Help: Country vs western

Subject: Country vs western
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 May 01 - 07:38 AM

Question that has been puzzling me for years. I asked in another thread but the question was lost amongst the rest of the stuff so I thought I would ask again. In the 'Blues Brothers' the band are in a live music bar. they ask the waitress what kind of music plays here. She replies 'Oh - both kinds. Country and Western!' It's quite funny to see the look on the brothers faces but I have come to realise it would probably be funnier if I knew what the difference actualy was.

Can anyone out there help a poor unenlightened limey? Is it like the difference between Irish and English folk? Or more like between electric and accoustic? Or what?

Cheers

Dave the Gnowledge hungry Gnome

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: kendall
Date: 08 May 01 - 07:45 AM

Back in the 30's and 40's it was all one genre.Hillbilly songs and cowboy songs were in the same class. However, in the past 40 years or so, it became Country.There is no Western music anymore, unless you count John Denver in that class (Rocky Mountain High) To define it is almost as hard as defining "Folk music"

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 08 May 01 - 08:33 AM

I believe the two terms were originally combined to suggest a marriage of "hillbilly" music ("country," largely originating in Appalachia and other areas east of the Mississippi) with cowboy songs and western swing ("western," as popularized by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, and various cowboy soloists and groups). Put the two together and you get music created by people like Roy Acuff, Hank Snow, and ultimately the great Hank Williams. There's nothing seamless about this, and there are lots of back roads and less-beaten paths along the way, but I think this is the derivation of the C&W term.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 May 01 - 08:41 AM

Probably as good of a brief explanation that I could think of WS. There was a distinct difference between the styles but over the years the melding has created a situation where there isn't much of either actually left. On the other hand, there is some resurgence of some of the traditional styles in both areas and leaving the C&W term to the "Nashville Sound" with Garth and LeAnn et al.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 08 May 01 - 08:54 AM

Yeah, it's good to know that we haven't been totally consumed (yet) by the plastic pop that dominates the big Country stations these days. As I mentioned recently on another thread, the good stuff is out there, as long as you know where (and where not) to look for it.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,Midchuck upstairs
Date: 08 May 01 - 08:56 AM

There is no Western music anymore...

Woops, I think Kendall just challenged Ian Tyson. I wouldn't try Ian, even if he is pushing 70.

Also Don Edwards, et. al.

Actually, "Cowboy" music is very much alive and well, in fact, it's had quite a resurgence in the last few years. It's just that people in the East aren't much aware of it.

And then there's Western Swing, which is a very specific genre of its own.

"Country" music, on the other hand, at this point breaks down into:

1) The current Hot New Country pap. Bleahh. Yecch.

2) Bluegrass

3) Old-timey

4) "Alt-Country" and "oldies" country

I am fond of (2) and (4). (1) would gag a maggot. I don't smoke dope, so I can't get into (3), except some of the ragtimey stuff like what Norman Blake and the NLCR do.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:17 AM

I don't smoke dope, so I can't get into (3), except some of the ragtimey stuff like what Norman Blake and the NLCR do.

Sometimes you really crack me up Peter.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Fortunato
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:17 AM

Of course the joke was, for that waitress there was one kind of music in the world, and in the typical hollywood tradition of belittling 'yokels' she is portrayed as being so dumb she doesn't know they are the same.

In my opinion Dave, and I've read the books and played the music for money, including all the types peter mentions, (except New Country), the DJ or A&R guy who labeled the music originally created a 'box' where the music industry could stick people and then market them. Further definition will avail you nothing. Consider Grandpa Jones and Patsy Cline and Bob Wills and 'New Country' all in one box. Their musical antecedents are extremely diverse, and they don't sound much alike. Yet they are all called country and western.

That was fun, Dave. Fortunato

Peter, what does smoking dope have to do with oldtime music? Have I been doing it wrong?

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:27 AM

Ahhhhh! Cheers Fortunato. Gosh, I'm slow at times|:-?

Perhaps those producers will cast me as a yokel. I'll do most things if the pay is high enough!

Nice insight into the background of C&W guys. Thanks.

And I thought it was only Dylan that needed the dope...;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: LR Mole
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:04 AM

A generalization instantly disprovable by people who listen to all of this more than I do:"country's" touchstone is the more high-mountain, Celtic-keening stuff, where "western" incorporated more brass charts (swing influence), and cosmopolitan harmonies (the barbershop-Mills Brothers-Four Freshmen line which was later to mutate into the Kingston Trio, Beach Boys,Manhattan Transfer sound)(aided and abetted by the Hollywood singing cowboy, Sons-of-the-Pioneers thing and the Mexican, accordion-polka-mariachi blend). I could, of course, be all wet. Nick Tosches' book, "Country: the Biggest Music in America" is the best one I know of on the subject.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: chip a
Date: 08 May 01 - 10:32 AM

Midchuck

You're kidding about the dope........right??

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,Midchuck upstairs
Date: 08 May 01 - 11:47 AM

Well, I've only actually seen old-timey musicians smoking funny stuff a few times. But when you have two or three fiddlers in a tight circle, staring into each others' faces and playing "Old Joe Clark," or something like that, about a hundred times through, in a sort of trance state, you sort of assume they've been smoking something strange.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: chip a
Date: 08 May 01 - 11:50 AM

It's the music. Hence the expression..........."Man, you guys are smokin'"

Chip

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: paddymac
Date: 08 May 01 - 12:02 PM

Well, Dave, Fortunato got it right. The line in the movie only makes sense if you interpret it as a joke.

Dangnabit, Mole, the stuff o yern'll take a heap o chewin' fore I kin figer it out. However, I do agree that the characteristic "high lonesome" sound found in bluegrass is rather like keening.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Kim C
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:52 PM

There's a lot of Western music out there, although I guess it depends on how you define Western. I am a HUGE fan of cowboy music, and as someone said, there's plenty of it out there. However there's more to it than that... there are Native American recordings, and recordings by people who aren't necessarily cowboys but write about what it's like to live in the West/Southwest. A lot of these folks are probably not even known outside their home states.

Used to be you could hear Western music on the country stations, but not anymore. I guess Western music is too country these days. Go figure.

I finally got to see The Blues Brothers. I was too young when it came out so Mister and I rented it one night. I loved it. It's funny, though, to think it got an R rating.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:56 PM

I always thought the Blues Brothers band should have replied (from the saferty of their chicken wire):"We play both sorts of music: Rhythm AND Blues"!
RtS

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 May 01 - 01:59 PM

I always imagined that 'Western' was like Tex Ritter and Roy Rodgers - It's been lonesome in my saddle since my horse dropped dead sort of stuff. Country being more of the Woody Guthrie, folksy type.

Just goes to show. Ignorance is bliss. Oh for the good old days when I was young and innocent....;-)

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Jim Krause
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:13 PM

Peter, I am one of those glassy-eyed fiddlers who's been known to sit in a tight circle playing Ol' Joe Clark a hundred times through or more. And believe me, ain't nothin' stronger bein' passed (or pissed) around than cheap lager beer. [Truth intrusion: Well, OK, maybe a shot of whiskey now and then. But as Chester Drawers says "Hit's th' Stringband life. 'Sides, that's how ya gits yer bowin' arm all oiled up for all those contra dancers."]

Jim

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:38 PM

Funny, I always thought that's what put the grass in bluegrass.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:39 PM

Is there any new western or cowboy music being written, or does Don Edwards, Riders in the Sky, and folks like that just perform old music?

DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Midchuck
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:50 PM

Is there any new western or cowboy music being written, or does Don Edwards, Riders in the Sky, and folks like that just perform old music?

Run, do not walk, to your friendly neighborhood record store (I know, there aren't any anymore - to Borders, then, or get on the net) and acquire one or more of Ian Tyson's "Cowboy Culture" series. "Cowboyography" was the best, but the recent "All The Good'uns" is a good summary.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 08 May 01 - 05:21 PM

I heard Michael Martin Murphy live on the Mountain Stage (I believe)singing his own Western songs. He told a great Dale Evans story before singing "Happy Trails", too. Dang near misted me up!

Bart

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Kim C
Date: 08 May 01 - 05:41 PM

Don Edwards by and large isn't a songwriter but he has been known to take PD cowboy poems and set them to music. He is more a folklorist/musicologist and really seems to enjoy researching the old stuff and sharing it with new people.

Murphey, Riders in the Sky, Tyson, Gary McMahan, and many others are still writing original Western music.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 08 May 01 - 06:39 PM

Back to the original question--which was?? Oh, yeah. I would have supposed that if we went back to the 1880's, "Country" and "Western" would have been distinguished easily, if only by subject matter. The "long drives" of cattle to distant markets would have generated a market for new stuff specific to punching cattle. Some (Streets of Laredo, e.g.) would have been adapted from pre-existing British songs. Red River Valley is truly old. The similarity between the C and the W would have come from many first-generation cowboys coming from the Southern states and having "country" music in their background, so the vocal styles would be close if not identical. (Leadbelly wrote/collected a cowboy song or two.) Utah Phillips (born in Massachusetts, but that's OK) writes cowboy songs; so do many unheard of performers who frequent "Cowboy Poetry" events in my neck of the woods. Probably the most widely known "cowboy"/Western songs, though, come out of the late 1940's when Bob Dolan [sp?] wrote "Cool Water," "Ghost Riders" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds." I think those are all great songs, though actually set in a sort of last-ditch attempt to evoke some nostalgia. I hope Bob enjoyed his royalties, but he was a step removed from contact with what he was singing about.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 08 May 01 - 07:49 PM

Think you meant Bob Nolan, Chicken Charlie, if memory serves me correctly, but it may have just been a typo.

DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,WyoWoman (where'd that damned cookie go???)
Date: 08 May 01 - 11:21 PM

There's a big difference between country and western music, actually, and there's even a "Western Music Association" now, to counteract the "Country Music Association" that gives beaucoup awards to the musicians you see on country music videos these days. Check out the website, http://www.westernmusic.org

The roots of the music are different, and though they converged for a while, there's a fairly active movement afoot these days to un-converge them. Country music is more "pop" music these days. Western music is more concerned with the American West than the terrain of the broken heart or the lover-done-wrong.

And, by the way, some of us who grew up in the American West and love its history could do without the condescension that so often accompanies discussion of this music. It's roots music, just the same as the way-cool, way-trendy "Celtic" music that y'all embrace. (which I also love, although I'm not certain that calling any music that so much as dipped the nail of its little toe in Ireland "celtic" is exactly descriptive of a genre ... )

I agree with Kim C that Western music is a bit too country these days for what now passes as "Country" music. It tends to be more concerned with the wide open spaces than the corner booth in a bar ...

WyoWoman, whose handle gives away her biases

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Fortunato
Date: 09 May 01 - 10:47 AM

thanks for the info Wyo. regards, chance

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: pattyClink
Date: 09 May 01 - 01:26 PM

Handy rule of thumb: If someone yodels at some point in the song, it is Western...or you've stumbled into a Sound of Music revival.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,ceeleedee
Date: 09 May 01 - 02:46 PM

The Geesenslaw Brothers (that's sure a fine old dyed-in-the-wool country name), wrote and recorded a song about the stuff, (JUNK?), that's being touted (you know what a tout is, don't you?),by the current crop of beardless children posing as disc jockeys. The title is "You call it Country, I call it bad rock and roll." Nashville should give them a gold medal!

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 09 May 01 - 03:43 PM

Don't know about that rule of thumb, Patty Clink, "He's In the Jailhouse Now," it would seem to me would be considered "country," and yodeling is certainly an integral part of that song. Of course you could have just been kidding.

I guess I would tend to classify the two types more along the lines of who performed them. Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen, Jimmy Wakely, and other "Singing Cowboys" I would say performed mostly "Western" music.

Roy Acuff, Eddy Arnold (the early songs), Hank Williams, Jim Reeves, Red Foley, Porter Waggoner, Patsy Cline, et al, performed mostly "Country," though some of them "crossed over" from time to time, even into the "Pop" field.

This new gang out of Nashville I would say are more "Country-Rock." A very few of the established "Country" stars have been able to cross over into the "Country-Rock" area, in my opinion. Johnny Cash did, I suppose, and Willy Nelson and Waylon Jennings, certainly did, but I can't recall many others.

It was a bit sad to read the advertisements in local newspapers a year or so ago that touted a performance by the "Former" Stars of the Grand Ole' Opry at our State Fair. The quotations marks are mine, they weren't in the ad. The performers were current memberss of the Grand Ole'Opry whose careers have headed south since radio stations do not play their music anymore.

One thing about "Blue Grass": you don't have to wonder what it is. It's "Blue Grass."

DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 09 May 01 - 07:50 PM

LR Mole, good definition. Chicken Charlie, Bob Nolan of the Sons of the Pioneers wrote some incredibly evocative songs (althought Ghost Riders was not one of them - that was Stan Jones) becauase in fact he DID know whereof he wrote. He spent a lot of time in the West, riding the rails, working with horses and cattle, and writing poetry and songs about the way of life, the scenery, etc. I have a tape of an interview with Roy Rogers who described Bob fondly in great detail. I also have a copy of Bob Nolan singing I Think It's Time That They Put Western Back In The Country Sound.

And to pontificate for a moment, modern country is not country - it's pop/rock performed by assholes in hats, who aren't fit to wipe the cowshit off the boots of the likes of Roy, Gene, Rex, Bob Nolan and all of the Pioneer permutations.

There, I said it, and I'm not sorry!

Seamus

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Gary T
Date: 09 May 01 - 10:38 PM

ceeleedee and Seamus, as to the state of current Country--yep. 'Taint what it used to be, and it's not the better for it.

The abovementioned song which is often called "Ghost Riders" or "Ghost Riders in the Sky" is actually titled "Riders in the Sky," and I'm sure that was the inspiration for the modern band's name.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Bill D
Date: 09 May 01 - 11:14 PM

click here ....make sure you have RealAudio installed, start at page one and take several years listening to everything here, and you'll have a decent idea of the scope of C & W....*smile*...

(I almost hate to list this site, it can eat you alive!)

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:13 AM

Jaysus, Bill D.! What a super site! Thanks. Wow!

DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: WyoWoman
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:24 AM

Wow, Bill, that IS a great site. I'll definitely get back to that one. Well, I dont' think ALL country sucks, but a lot of it is just as manufactured as so much that passes for rock 'n' roll these days. It's all about packaging and volume. But ... it's also what I end up listening to when I'm driving across country, which I seem to have been doing a lot of lately, and I do enjoy some of it. I like the old-timey country, the country swing and the Western music better. Funny how this discussion speaks of Western music as though it were an historic genre. There are still musicians writing and performing Western music right now, ya know.

ww

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: paddymac
Date: 10 May 01 - 08:42 AM

Seamus - glad to see that your studies at CSD (Cat'spaw's School of Diplomacy) are going well. Persevere, and the world will be a better place. :>)

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Fortunato
Date: 10 May 01 - 11:12 AM

"Why can't you young folks sing like Hank and Roy and Gene? You know the good old songs, like Maple on the Hill and That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine?"

"Well, old-timer, nobody will buy the god damn records when we sing those songs. And nobody your age can stay up late enough to come to our shows."

"Well, what about Bransom?"

"I ain't been nobody yet, I can't be a has been"

(:)

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:54 PM

Fortunato: You're right of course. There are a couple of generations between "That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine," and "It's a Love Thing." No way could either of them equate to "Silver Haired Daddy," "Be Honest With Me," or "Wreck on the Highway."

DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 10 May 01 - 12:55 PM

Er ...I meant to say, relate ...not equate.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Fortunato
Date: 10 May 01 - 01:11 PM

Well, DougR, I still sing the old songs. But I don't call people names who are trying to make a living in a tough business. I don't care to listen to new country. But I figure they have a right to their time and their music. My oldest son plays blues and swing with me. My youngest plays punk on one of my telecasters. Of course he did ask me if he could play "Nine Pound Hammer" without travis picking the other day, so there MAY be hope.

All the best to you, my friend, Fortunato

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 10 May 01 - 02:31 PM

Well, as Matt pointed out in this thread or another, music is ever changing Fortunato. I suppose it is. Backatcha, DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 10 May 01 - 02:33 PM

My problem isn't that the new Country exists - it's selling, and the market seems to "call the tune". I can't help but wonder why old Country and Western songs have such a hard time finding their way into the alternative music market. Why do so many people who welcome old scratchy 78 versions of folk tunes look down their nose at good country songs? It seems that there is a whole generation of country music that isn't old enough to be considered "classic", like Hank Williams, Jimmie Rogers and the Carter Family and is not "radio friendly' enough to be on the current charts.

Guys like Bobby Bare, Gary Stewart, the Gatlin Brothers, Foster & Lloyd, Waylon Jennings, Don Gibson, Johnny Rodriguez, Bob McDill, Troy Seals, Freddie Fender, Wynn Stewart - geez, the list of singers/songwriters that have great stuff out there goes on and on. . .And among the radio dreck there is also some classic stuff being written and released. It's a darn shame.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: DougR
Date: 10 May 01 - 02:50 PM

Bart, I agree with you, but I suspect that it does have to do with change. My kids were crazy about Elvis when he first appeared on the scene. I predicted to them that within six months nobody would remember who Elvis was. That was the second time in my life I was wrong. The kids welcomed and embraced the change; I resisted it, and guess I still do (but I admit to that only in a musical, not political sense). DougR

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Fortunato
Date: 10 May 01 - 03:20 PM

Bartholomew I've struck a few folkies here and there at sessions who are singing songs by the folks you mention. Here in DC at the festivals there is usually a country music workshop where you hear Don Gibson's Sea of Heartbreak, and I still do McDill's Catfish John occasionally.

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,Kernow John
Date: 10 May 01 - 05:24 PM

Dave
Spaw is too modest to mention the answer he gave me to a similar question on this thread
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.CFM?threadID=26130#312081
Sorry can't do blue clicky. Not on the dope just an html dope!
Spaw's explanation is as good as I reckon you'll get.
Regards KJ

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: mousethief
Date: 10 May 01 - 05:30 PM

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.CFM?threadID=26130#312081

Alex

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 10 May 01 - 06:14 PM

Seamus-- Thank you for clarification. I shouldn't have put Bob in that category. As to your 'sounding off,' I for one have a high tolerance. Didn't bother me none. (That's a weaselly way to agree with you while hiding behind you so you can take the flak. Oh, you noticed that? I'll have to be quieter about it.)

CC

Subject: RE: Help: Country vs western
From: GUEST,Kernow John
Date: 10 May 01 - 07:01 PM

Thanks Alex KJ