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16 Jan 98 - 12:52 AM (#19297) Subject: The origin of Country Music From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au This is a branching of the what if... thread. Bert describes Jimmie Rodgers as taking the then folk music and becoming a pop star. I think that is pretty accurate, but there is a gap between that and the begining of country music. His early stuff is not country music. Some if it is music hall music, some of it is traditional blues and some of it, he seems to have made up himself. As far as I can see, country folk didn't yodel. Jimmie Rodgers adopted that as a gimmick and it was a crowd pleaser. The Victor company, seeing how sucessful it was convinced Sarah Carter to do it. Gene Autry, who seems to have modeled himself after Jimmie Rodgers at the begining of his career, adopted the yodel and kept it even after he developed more of a crooner style and there seems to have been yodeling cowboys since. The Swiss who migrated to America seem to have been too dour to yodel. (So some of their ancestors tell me.) Of course cowboys must have made noises with cracking voices in their cattle calls, and the yodel was a credible stylization. At the time he started to yodel, Rodgers was not committed to being a cowboy singer yet. He seems to have gradually taken on the chaps and the ten gallon hat as he went along. His earliest album shows him wearing a railway brakeman's outfit. That is getting off the track. The thing is, Victor sent its agent through the south to find talent because their country label was selling well. This agent found Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family on that talent hunt. Who were the popular country artists before that that were selling so well? Murray |
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16 Jan 98 - 01:54 AM (#19299) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Dale Rose What a good question! Eck Robertson, Charlie Poole, Sam Long, Fiddlin' John Carson, Mac and Bob, Ernest Stoneman~~these are just a few of the great country musicians before Rodgers! There are a number of good sites (and books~~remember books?) that discuss this sort of thing. It is too late tonight to go gathering things up for you, but I will see what I can do later. For starters though, many (not all) recognize the 1922 recording of Sally Goodin/Arkansas Traveler by Eck Robertson as the beginning of it all, at least as far as recordings are concerned. Of course, you seem to be holding to the theory that country music evolved after Rodgers. In that case, it is a little more difficult to define. Again, a great number would credit Roy Acuff and/or Ernest Tubb for that honor, for a variety of reasons. Further discussion would take a lot more time than I have at the moment. I am sure that Gene and a few others will have a lot to say on this matter as well! (I just wanted to get the first installment of my two cents worth in) |
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16 Jan 98 - 04:57 PM (#19336) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca They used to say "country & western" music, which I always assumed meant that there was a difference between the two. Old-time cowboy songs -- which you rarely hear on C&W stations, BTW, if at all -- must count as western. I assume that music like the old Carter Family stuff is country, as would be real traditional southern US fiddling in the various regional styles. |
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16 Jan 98 - 05:18 PM (#19339) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Jon W. About yodeling: I don't know what year Jimmie Rodgers started doing it but there was a blues style of yodeling that was popular around Jackson Miss. in the 1920's. One prominent performer who used it was Tommy Johnson (e.g. Cool Drink of Water Blues, Canned Heat Blues--both recorded in 1928) but others imitated him. Stylistically it is as different from cowboy yodeling as blues singing is from cowboy singing--which is to say, a lot different. There was a thread on yodeling several months ago. |
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16 Jan 98 - 07:25 PM (#19345) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au Dale: Actually my theory is the opposite, that country music existed before Jimmie Rodgers, and that he is just a step in the evolution. I was refering to a posting that assumed it started there, so your answer is just the thing I was looking for. Sorry I muddled that up. I would be interested in a bibliography if you can conveniently toss one together. Tim: I have to admit that I intentionally slurred that distinction. It is my theory, based on little fact, that what is called "western" music has very little basis in Cowboy songs. Western music seems to have evolved from the people in the Southwest trying to sing the blues. 9I would dearly love to be corrected on that. Nobody should get away with such sweeping generalities!) Jon: I will look for the previous thread. As far as I know, Jimmie Rodgers started recording with that style in 1925. It is hard to tell with him if he did it before he started recording, because a lot of his reputation as a live performer seemed to depend upon the fact that he was a recording artist. His yodeling and his train noises seemed to have been real crowd pleasers in those days. Murray |
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17 Jan 98 - 12:14 AM (#19359) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Dale Rose http://www.geocities.com/~oldtimefiddler/otresource.html This one is quite good. Be sure to check out the old time fiddlers hall of fame page. You can even hear Eck Robertson play! Like any good site, it has lots of links that will take you just about anywhere you want to go. http://www.mindspring.com/~oth/noframes.htm The Old Time Herald. The best of the magazines devoted to the early history of OTC and today's performers playing music in the old time way. |
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17 Jan 98 - 06:43 PM (#19392) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au Dale, You seem to be an expert on old-time fiddlers. I read on a record jacket once that there was a Mississippi fiddler named Willie Narmour who won a fiddle contest and got a recording contract as a result. When he was asked about other local talent in the area, he pointed to John Hurt and that is how Hurt got to do the 1928 sessions. The questiion, of course, is: Has the record Narmour made ever been recorded? I ask this question here in case someone else knows the answer, or has comments. Apropos of nothing. Dale sent me some sites for old time country music and included among them was Elderly's. I couldn't resist looking at their used instruments. The price of used Martin Guitars seems high. Has Martin stopped making them? (Or have I just lost contact with the market?) Murray |
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17 Jan 98 - 09:34 PM (#19398) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Dale Rose If a comprehensive reissue of W.T. Narmour and S.W. Smith has been done, I am not aware of it. There are a few scattered recordings here and there. In 1975, County issued 528 and 529, Traditional Fiddle Music Of Mississippi, volumes 1 and 2. 528 includes Mississippi Breakdown, Carroll County Blues, and Avalon Quick Step. 529 has Captain George Has Your Money Come, Charleston No. 1, and Sweet Milk & Peaches. Sweet Milk & Peaches is on the four CD set Roots N' Blues Retrospective, Columbia 47911, and Carroll County Blues is on the two CD set White Country Blues Columbia 47466. I recommend both highly.
They recorded 31 pieces between 1928 and 1930, then recut 16 of the most popular in 1934. As far as I know, Narmour and Smith were the first to record the well known Carroll County Blues, in 1929. They were indeed responsible for recommending that their producer listen to their neighbor, John Hurt.
This information gathered from the albums mentioned. Quote from Dave Freeman on County 529: "Without question, Narmour must be ranked as one of the more important fiddlers to the rural American tradition."
I am a long way from being an expert in the field of used instruments, but in numerous conversations with a good friend who is a dealer, it all comes down to demand. There are only a finite number of the classic Martins available, and they are highly prized as well as priced! I am sure there is someone out there who can deal with this in greater depth than I can. |
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17 Jan 98 - 09:40 PM (#19400) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Dale Rose I would have sworn I cut off those italics! At least it wasn't flashing red. I think Max added an automatic cutoff for careless people anyhow! I am sure you've all figured out that that would have been a pretty long title. |
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17 Jan 98 - 10:22 PM (#19401) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Dale Rose You people are going to think I have set up a tent for camping at this site! I don't know why I did not think of this before. There is a site called Folk Music on Recordings. It is absolutely wonderful, and getting better all the time. Check it out at http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/folkindex/maindex.htm Search for one of the titles, say Carroll County Blues~~there are 19 versions listed! Follow the Narmour and Smith link to a complete listing of their recordings. (that are in the data base, anyway) There are a goodly number available that I did not list. They are mostly available on Where the Southern Crosses the Dog, Musical Traditions 104 (1995) cassette only, available from another favorite site of mine, Musical Traditons Magazine in England at http://www.mustrad.org.uk/index.htm They have a lot of good articles, discussions, and reviews, as well as selling cassettes. As soon as I figure out how to change dollars to pounds, I intend to get their whole set of reissues.
Try the Folk Music on Recordings site on your favorite song or whatever. You just might be amazed at what you can turn up! |
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18 Jan 98 - 10:06 PM (#19447) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca I mostly listen to Irish, Scottish and Cape Breton fiddlers, but I do have an LP from the 1970's of a man called Tommy Jarrell who according to the booklet played in a particular old-time style. What I like about him is that he sings along to a great many of his tunes. |
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18 Jan 98 - 11:03 PM (#19450) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au Violinists I know, say that the fiddle is the hardest instrument to sing with while you are playing it (assuming they don't include wind instruments). It is not that you can't hear yourself, but you hear yourself wrong and you tend to sound like a school child reciting a poem! Does Jarrell really sing along like you do with a guitar, or does he just put in a snatch of verse once in a while? Murray |
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20 Jan 98 - 06:16 PM (#19545) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Tim Jaques tjaques@netcom.ca No, he intersperses playing with the verses. It's more than a just a snatch, though, because for the most part he sings whole songs. Now that you mention it I can't think of anyone singing and playing solo at once. When I saw your post I thought I had one, a version of False Knight On The Road sung to a portion of a reel (Sheehan's, to my ear)but when I looked at the CD in fact there was a singer and a fiddler.
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21 Jan 98 - 09:00 AM (#19586) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Earl I would be interested in when the term "country music" was first used. It's my impression that the term "Country&Western" was a record industry convenience combining "western swing" which evolved from Gene Autry style cowboy songs (a far cry from what cowboys actualy sang) and "hillbilly music" the broad term for any white, rural music. |
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21 Jan 98 - 05:08 PM (#19627) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: hank williams was a blues singer who sang folk songs. He was definately influenced by the western swing music but kept his arrangements simple and drew from life experience. |
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22 Jan 98 - 06:01 AM (#19680) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Frank in the swamps Gilbert Chase in his book "America's Music" states that FIddlin' John Carson was recorded by Ralph Peer, for OKeh Records in Atlanta, June 14,1923. He relates that "Peer 'thought the singing was awful and insisted that only Carson's fiddle tunes be recorded.'... A local record dealer persuaded Peer to let him market 500 copies of the Carson recording in the Atlanta area. Within a few weeks they were all sold....Peer got the message: he brought Carson to New York, signed him up for an exclusive contract, and recorded twelve more songs." He goes on to Quote Bill Malone from his book "Country Music, U.S.A." ...Essentially two forms of music developed within hillbilly music during the early period, two forms of music that dominated it until the emergence of "western" music during the 1930's. These... can be called "country" and "mountain." .....Mountain music came to be identified as the type that originated in Appalachians. Country music was that type which stressed more individual solo singing, utilized more nontraditional instruments, and was influenced by popular music and Negro blues music.... Nowadays I can hardly tell the difference between c/w and r&r. Who'd a figured... Frank I.T.S. |
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22 Jan 98 - 11:07 AM (#19701) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: Dale Rose No, Frank, Ralph Peer did not say that Carson's singing was awful, but that it was "pluperfect awful". Now that is not a word that I use every day, but it seems to me that it takes awfulness to a whole new level! Document Records from Austria has just reissued the complete Fiddlin' John Carson on four CDs, 8014, 8015, 8016, and 8017. Here is another Peerless story. It seems that in 1925, a string band came to New York to audition for him. When Ralph asked what they called the band, one of the members replied, "Call us anything you want. We are nothing but a bunch of hillbillies from North Carolina and Virginia." Peer promptly dubbed them The Hill Billies, and an entire genre got its name, though many have disowned the connection over the intervening years. Source: John Morthland in The Best of Country Music. |
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24 Jan 98 - 08:19 PM (#19863) Subject: RE: The origin of Country Music From: murray@mpce.mq.edu.au Participation in this forum has caused a number of shadowy figures to gain substance, among them are the Lomaxes and Ralph Peer. There remains one spectre. Who was John Hammond? I know he entered into the career of several blues singers, and that he put on a show called "From Spirituals to Swing" which gave an airing to some, such as Sonny Terry and Leadbelly. That is the extend of my knowledge. (I know I have bent the thread a bit, but it was veering in the direction.) Murray |