Country Music Exam 2

California Gold Rush

( a gold rush that ran from approximately 1848 to 1855 that brought approximately 300,000 people to California in search of gold

This in a nutshell is the romantic imagery that has been associated with the

cowboy since the mid-19th century. Americans have always loved their folk heroes. In the early days of the republic, they were frontiersmen and explorers, men who tamed nature. Men like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, and Jim Bowie. These were the men that helped explore and settle the West as we knew it. But once the Civil War was over, the concept of what the West was changed dramatically. It was no longer that which was out past the Appalachians—now the West extended out to Texas and beyond, all the way to California. Our expanded notion of the West was driven by the California Gold Rush of 1848, the Homestead Act of 1862, and the Oregon Trail. Spanning over 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley, the Oregon Trail was used by nearly half a million people from the 1830s through the 1870s. When the first continental railroad was completed in 1869, the West was well on its way to being won.

 Buffalo Bill's Wild West

an outdoor western show founded in 1883 in North Platte, Nebraska by William Cody

The Great Train Robbery

a Western film released in 1903 starring Gilbert “Broncho Billy” Anderson

Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

a collection of cowboy and Western songs published by John Lomax in 1910

published in 1910, includes cowboy standards such as “Git Along Little Dogies” “Goodbye Old Paint,” and “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” Lomax also wrote in the book that, “It was natural for the men to seek diversion in song.” Like many of the hillbilly songs discussed in Chapter 1, some of these songs have roots in the British folk tradition. Singer/songwriter Michael Martin Murphy has

written that “Irish music was phenomenally popular in the West. ‘Streets of Laredo’ is based on a song that was originally called ‘The Unfortunate Rake.’ ‘Streets of Laredo’ depicts the same thing that the old Irish ballad depicts, the rake who regrets his life and warns the others not to go this way. Another exam-ple would be ‘Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie, originally called ‘Bury Me Not in the Deep Deep Sea.’ It was used as an Irish sailor’s burial song.” 3

The Phantom Empire

a 12-part cowboy/science fiction serial released in 1935 that gave Gene Autry his first starring role

Hawaiian steel guitar

a steel guitar that is held in the lap and played by moving a steel bar across the strings

As the instrument grew more popular, Hillbilly musicians were eager to experiment with the steel guitar, and quite a few did, including Jimmie Rodgers and Maybelle Carter. In 1924, Hawaiian Frank Ferera played the steel guitar on Vernon Delhart’s “The Wreck of the Old 97” and “The Prisoner’s Song,” country music’s first million-selling hit. Responding to the popularity of the Hawaiian steel guitar

Dobro

a steel guitar equipped with a resonator to amplify its sound

The Dobro has since become a generic term for the resonator-equipped lap steel guitar.

Western Swing

a style of country music that incorporates jazz swing rhythms and instruments associated with a jazz swing band, such as drums, acoustic bass, and trumpet

Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys

Another exam-ple would be ‘Oh Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie, originally called ‘Bury Me Not in the Deep Deep Sea.’ It was used as an Irish sailor’s burial song.” 3

Many

artists have recorded that song, including Johnny Cash, Tex Ritter, and Roy Rogers, but one of the first was made in 1928 by Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys. Gray’s group, made up of authentic cowboys, was one of the first to introduce cowboy music to people living outside the West. And, just as we dis-covered with the Borderers and other immigrants who settled in Appalachia and the South, new songs were written to convey ideas and themes that were rele-vant to the contemporary lives of the Westerners. “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” which tells the story of Emily D. West and her role in the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, is one example of this.Sensing an opportunity to cash in on cowboy mania, songwriters, both ama-teur and professional began to crank out cowboy and Western-themed songs. One of the first, “Home on the Range,” was written around 1872 by Brewster Higley and Daniel E. Kelley, two non-cowboys from the Midwest. Oscar J. Fox wrote melodies to existing cowboy lyrics, including ones found in Lomax’s book. Among those attributed to Fox: “The Cowboy’s Lament” (1923), “The Old Chisholm Trail” (1924), “The Hills of Home” (1925), and “Old Paint” (1927). The aforementioned Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys recorded a number of cowboy-themed songs in the 1920s, including “Cow Boy’s Dream” and “Lone Prairie.” The song named #1 in the Western Writers of America Top 100 Western Songs, “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” was written in 1948 by Stan Jones, who wrote several Western-themed songs in his career. Jones grew up on a ranch and for a while was a rodeo performer. Other famous cowboy and Western songs include “Remember the Alamo” written by Jane Bowers and recorded by Johnny Cash and others, and “South of the Border,” written by Jimmy Kennedy and sung by Gene Autry in the film of the same name.

Carl T Sprague

The first real singing cowboy on record was Texan Carl T. Sprague (1896–1979). Signed to Victor in 1925, at his first session he recorded 10 sides, including “When the Work’s All Done This Fall,” usually considered to be the first recorded cowboy hit. It went on to sell an astounding 900,000 copies.

Although Carl T. Sprague’s recording of “When the Work’s All Done This Fall” is regarded as the first hit cowboy song, his was not the first recorded version of the song. That honor belongs to Fiddlin’ John Carson, who recorded it under the title “Dixie Cowboy” in August 1924, a full year before Sprague recorded his version on August 5, 1925. “When the Work’s All Done This Fall” was the most recorded traditional cowboy song of the era, with at least 29 other versions recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. Sprague’s version was easily the most popular, with reported sales of 900,000 copies.

Jules Verne Allen

Texan Jules Verne Allen (1883–1945) was an honest-to-God real cowboy who recorded spar-ingly for Victor in the 1920s and called himself the “Original Singing Cowboy.” Other early singing cowboys included Warner Baxter, Ken Maynard, John I. White, Harry McClintock, and Tex Owens, the composer of the cowboy standard “The Cattle Call.”

Gene Autry

The most famous singing cowboy of all was Orvon Grover “Gene” Autry, who by popular acclaim became known as “The Singing Cowboy.” Autry, (1907–1998), had a long, storied career that started on a small Oklahoma radio station and ended as the owner of the Los Angeles Angels Major League Baseball team and one of the richest and most famous men in America. In between, he was a recording artist who made 640 recordings that sold more than 100 million copies, a composer of over 200 songs, and a radio, TV, and movie star who appeared in 93 films, starring in 91 of them. But Autry’s importance to country music goes beyond simple facts and figures. More than anyone else, Autry brought country music out of its early parochial Southern hillbilly days and transitioned it into the international economic behemoth it is today. By virtue of his ever-present movie role as (according to Johnny Cash) “a handsome man on a fine stallion, riding the bad trails of this land, righting wrongs, turning good for bad, smiling through with the assurance that justice will prevail,”7

he became

a role model for future country stars like Cash, Willie Nelson, and many others. “Gene Autry’s vocal and visual approach, with his eye-catching Western wear, shaped the sound and look of early country music and helped it grow from a regional favorite to a national sensation,” writes his biographer Holly George-Warren. Autry served in World War II, was the friend of several U.S. presidentsfrom both parties, was a pioneer in product merchandising, and became the first movie star to create his own TV production company. A savvy entrepreneur and businessman, he was a man whom Johnny Cash said, “made the world look bet-ter to me.”8

On top of all that, he wrote some of the most beloved songs by

Americans of all ages, including the Christmas chestnuts “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” and “Up on the House Top.” Orvon Autry was born and raised near Tioga, Texas, a tiny bit of a town just

north of Dallas. He was the first of four children of Delbert and Elnora Autry. Elnora, or Nora, as she was called, was the third wife of Delbert Autry, who in his youth had a penchant for wandering off for days at a time (see Carter, A. P.) and was described by various family members as a rascal and an outlaw. Later in his life, Gene Autry would describe his father as “kind of a gypsy” and “a foot-loose, aimless man” who was “usually broke.”9

By the time young Orvon was

born, Delbert had settled down to become somewhat of a ne’er-do-well who made more money selling homemade corn liquor than he did as a part-time farmer and horse trader. Often alone at home, Elnora, whom Autry described as “a gentle and dainty and thoughtful lady”10

would entertain her son on her well-worn guitar. Soon, he was teaching himself how to play. At some point, the fam-ily moved just across the border to Achilles, Oklahoma. Due to the somewhat unstable nature of his home life, in 1921 Orvon moved in with his Uncle Cal, who lived back in Tioga. There, he picked cotton for his uncle and got a job at Sam Anderson’s barber shop cleaning up and shining shoes. Mr. Sam kept a few instruments around, and it wasn’t long before Orvon began entertaining customers with impromptu performances, earning enough in tips to buy a guitar from the Sears catalog. He also took a liking to baseball.

Smiley Burnette

Around this time he met and began collabo-rating with songwriter/actor Smiley Burnette (1911–1967), who would go on to play Autry’s movie sidekick.

Ken Maynard

Santa Fe starred Ken Maynard. Maynard (1895–1973) was at the time THE singing cowboy in movies, the highest-paid Western actor in Hollywood with more than 50 credits to his name. Autry only performed one song in the movie, “Wyoming Waltz,” and was uncredited. But his appearance made an impression on the audience. “Autry’s magnetism was really obvious,” notes Western music historian Charlie Seeman. “In Old Santa Fe was ostensibly a Ken Maynard movie; he was the star. But Gene Autry comes cruising through, singing a song, and you can just feel everybody’s attention shift from Maynard to Autry.” And that is exactly what happened. Maynard was a temperamental person who had a liking for the bottle, and although he continued making films, soon after making In Old Santa Fe his roles were increasingly diminished. Autry’s film career, on the other hand, took off like a rocket. Autry’s next film was in 1934’s 12-part serial Mystery Mountain, once again starring Ken Maynard with Autry uncredited in his appearances in chapters 6,7,8, and 12.

Roy Rogers

But by 1942, Republic had gained leverage over Autry with a new star they were grooming, Leonard Franklin Slye, whom the world had come to know professionally as Roy Rogers. Even though Rogers (1911–1998) was only four years younger than Autry, he projected a more youthful look. In an era when it was not defined as such, Rogers simply had more sex appeal than Autry. Leonard Slye was one of four children born to Andy and Mattie Slye in Cincinnati, Ohio. Desperately poor, the family moved around for several years, with Andy constantly on the lookout for job opportunities. The family eventually settled in the Los Angeles area in 1930. As with many of the artists we’ve covered, the Slyes were a musical family, but their poverty forced them to make their own music at home, often with makeshift instruments. During his childhood, young Len, as he was called, became adept at playing the guitar, singing, and yodeling. In California, he found work at a variety of jobs, including as a truck driver and fruit picker. In 1931, Len entered an amateur singing contest on the local radio show Midnight Frolics. Although he didn’t win, he was soon asked to join a singing group called the Rocky Mountaineers. The group was short-lived, but it gave Len his initial entry into the LA music scene. A number of other unsuccessful groups followed in quick succession, including the International Cowboys and the O-Bar-O Cowboys. During this time Len also got some work singing with Jack LeFevre and His Texas Outlaws on a local radio station.

Bob Nolan

bassist/composer Bob Nolan sons of pioneers

Tim Spencer

singer/composer sons of pioneers

Sons of the Pioneers

In 1933, along with bassist/composer Bob Nolan (1908–1980) and singer/composer Tim Spencer (1908–1974), he formed the Pioneer Trio. As three handsome young cowboys with stunning three-part harmonies accentuated by de rigueur yodeling, the Pioneers began to make a name for themselves through personal appearances and exposure on local radio station KFWB.When the group added fiddler Hugh Farr in 1934, they rebranded themselves as the Sons of the Pioneers. Not long after, the group signed with the newly formed Decca Records and added Farr’s brother Karl on guitar. At their first Decca session, they recorded one of country music’s most enduring standards, “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” The song, writ-ten by Nolan, further added to the Sons’ growing popularity and has gone on to become one of the most recognizable of the cowboy genre.

Dale Evans

By 1942, Roy Rogers had acquired Trigger, the golden Palomino that would become his trusty sidekick through many of his films and his 1950s TV show. He had also been married twice. In 1944, appearing in the film Cowboy and the Senorita, he met costar Dale Evans, whom he married in 1947. Evans (Frances Octavia Smith, 1912–2001), was a former jazz and big band singer from Uvalde,Texas. Prior to meeting Rogers, she had appeared in a number of films, only one of which was a Western. Rogers and Evans, along with their horses Trigger and Buttermilk, would become cultural icons for years, both in film and on radio, and reaching the peak of their fame with The Roy Rogers Show, which aired from 1951–1957 on NBC-TV, and featured their theme song, “Happy Trails.”

Herb Jeffries

But Black singing cowboys were even harder to find. Herb Jeffries was the first and most notable, and one of the only who made a career of it—albeit a brief one—in Hollywood. Jeffries (Umberto Alexander Valentino, 1913–2014), was born in Detroit to a mixed-race father and an Irish-born mother. His mother operated a boarding house and raised her son alone. His grandfather had a small dairy farm in Port Huron, Michigan, where Jeffries learned to ride a horse. Jeffries’ professional career started as a jazz singer and included stints with two of Chicago’s top jazz bands in the early 1930s, Erskine Tate’s Vendome Orchestra and Earl “Fatha” Hines’ Orchestra. Being ambitious and aware of how impactful the white singing cowboys were to the lives of young white boys, Jeffries enlisted veteran movie producer Jed Buell with the goal of producing Hollywood’s “first all-Negro musical Western.” The result, Harlem on the Prairie debuted in 1937 and is considered to be the first Western of the sound era with an all-Black cast. Jeffries, whose light complexion necessitated Buell to insist he wear makeup to darken up, would go on to make four all-Black Westerns in the late 1930s. The last, The Bronze Buckeroo gave him his nickname. In 1939 he resumed his jazz singing career and became an import-ant and influential member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and appeared in Ellington’s seminal musical revue Jump for Joy.

Milton Brown

These developments did not go unnoticed by a few observant Western musi-cians, including Milton Brown (1903–1936) and to a greater extent, Bob Wills (1905–1975). These two and others began to conceive of ways to come up with a composite style that could incorporate the best of jazz and country music thatcould potentially appeal to a much wider audience. Both men were born in north central Texas; although not much is known about Brown’s early life, we know that Wills left home at an early age, became a barber, and often fiddled in minstrel shows. In 1929, Wills met guitarist Herman Arnspiger, and the two of them began playing at house parties in the Fort Worth area under the name Wills’ Fiddle Band. In 1930, vocalist Brown joined the group, and they became the Aladdin Laddies, named after the sponsor of their WBAP radio show, the Aladdin Mantle Lamp Company. In 1931 they moved to KFJZ-Fort Worth to appear on a program sponsored by Burrus Mills’ Light Crust Flour. They also worked for the mill during the day in various capacities. By 1932, Arnspiger had left the group, two new members had joined, and they became first the Fort Worth Doughboys and then the Light Crust Doughboys. By 1933 the group had radio shows on WBAP,WOAI in San Antonio, and KPRC in Houston, and were becoming popular throughout the Southwest. So popular in fact that the Burrus Mills general manager Wilbert Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel decided to tag along as their announcer. (O’Daniel used this vehicle to launch his political career; by the time he ran for governor of Texas in 1938 he was well-known to the Doughboys’ many fans. He won his race, and was elected to the U.S. Senate two years later.)

Musical Brownies (a western swing band)

But Brown and Wills were not long for the Doughboys. Brown left in 1932

to start the Musical Brownies and began performing on KTAT-Fort Worth; Wills left a year later to start the group that would eventually become the Texas Playboys. The Brownies, comprised of members with a broad reach of musical influences and abilities, were comfortable playing in most any musical setting, but committed themselves to playing a new hybrid that might be called “coun-try jazz.” Pianist Fred “Papa” Calhoun was a veteran of Fort Worth area jazz bands; Cecil Brower was one of the era’s most jazz-influenced fiddlers, and gui-tarist Bob Dunn played the steel guitar like a horn, using single-note runs and short staccato notes. (Oklahoma City’s Charlie Christian would use the same approach to win an audition with the “King of Swing” Benny Goodman in 1939, and go on to become one of the most influential guitarists in jazz history.) Brown himself was an admired and widely-copied vocalist.

Texas Playboys

The person who made the biggest impact on the hybridization of jazz and

country was Brown’s former bandmate, Bob Wills. After leaving the Light Crust Doughboys, Wills moved to Waco, Texas, where he formed The Playboys, and then in 1934 to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they became the Texas Playboys. The group performed daily on Tulsa’s KVOO in a show sponsored by the Crazy Water Crystals laxative and in the evenings at the 1,500-seat Cain Dancing Academy. Add to that the sides they cut for Okeh Records, and the Texas Playboys quickly became popular throughout the Southwest. Around this time, Wills’ began to tinker with the band’s instrumentation, adding innovative electric guitarist Leon McAuliff e, stride pianist Al Stricklin, and drummer William “Smoky” Dacus. As a fan of the swing bands of the era, Wills also added acoustic bass, trumpet, saxo-phone, trombone, and vocalist Tommy Duncan to the band, giving the Playboys, with as many as 20 or more members, a sound unlike any other of its time. They were either a country band masquerading as a swing band, or vice versa.

Camel Caravan

Nashville’s WSM launched its Camel Caravan featuring Pee Wee King, Eddie Arnold, and Minnie. Pearl in 1941, and over the next few years traveled more than 50,000 miles in presenting 175 shows at army camps, hospitals, airfields, and bases in 19 states and the Panama Canal.

Billboard Magazine

Founded in 1984, the

industry’s leading trade magazine had generally neglected hill-billy and country music for years, no doubt because of the inher-ent contempt toward the music found throughout the mainstream music industry. But eventually, even Billboard had to concede the force of country music’s newfound popularity. In 1942, it created a new category, “Western and Race,” that lumped in everything that wasn’t mainstream, but yet warranted attention. The chart was renamed “American Folk Records” a month later but was still a catchall for everything from a new record by Tex Ritter to one by jazzman Louis Armstrong. Even though the magazine was not sure what to do with country music or even what to call it, it at least was beginning to acknowledge its presence. In 1944 it officially began tracking country music with a category titled “Juke Box Folk Records,” and created “Best-Selling Folk Records” in 1948, which evolved into “Best-Selling Country and Western Records” in 1949.

ASCAP

the performing rights organization American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers

PRO

Performing rights organization (PRO) an organization that collects and distributes royalties for performances of musical compositions written by its members

BMI

the

performing rights organization Broadcast Music, Incorporated

AFM recording ban

a ban on new recordings put into place by the American Federation of Musicians that lasted from August 1, 1942, until late 1944.

Acuff-Rose Music

Ernest Tubb Record Shop

Midnite Jamboree

bluegrass

Scruggs style

Fred Rose

With country music’s new popular surge and its emergence as a nationwide phenomenon came a renewed demand for new songs, and by extension, a new crop of songwriters. One of the most important if not under-appreciated of all the country songwriters from this period was Fred Rose. Rose (1897–1954) was born in tiny Evanston, Indiana, but spent much of his youth in St. Louis, where he and his mother moved after his parent’s marriage ended. He studied piano as a child, and by age 10 was singing and playing piano in local saloons for tips. In 1917 at age 19, he moved to Chicago where he performed in nightclubs on the city’s Southside and recorded player piano rolls for the QRS Company. In the 1920s he began writing songs and achieved considerable success writing pop/jazz tunes for actress Sophie Tucker, including “Red Hot Mama,” “Deed I Do,” and “Honest and Truly.” He also formed a duo with singer/whistler Elmo Tanner called The Tune Peddlers, and secured radio appearances on WKYW and WBBM. By the early 1930s, Rose had developed a drinking prob-lem, costing him his Chicago radio job, and forcing a move to Nashville and WSM, where he hosted Fred Rose’s Song Show. Between 1933 and 1938, he divided his time between Nashville, Chicago, and New York, performing on radio shows and shopping his songs to music publishers. Although he continued to write pop songs during this time, he also began to write country songs for the Vagabonds and the Delmore Brothers of The Grand Ole Opry. He also worked with cowboy singer Ray Whitley, who in 1937 co-wrote Gene Autry’s theme song, “Back in the Saddle Again” with Autry. Rose scored his first Western hit in 1936 with “We’ll Rest at the End of the Trail,” which was recorded by Tex Ritter, the Sons of the Pioneers, and Bing Crosby. This led to his move to Hollywood, where from 1938 to 1942 he wrote a series of hit songs for movies that Autry, Ray Whitley, and Roy Rogers, among others, starred in.

Cindy Walker

Roy Acuff

Eddy Arnold

Minnie Pearl

Ernest Tubb

Texas Troubadours

Bill Monroe

Lester Flatt

Earl Scruggs

Blue Grass Boys

Foggy Mountain Boys

Rockabilly

rhythm and blues (R&B)

honky tonk

starlite wranglers

sam philips

elvis presley

bill haley

conway twitty

chuck berry

buddy holly

ted daffan

floyd tillman

lefty frizzell

webb pierce

jean shepard

kitty wells

hank williams

jimmie rodgers memorial festival

ray price shuffle

ray price

marty robbins

hank snow

brenda lee

johnny cash

the tennessee two

june carter cash

stanley brothers

osborne brothers

felice and boudleaux bryant

louvin brothers

everly brothers

gunfighter ballads and trail songs

at folson Prison

songs our daddy taught us