Depression. (75)

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No Depression in Heaven 1930s

• The same southeastern region that produced most
  of the string bands was also home to what many
  will recall as the hallmark style of the
  1930sthe harmony duets (80)
• country musicians, drawn overwhelmingly from the
  white Southern working class, were well
  acquainted with hard times and didnt mind
  singing about the manifold troubles that their
  class, region, and nation endured. (91)
• Woody Guthrie

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No Depression in Heaven 1930s

• No Depression
• by the Carter Family (1936)
• Im going where theres no depression
• To the lovely land thats free from care
• Ill leave this world of toil and trouble
• My homes in heaven, Im goin there