Introduction

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Be ready to:

- Classify and analyze country music as something that extends past typical definitions of white, southern music, to something that blends African-American as well as Euro-American and Hispanic-American, rural and urban, the Appalachian Mountains, and the American West.
- Examine the multiple definitions of country music, from a traditional "twangy" mountain repertoire of old world to American folk songs, ballads, and gospel music, event songs, the blues, fiddle tunes, and popular vaudeville and ragtime songs and music.
- Examine the origins of country music, from the 19th century use of fiddles, guitars, banjos, and mandolins in the music of Euro-American (often Irish) and African-American performers to its popularity in the 1920s and 30s, when radio and the first audio recordings developed and Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family were discovered by the embryonic music industry.
- Analyze the impact of country music in hillbilly southern culture, as well as its use in western films, honky tonk bars (jazz and western swing), mid-century blue grass, and Nashville.
- Analyze what to listen for in country music, including rhythm, form, harmony, timbre, and texture.
- Examine country counter-culture, through analyses of pop singers like Ann Murray, John Denver, and Olivia Newton-John, rockers such as Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds, The Band, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, and Buck Owens.
- Examine the rise of country in the 1990s when it became America's most popular music, according to a National Endowment for the Arts survey.
- Examine two critical types of African American religious music: spirituals and gospel music
- Identify the various historically black colleges and universities

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References

The Great Divide

In the 1920s and 30s, when radio and the first audio recordings developed and Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family were discovered by the embryonic music industry, northern marketers in New York decided to split the southern music markets by race, thinking this would sell more records. Not recognizing the extent of the common southern musical culture, the marketers assumed Whites would buy music by White musicians, and Blacks would buy music by Black musicians. As a result, sales of southern rural music became artificially segregated. "Hillbilly" music was the label used for White music, and "race" music became the term for Black music.

That split in southern music, representing both the racism in southern culture and the class consciousness of the North towards the South, led to a split in musical styles as well, though music often traveled across that very arbitrary line. Hillbilly and heaven music, performed by turn-of-the century musicians like Fiddlin´ John Carson and Uncle Dave Macon, and by the Carter Family in the 1930s, brought old Euro-American ballads like "Barbara Allen," Sunday morning gospel songs such as "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," and Saturday night dance music like "Turkey in the Straw" to African-Americans. In return, popular African-American musicians like W. C. Handy and Bessie Smith brought the blues for Saturday night and gospel songs and spirituals for Sunday morning to the hillbilly side of the line.

Uncle Dave Macon

♫ Turkey in the Straw
Traditional Folk Song

♫ Little Old Log Cabin In the Lane
Fiddlin' John Carson

Elvis Presley

Though country music was marketed separately for many years, Black and White southern music remained accessible to all. In the 1920s, 30s, and beyond, radio broadcasts like the country music stage concert Grand Ole Opry (broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee) took over the mass music markets and transmitted to everyone without discrimination. Ray Charles listened to country singers, and Johnny Cash learned from the African-American blues performers. This artificial split of the two musics continues today, but did come together again in 1950s rock ´n´ roll, particularly in the rockabilly music made famous by southerners Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Big Mama Thornton.

"If twang isn't what I do, I don't know what is."

-George Strait

"Country music is still your grandpa's music, but it's also your daughter's music. It's getting bigger and better all the time and I'm glad to be a part of it. "

-Shania Twain

Kitty Wells became the first female to hit No.1 on the Billboard chart opening doors for future female artists.

Wide Open Country