Origins of Country vs. Folk?

Subject: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Johnhenry'shammer
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 12:51 AM

Most people can tell the aural difference between country music and folk music but I was curious as to the differences in origin. I know that folk came from the work songs and love songs and story songs of all over the world but where did country come from?

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 03:00 AM

I think you must mean ' country & western ' not actual country music, which is really folk music.

I'm not an expert but I think C & W came about by country music going commercial in order to sell records.

eric

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 04:00 AM

Would that not be people like:Gene Autry/Roy Rogers etc,Singing cowboys and all that stuff?Appearing in Westerns,riding the range,killing all the outlaws,sitting in the sunset,on a horse,singing and playing a Martin D-45!

I'll saddle up

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 04:50 AM

It came from Hull.

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 06:12 AM

Listen to Commander Cody doing:When The Sun Sets On The Sage.

Every line is a cliché.Hear the whistling in the background.
Briliant!

On the other hand,listen to Eddy Grundy in The Archers.
A story of simple country folk!

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: skipy
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 07:41 AM

Country:- noise for the hard of thinking!
Skipy

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 08:32 AM

"Country and Western" is a category invented by record companies.

The "birth" of what was to become country music was the "Bristol Sessions" of 1927 which included such luminaries as Jimmy Rogers and The Carter Family. The Carter Family started as what we might call "folk" singers but became popular music super stars. I'm not sure Jimmy Rogers was ever a "folk" singer.

RCA had decided that there was money to be made by targeting rural southerners or former rural southerners or rural southern wannabes.

It was one of the first attempts to target a specific regional audience rather than a mass audience.

The music of today termed "Country" or "Real Country" or "True Country" is a descentdent of "Country and Western" but is the result of the same sort of marketing approach. I have read that the target audience is soccer moms.

Russ (GUEST pedant)

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 08:42 AM

I was told by a friend who has owned/managed record/CD shops for decades that Billboard? decided to combine their Country & Western Top 40's to save space!

record companies/publishing companies - whichever.

sandra

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 12:08 PM

C&W began as "City Billy" music...folks who are urban, but have some 'country' roots and relatives. They get a different perspective on things. Lots of Budweiser & NASCAR usually involved. *grin*

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:20 PM

Simplistically, you can date what we think of as Country (or C&W) Music from approximately Ernest Tubb and the year 1940.

After the first flush of oldtime music (the original country music made by people like the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, Charlie Poole, etc.) there were plenty of country musicians who developed a distinct commercial sound. For instance, top sellers like Patsy Montana. Gene Autry emerged from his imitation Jimmie Rodgers period and went on to record newly written music whose flavor was distinct from folk roots. For that matter so had Rodgers.

Western Swing developed in the 1930s, mingling hot jazz and country, tremendously influential in the midwest and southwest. People like Bob Atcher recorded early country stuff. The names are endless.

But the big divide came with World War II. A lot of southern boys went to basic training camps in the north, northerners in the south. They all mingled both stateside and overseas. Radio picked up sounds they liked.

By the time the war was over, the C&W industry was well on its way, developing in centers like Nashville. Old time country music, which was strongly linked to folk as well as older popular music from the 19th-early 20th century, had essentially collapsed. The new sounds represented by people like Ernest Tubb -- think "Walkin' the Floor Over You" and a million honkytonk songs -- took over. Typical of the sound were hot fiddles, steel guitar, occasional accordion, and a hot downbeat anchored by string bass. Vocals and songs were equally sophisticated with a new genre self-consciousness by contrast with what had gone before.

The Carter Family disbanded, Jimmie Rodgers had died, Uncle Dave Macon had been homogenized by the smoother sounds of the Delmore Brothers in the 1930s. Radio itself demanded and created a warm smooth sound.

Artists like Bill Monroe were able to make the transition from one to the other; but very few others did. The war, and the spread of radio with its live shows and recorded music on transcription disks, marked the changing of an era. By 1942, it is generally agreed, the end had come for indigenous folk sounds as a commercially recorded genre.

Thereafter folk mutated and reemerged in the 1950s, but as an urban phenomenon. There would never be another genuine traditional music industry. It had been a fluke in the first place, a novelty that sold well in the south till its back was broken by the Depression.

Quite a story here, if you dig further. See Bill Malone's books, Robert Shelton's Country Music Story is an oldie but still good. If you check Amazon for "old time music," "early country music," etc. you'll find quite a number of books on the subject. The net also has some good resources ripe for the googling.

Enjoy,

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:24 PM

As a footnote: I didn't quite finish the point about the soldiers mingling in the war. It was the first time most non-southerners had heard southern music, which before that was a strictly regional market.

Once the sounds got spread around, they traveled fast in the hands of people from all over the US -- and overseas, spawning country music markets wherever US forces went, Europe, the Pacific, etc.

Suddenly country sounds were no longer a well-kept secret. With so much input from so many places, the style changed very fast. You can thank the war for C&W (or blame it, as you please). Wars are famous for creating melting pots for musical styles. Writing styles too -- Hemingway and many more came out of WWI. Wars just mix everything up, they are a really hot growth medium. (That can be good in some ways...obviously horrible in others. But that's what happens.)

Bob

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: GUEST,wherriebob
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 09:29 PM

Listen to The Crooked Jades and The Stairwell Sisters.

Forget about C&W

Old Time is really the deal.

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 11:22 PM

If it puts biscuits on the table and shoes on the kids- it's worthwhile.

Subject: RE: Origins of Country vs. Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 03:27 PM

tell you what, let's let these historians in the year 3000 work out who did what and what was what. Give em something to do. Its a lot clearer to everybody now which is a gothic cathedral, which is an impressionist painting, etc.

who gives a damn what we are, as long as we're all happy making music.