musi
AMERICAN MUSIC
Country Music
Country Song Or It Ain’t
She Took My Keys Away and Now She Won’t Drive Me to Drink
If the Phone Don’t Ring, It’s Me
If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me?
I’m So Miserable Without You, It’s Like You’re Still Here
It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right
Early Developments
1920s = “Hillbilly”
Anglo-Saxon and Celtic Origins
Country dance tunes
Ballads
19th-century popular songs
Blues and gospel songs
Sacred songs from religious revivals (18th c.)
Ralph Peer (1892-1960)
Talent scout
Recording engineer
Record producer
Okeh Records
Victor Records
The Carter Family
Scott County VA
A. P. Carter, his wife Sara, sister-in-law Maybelle
More than 250 recordings over 14 years
Beginning of commercial country music
Songs with one recognized version
Sung by a known performer or group
Held under copyright
Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933)
Mississippi-born former railroad brakeman
“Father of Country Music”
Singing style derived from blues
Blue Yodel 1 (T for Texas)
Over 100 songs and 5 million records
Laid foundation stones of country industry
Grand Ole Opry
Saturday night WSM
George D. Hay (announcer)
Patterned after Chicago’s Barn Dance
Uncle Dave Macon (1870-1952)
Banjoist and comic (“Dixie Dewdrop”)
1st star of Grand Ole Opry (1925)
Began professional career after age of 50
Operated wagon freight line, Woodbury to Mboro
Macon Midway Mule & Wagon Transportation Company
Take Me Back to That Old Carolina Home (1940)
National Expansion
1930s-40s
Western Swing
Country version of big band sound
Multiple fiddles
Electrified instruments
Smooth pop sounding vocals
Sometimes horns
Bob Wills’s Texas Playboys
Honky Tonk = Tavern Music
Strong vocals
Electric steel guitar
Fiddle
Some rhythm support
Topics
Unfaithful love
Broken hearts
Rowdy lifestyles
Hank Williams (1923-1953)
Strained, mournful singing style
Addiction to liquor and drugs
Troubled marriage
Bluegrass
Counter-trend to honky tonk music
Up-tempo form of older string band sound
Acoustic instruments
2 rhythm instruments (guitar, double bass)
Melody instruments
Fiddle
Five-string banjo
Mandolin
Second guitar
Bill Monroe (1911-1996)
Expand Your Playlist
Earl Scruggs & Lester Flatt
Del McCoury Band
Old Memories: The Songs of Bill Monroe
Alison Krauss and Union Station
The Nashville Sound
1950s-60s
Rock- and Pop-Influenced (1960s)
Emergence of Rockabilly
Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly
Chet Atkins
Guitarist and country-music director for RCA
Attempt to appeal to urban, middle class
String sections
Brass instruments
Vocal choruses
Patsy Cline (1932-1963)
Virginia Patterson Hensley
Torch songs with a powerful voice
Expressive phrasing
Wide range
Resonant timbre
Written by Willie Nelson
Recorded in one take
Crossover Success
1970s-80s
Bakersfield Sound (1960s)
Merle Haggard
Bakersfield CA (b. 1937)
Arrested on suspicion of armed robbery as teen
Committed to reform school
Imprisoned in San Quentin
Attended Johnny Cash’s concert (1958)
Mama Tried (1968)
Outlaw Movement (1970s)
Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings
Native Texans
Acquired reputations as rebels
Backlash against Nashville Sound
Electric instruments
Twangy, hard-driving love of honky-tonk sound
Reinvention and Roots Revival
1990s-2000s
Garth Brooks (b. 1962)
Most commercially successful country music performer in 1990s
Success
Energetic character of his concert performances
Portable microphone hooked to 10-gallon hat
Stage shows like rock music concerts
Country Music in Film
Sweet Dreams (Patsy Cline)
Coal Miner’s Daughter (Loretta Lynn)
Walk the Line (Johnny and June Carter Cash)
Nashville (directed by Robert Altman)
Daily Activity
| Genre | Performer | |
| 1 | ||
| 2 | ||
| 3 | ||
| 4 | ||
AMERICAN MUSIC
Country Music