Citizendia

This article is about the musical genre. A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other For the popular western swing steel guitar tuning, see E9 tuning. Steel guitar is A method of playing Slide guitar using a steel. E9 tuning is a common tuning for Steel guitar necks of more than six strings

Western swing is, first and foremost, a style of jazz[1][2][3] which evoloved in the American Southwest among the region's popular Western string bands. The Southwestern area of the United States could be defined as the states west of the Mississippi River, with the qualification of a certain northern limit such as the 37 Western music is a form of Folk music originally composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the This article is about the style of old-time American music The term string band also referred to the ensembles now known as Scratch bands part of the Music of the [4][5] Much of it is dance music with an up-tempo beat[6][7] consisting of an eclectic combination of rural, cowboy, polka, and folk music, blended with a jazzy "swing", with a tip of the hat to New Orleans jazz and blues,[8] and played by a hot string band often augmented with drums, saxophones, pianos and, notably, the steel guitar. Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of Jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and had solidified as a distinctive style by 1935 in the United New Orleans (nʲuːˈɔrliənz nʲuːˈɔrlənz French: La Nouvelle-Orléans) is a major United States port city and the largest city in Louisiana Jazz is an American Musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States The Blues is a vocal and instrumental form of Music based on the use of the Blue notes It emerged as an accessible form of self-expression Musical Improvisation is the creative activity of immediate Musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental [9] Later incarnations have also included overtones of bebop. The similarities between Western Swing and Gypsy jazz are often noted. Gypsy jazz (also known as "Gypsy Swing" is an idiom often said to have been started by Guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in the 1930s [10]

Contents

History

Western Swing originated in the dance halls of small towns throughout the Lower Great Plains in the 1920s and 1930s[11][12] Evolving from the old house parties and ranch dances where fiddlers and guitarists that entertained dancers. Bob Wills and Milton Brown essentially created the stylistic blend in the early 1930s as co-founders of the stringband that became the Light Crust Doughboys, who played dancehalls and took advantage of the new medium of radio broadcasting. James Robert (Bob Wills ( March 6, 1905 &ndash May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician Songwriter Milton Brown ( 8 September 1903 Stephenville Texas - 13 April 1936 Crystal Falls Stephens County The Light Crust Doughboys were a Texas western swing band formed in 1931 by Bob Wills, Milton Brown and W That helped the style gain a much wider following through the music of Wills and his Texas Playboys in Tulsa, Brown in Fort Worth and the Light Crust Doughboys, also in Fort Worth. The Texas Playboys were a Western Swing band long led by Bob Wills, and considered by many to be the definitive progenitor of that musical genre

Western swing differed in several ways from the music played by the nationally popular horn driven big swing bands of the same era. In Western bands—even the fully orchestrated bands—vocals and the other instruments followed the fiddle's lead. Additionally, most Western bands improvised freely, either by soloists or collectively. Popular horn bands tended to arrange and score their music. [13] The rhythm and the use of electrically amplified stringed instruments, especially the steel and guitar, also gave the music a distinctive sound. [14]

Bob Wills recalled the early days of Western swing music in a 1949 interview. "Here's the way I figure it" he said, "We sure not tryin' to take credit for swingin' it. " Speaking of Milt Brown and himself—working with popular songs done by Jimmie Davis, the Skillet Lickers, Jimmie Rodgers, songs he'd learned from his father and others—he said that "We'd . James Houston Davis ( September 11, 1899 - November 5, 2000) better known as Jimmie Davis, was a noted Singer of both sacred Jimmie Rodgers ( September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) an early purveyor of Delta blues, known as "The Singing Brakeman" . . pull these tunes down an set 'em in a dance category. . . . They wouldn't be a runaway . . . and just lay a real beat behind it an' the people would began to really like it. . . . It was nobody intended to start anything in the world. We was just tryin' to find enough tunes to keep 'em dancin' to not have to repeat so much. "[15]

Origin of the name

Western swing in its beginnings had no name—it was just dance music. Just the term "swing", meaning big band dance music, wasn't used until after the 1932 hit "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)". " It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing " is a 1931 composition by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Irving Mills, now accepted as a [16] Recording companies came up with several names before World War II trying to market it—"Hillbilly", "Old Time Music", "Novelty Hot Dance", "Hot String Band", and even "Texas Swing" for music coming out of Texas and Louisiana. [17] Most of the big Western dance bandleaders simply referred to themselves as Western bands and their music as Western dance music, many adamantly refusing the "hillbilly" label. [18]

Finally in about 1942, Spade Cooley's promoter, Foreman Phillips, began using "Western Swing" to advertise his client. [19][20] The first use in print was a 1944 song book by Spade Cooley titled Western Swing. [21] After that the music was "Western Swing".

Height of Popularity

Western Swing reached its "golden age" during the years preceding WWII, blossomed on the West Coast during the war, and was extremely popular throughout the West. [1] In the 1940s the Light Crust Doughboys broadcasts went out over 170 radio stations in the South and Southwest, and were heard by millions of people. [2] Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys played Western Swing nightly in Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1934 until 1943. James Robert (Bob Wills ( March 6, 1905 &ndash May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician Songwriter The Texas Playboys were a Western Swing band long led by Bob Wills, and considered by many to be the definitive progenitor of that musical genre Cain's Ballroom is a Music venue in Tulsa, OK. It was built in 1924 to serve as a garage for one of Tulsa's founders Tate Brady. Crowds at Cain's were as large as 6,000 people. Daily shows were broadcast on KVOO radio, which had a far reaching 50,000 watt signal. Regular shows continued until 1958 with Johnnie Lee Wills as the bandleader. [3]

According to one report crowds of ten thousand people were not uncommon at Western Swing dances in the Los Angeles area. Another eyewitness report describes the California crowds as "huge". [4]

Fred "Poppa" Calhoun, piano player for Milton Brown, vividly remembed how people in Texas and Oklahoma danced when Bob Wills played. "They were pretty simple copules dances, two steps and the Lindy Hop with a few western twirls added for good measure. By 1937 the Jitterbug hit big in the West and allowed much greater freedom of movement. But the Jitterbug was different in the West. It wasn't all out boogie woogie; it was 'swingier' - more smooth and subdued. " [22]

Another orchestra from this era was The Duece Spriggens Orchestra. They played nightly at the Western Palisades Ballroom, on Santa Monica Pier. . . then known as the largest ballroom on the West Coast. The music was broadcast as a radio show, The Cavalcade of Western Music, on station KFI. They also appeared on the Melody Roundup radio program. [5]

Some credit Spade Cooley with coining the term 'Western swing' in the early 1940s, as a play on Benny Goodman's reputation as the "King of Swing. Donnell Clyde 'Spade' Cooley ( December 17, 1910 &ndash November 23, 1969) was an American Western Swing musician " At least one historian and two web sites, however, credit Cooley’s then manager Bert “Foreman” Phillips with creating the term. [6][7][8]

Decline and Lasting Influence

The decline of Western Swing in the years following the War reflected the waxing and waning of the more mainstream big-band sound. A big band is a type of Musical ensemble associated with playing jazz music and which became popular during the Swing Era from the early 1930s until the late Asleep at the Wheel band leader Ray Benson relates his experiences with reintroducing Western Swing to Texans in an interview. Asleep at the Wheel, is a multiple Grammy Award -winning Country / Western Swing band formed in Paw Paw West Virginia, but based in Austin [9]

Moon Mullican, who had performed with Western Swing bands, later found more success as a solo artist and his 1940s and 1950s hits often were done with a more western swing than pure country feel. Aubrey Wilson Mullican ( March 29, 1909 - January 1, 1967) known as Moon Mullican, was an American Country and western

Western swing was one of the many genres to influence rockabilly, and rock 'n' roll. Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of Rock and roll music and emerged in the early 1950s Rock and roll (also known as rock 'n' roll) is a form of Music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s with roots in mostly African Bill Haley's music from the late 1940s and early 1950s is often referred to as Western Swing. This article is specifically about the singer For detailed information about his rock and roll group see Bill Haley & His Comets. Haley's band from 1948 and 1949 was named Bill Haley and The 4 Aces of Western Swing.

Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Asleep at the Wheel helped make Austin, Texas a major center of Western Swing beginning in the 1970s. Waylon Arnold Jennings ( June 15, 1937 &ndash February 13, 2002) was an influential American Country music Singer The annual South by Southwest music festival and the Austin City Limits PBS TV show have contributed to this success. South by Southwest ( SXSW) is a set of interactive, Film, and Music festivals and conferences that take place Austin City Limits is an American Television music program and a staple of the Public Broadcasting Service. The Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) is a Non-profit Public broadcasting Television service with 354 member TV stations in the [10] One regional name for Western Swing is simply "Texas. "

Notable bands and artists from the early era

(See also Category:Western swing musical groups and Category:Western swing performers. )

Early groups (includes leaders)

Early performers

Later bands and artists of the genre (or influenced by it)

Groups

Individuals

See also

References

  1. ^ Boyd, Jazz of the Southwest, p. Tex Williams (born Sollie Paul Williams) August 23, 1917 &ndash October 11, 1985) was an American Western swing musician David Stout "Dave" Stogner (1920-1989 was one of the premier Western swing musicians playing on the West Coast Thomas Elmer (Tommy Duncan ( January 11, 1911 &ndash July 25, 1967) was an American Western swing vocalist and Songwriter Buddy Jones (1906- October 20 1956 was an American Western swing musician who recorded in the 1930s and 1940s Aubrey Wilson Mullican ( March 29, 1909 - January 1, 1967) known as Moon Mullican, was an American Country and western Herbert Clayton Penny ( August 18, 1918 in Birmingham Alabama – April 17, 1992 in California of heart failure was an accomplished Floyd Tillman ( 8 December 1914 – 22 August 2003) was a Country musician who in the 1930s-40s helped create the Western swing Wesley Webb "Speedy" West ( January 25, 1924 – November 15, 2003) was an American Pedal steel guitarist Asleep at the Wheel, is a multiple Grammy Award -winning Country / Western Swing band formed in Paw Paw West Virginia, but based in Austin Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys is a Western swing / Hillbilly boogie Musical band from California. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen was a Country rock band formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor Michigan. The Ditty Bops is an American band from Los Angeles California. Donald Ray Walser ( September 14 1934 - September 20 2006) was an American Country music singer The Dusty Chaps was a Honky tonk country swing band based in Tucson, AZ in the mid 1970s and early 1980s The Hot Club of Cowtown formed in 1997 as a Hot Jazz / Western swing trio Merle Ronald Haggard (born April 6, 1937) is an American Country music Singer, Guitarist and Songwriter. The Quebe Sisters Band is an American fiddle Western swing group from Fort Worth Texas. The Red Stick Ramblers are a Cajun Music and Western Swing band who formed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana while the members were attending the The Time Jumpers are a Western swing ensemble formed in 1998 in Nashville Tennessee. Wayne "The Train" Hancock (Born May 1 1965) is a country musician Willie Nelson (born April 30, 1933) is an American country Singer-songwriter and Actor. Martin David Robinson ( September 26 1925 – December 8, 1982) was an American singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist George Harvey Strait (born May 18, 1952) is an American Country music singer Swing (genre Art Tatum, (1909&ndash1956 Artie Shaw, (1910&ndash2004 Ben Webster (1909&ndash1973 Swing music, also known as swing jazz, is a form of Jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and had solidified as a distinctive style by 1935 in the United Western music is a form of Folk music originally composed by and about the people who settled and worked throughout the ix-x: "They were and are in the same league with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and many others, not in the 'hillbilly' category where they were assigned by record executives who could not decide how to classify improvisation played on string instruments. Western swing musicians have nothing against country music and in fact recognize country music as one of many tributaries of their music. But 'country' is an inappropriate and misleading label for western swing. "
  2. ^ Townsend, San Antonio Rose, p. 63: "Without exception, every former member of Wills's band interviewed for this study concluded, as Wills himself did, that what they were playing was always closer in music, lyrics, and style to jazz and swing that any other genre. "
  3. ^ Price, "Jazz Guitar and Western Swing", p. 81: "Clearly western swing deserves its place in any study of jazz, and its guitarists, while always a breed apart, were and are central to the music, intimately bound to its origins and evolution. "
  4. ^ Brink, "Western Swing", p. 550: "In many ways, western swing music is a manifestation of the cultural forces that came together where the geographical isolation and harsh living conditions of the frontier met the electronic age. People still living in dugouts and sod houses on the Southern High Plains became a part of popular culture through the radio and the jukebox, mingling their musical talents and tastes with the new sounds introduced to them through the accessibility of phonographs and the airwaves. "
  5. ^ Logsdon, "Folk Songs", p. 299: "In the 1920s Bob Wills, a fiddle player son of a cotton farmer in West Texas, started playing ranch-house dances. His desire to play dances eventually developed a dance genre know as western swing. While the music has elements of jazz and blues, it actually evolved from the specific merger of cowboy and farmer folk song and instrumention. "
  6. ^ Townsend, San Antonio Rose, p. 38: "According to Leon McAuliffe, one of the musicians who later helped Jim Rob pioneer western swing, this emphasis on music for dancing was the principal reason Wills's music was so different from music in the East that also had rural and folk roots: 'The basic difference in country and western music, if there is any way of defining it, is that west of the Mississippi River when we played, we played for dancing. East of the Mississippi they played a show, or they played in a schoolhouse, just for people to sit and listen, visual or audible entertainment and not for dancing'. "
  7. ^ Malone, Stars of Country Music, p. 170: "Wills knew dance audience too well to sing about divorce, the heartbreak of broken homes, or poverty during the Depression. . . . Bob had fun performing, and he tried to play music that created an atmosphere of gaiety and happiness. Everything that contributed to this atmosphere—the beat, the jazz choruses, the syncopation, and the extemporaneous improvisation—remained basic to his syle until the end of his career. "
  8. ^ Price, "Jazz Guitar and Western Swing", p. 82: "The assimilation was so thorough that western swing, at the hands of an accomplished bandleader like Bob Wills, Milton Brown or Spade Cooley, cannot be seen as ersatz anything. It was from the start—or at least from its earliest documentation on record—its own music, something more than its parts, allowing a freedom of expression offered neither by traditional country music (whch would have no part in improvisation or between-the-beats rhythm) nor by the structured jazz community (in which no southwestern bumpkin would be likely to feel welcome). "
  9. ^ Coffey, Merl Lindsay and His Oklahoma Nite Riders, pp. 3-4: "By 1938, Merle [Lindsay] was leading a versatile dance band that numbered as many as ten pieces; it was a fairly typical Oklahoma western swing band of the day in its lineup, along similar lines to the Texas Playboys, . . . with twin fiddles, three horns, steel guitar and rhythm (including drums, an instrument far more common at the time in Oklahoma bands than in Texas and elsewhere). "
  10. ^ Ginell, Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing, p. xxii: "Although his influence canot be overestimated, Milton Brown has been placed in a category in which he did not belong during his lifetime. In the early years of western swing's evolution, the genre bore little similarity to country music. 'Hillbilly music,' as it was known then, meant artists such as Gid Taner and his Skillet Lickers, Uncle Dave Macon, and the Carter Family, along with homespun radio programs like WSM Nashville's Grand Ole Opry and WLS Chicago's National Barn Dance. The performers on these shows learned much of their material from traditional folk sources. As musicians, they were generally self-taught and rarely read music. If they knew anything at all about blues or jazz, they looked down on them as inferior, alien sounds. The Brownies would have felt more comfortable in the small jazz clubs of Europe, playing alongside Django Reinhardt and the Quintet in the Hot club of France, than in checkered overalls on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. "
  11. ^ Kienzle, Southwest Shuffle, pp. vii-xi: Preface.
  12. ^ Carney, "Country Music", p. 535: "Seven substyles of country music emerged during the twentieth century. Four of these originated in the Great Plains states of Texas and Oklahoma: singing cowboy, western swing, honky-tonk, and country rock. "
  13. ^ Boyd, "Western Swing", p. 208: "But modernization did not diminish the unique and basically rural character of western swing, which remained distinct from mainstream horn jazz because of the prominent place given to fiddles and guitars, both standard and steel. The fiddle was the lead instrument in any western swing band, even those with horns, and every other instrumentalist adjusted to the fiddlers' stylings and preferences for sharp keys. There were also rhythmic differences between western swing bands and horn bands. Western swing was dance music, with the emphasis on a clearly discernible and uncluttered beat pattern. Western swing bands tended to use a highly syncopated rhythmic bass (i. e. \tfrac{2}{4} time signature), moving to the more relaxed swing-four (i. e. , \tfrac{4}{4} time signature) only to back certain soloists. This gave western swing bands more rhythmic drive and an overall more aggressive character than most horn bands. The amount of improvisation also was significantly different between western swing and mainstream horn bands. Most of the nationally know horn bands were populated by reading musicians who were more comfortable with scores than long stretches of solo or collective improvisation. But western swing musicians were largely self-taught non-readers who improvised out of necessity and the need to express their individuality in their music. "
  14. ^ Wolff, Country Music, "Big Balls in Cowtown: Western Swing From Fort Worth to Fresno", p. 71: "The instrumentation of both Brown's and Wills' bands, in fact, was one of the major distinctions that set their music apart from either straight hillbilly or jazz. For starters, the Brownies featured Bob Dunn, a steel guitarist who is credited as the first country artist on record to use an electric string instrument. Wills had his answer to Dunn in McAuliffe, whose "Steel Guitar Rag" became hugely popular and brought the new amplified sound to the public's attention. "
  15. ^ Wills, Bob. 1949 interview from Honky Tonks, Hymns and the Blues.
  16. ^ Marble, Freedom On My Mind, p. 57: "The Song 'It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)' is notable because it gave a motto ('The Swing Era') to the 1930s and to jazz music in general"
  17. ^ Lang, Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, p. 89: "Prior to the war [WWII], record companies labeled early western swing as 'Novelty Hot Dance' or 'Hot String Band' music. In 1941, the Victor recording company referred to its latest release of Texas and Louisiana country groups as 'Texas Swing. '
  18. ^ Lange, Smile When You Call Me A Hillbilly, p. 98: "Wills himself proved an extremely capable musical politician, sharply refuting any association with southeastern country music ('Please don't anybody confuse us with none of them hillbilly outfits') . . . "
  19. ^ Logsdon, "The Cowboy's Bawdy Music", p. 137: "The term 'western swing' was not used until Foreman Phillips, a promoter-disc jockey, used it to describe Spade Cooley in 1942. "
  20. ^ Komorowski, Spade Cooley, p. 4: " He [Spade Cooley]] promptly proclaimed himself the 'King of Western Swing', the first time the term was used to describe this style of music, and it was one that stuck. "
  21. ^ Lang, Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, p. 89: In October 1944, Billboard made the following announcement, unceremoniously giving the subgenre its common label for the first time in a national publication: 'Spade Cooley will put out 25 of his original tunes, together with an album of band numbers and suggestions on arrangements for Western Bands. Book to be titled Western Swing. ' "
  22. ^ The Complete Book of Country Swing & Western Dancing and a Bit about Cowboys Peter Livingston Livingston/Boulder Books 1981 ISBN 0-385-17601-5 page 44

Bibliography

External links

Associations

Periodicals

Public Radio programs

General

Listen


Dictionary

Western swing

-noun

  1. A style of jazz, meshing string bands with other instrumentation - especially drums, saxophones, pianos and the steel guitar - that evolved into a subgenre of country music during the early 1940s.

-adjective

  1. Of, or referring to, the subgenre of country music.
© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic