by Kip Lornell
In 1941 the Blue Grass Boys returned to Atlanta for an important session, very close to the music that Monroe would be playing in ten years. Tuned a half-step above standard pitch, Monroe’s band sounded flashier and brighter than even one year before. His standard repertoire shaped the session, which included one certifiable classic, “The Orange Blossom Special.” It is a masterful performance with elements of comedy in its dialogue, duet singing, and the precise, flashy fiddling of Art Wooten. The lack of a five-string banjo is the only missing element from the standard instrumentation.
In an effort to get as many people under one roof at a time (due to gas rationing and other related constraints), the war years were spent touring as packaged tent shows with other Opry performers. Monroe’s band soon split off on its own with a small, well-rounded tent show featuring comedy, religious quartet singing, fiddle tunes, and even a baseball game with members of the Blue Grass Boys challenging local clubs. Monroe’s musical life continued to prosper following the cessation of World War II. The sheer volume of live performances soared with dates as far flung as northern Florida, Ontario, Canada, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Records for Columbia and Decca kept the Blue Grass Boys in the public’s ear.
Bill Monroe performing on the “Grand Old Opry,” circa 1947. Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.
Late in 1946 Earl Scruggs joined the band, bringing his three-finger banjo roll to the Blue Grass Boys. This final link provided the Blue Grass Boys with the quintessential bluegrass instrumentation and performance styles. Their Columbia records from the early Scruggs and Lester Flatt period are the first instantly recognizable bluegrass records: “Mother’s Only Sleeping” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” remain two of the finest examples. In the ensuing five years, Monroe went on to record many fine examples of traditional bluegrass that are now recognized as classic performances of American music.
Monroe’s dynamic new sound proclaimed a bold move into new musical territory. Partly because he sought individual variety within the band itself, the Blue Grass Boys occasionally echoed the ensemble sound of classic New Orleans jazz ensembles like King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band. The Blue Grass Boys’ rhythmic feeling also reflected a black influence, especially in the up-tempo 2/4 tunes that at times sound dangerously close to the popular swing bands of the day. Unlike the other hillbilly bands at that time, Monroe allowed (even encouraged) his musicians to solo. Robert Cantwell describes taped performances of Monroe’s first true bluegrass band as they appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in 1945 and 1946:
Flatt and Scruggs poster, circa 1960. Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.
[It was] a wildly accelerated, almost violently high-pitched frenzy of mountain music, one which while treading very close to the edge of the bizarre displays an incredible virtuosity which audiences in those days saw, and were plainly encouraged to see, as a prodigy. With Monroe’s voice blasting like an air-raid siren and Scruggs’ banjo hurrying forward on ten thousand wheels, that band came at you like the Normandy invasion. (Cantwell 1984, 76)
Some of the other first-generation bluegrass artists were not far behind the Blue Grass Boys, both in artistic and commercial terms. The fertile tri-state area where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina meet produced many of the best early bluegrass bands. Curly King and the Tennessee Hilltoppers and the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys worked this area, gaining prominence by way of their broadcasts over Bristol, Tennessee’s, WCYB. They were also assisted by the emergence of the postwar independent record companies. Mr. King worked with King Records of Cincinnati, Ohio, while Rich-R-Tone (Kingsport, Tennessee) helped bolster the Stanleys’ career. The Briarhopper’s Band in Charlotte pioneered bluegrass in Piedmont, North Carolina, by way of WBT’s 50,000 watts of power and the Cowboy Record Company. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Monroe and by 1948 quickly landed a Columbia contract that led to many strong recordings.
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MUSICAL EXAMPLE
Red Allen is one of the many bluegrass musicians who was born and raised in the heart of bluegrass country, Kentucky. He started played this music following World War II and has enjoyed a long professional and semiprofessional career, recording on numerous occasions. This version of Flatt and Scruggs’s classic “Darlin’ Corey” was recorded in the middle 1970s with a strong group that included several relatives and the ace fiddler, Vassar Clements.
Title “Dig a Hole in the Meadow” (or “Darlin’ Corey”)
Performers Red Allen & Friends
Instruments Red Allen, guitar and vocals; Marty Stuart, mandolin; Vassar
Clements, fiddle; Terry Smith, bass; Harley Allen, vocals; Greg Allen, vocals
Length 2:20
Musical Characteristics
1. The instrumentation is for a “classic” bluegrass band.
2. Note the high-pitched vocals, especially the “high” tenor vocal on the chorus.
3. Its texture is basically homophonic and becomes richer as the various instruments are added near the beginning.
4. This song is performed in a minor key.
5. On several occasions improvised “breaks” or “leads” are taken by fiddle and mandolin.
6. It is performed in highly regular, duple meter (2/4) time.
This version initially came out on Smithsonian Folkways 31088. Copyright issues do not permit the reproduction of the song lyrics here.
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By 1950 this music could be heard across the South. It remained a genre of country music without a clear identity of its own. Country music itself was becoming increasingly bland as Nashville emerged as the potent force in driving country music to its present polished, rather homogenized, state. The Blue Grass Boys were the only group exploiting the Kentucky nickname and “bluegrass” was not widely applied to the genre. Nonetheless this first generation of bluegrass musicians left a marked impact upon Anglo-American traditions and, consequently, commercial country music. Hundreds of bands were playing this music, and its impact had spread far beyond its hearth area, spilling across the entire South and into the Midwest. Surprisingly, the word “bluegrass” does not seem to have gained favor until the early to middle 1950s when it began to be applied to this music. No one knows exactly when this occurred, but by 1956 it was used in print.
Today bluegrass musicians are found across the world. They play at festivals, record for both major and independent labels, and have spawned creative forms. Other musicians who began in bluegrass eventually proved to be innovators in country music. By the early 1960s Bill Keith and Bobby Thompson had begun playing intricate, chromatic melodies on the banjo, while Tony Rice and Clarence White’s single-string, lead guitar work inspired a new generation of bluegrass musicians. Some bluegrass groups added a dobro to their band. These creative musicians kept many of the basic elements of bluegrass, but they spawned groups that played “New Grass,” “Progressive Bluegrass,” and even “Dawg” music—a jazz/bluegrass fusion pioneered by David Grisman in the middle 1970s. Despite these changes all bluegrass performers pay homage to its progenitor, the late Bill Monroe, acknowledging his role as its king. See the final chapter of this book for a study of bluegrass music in Washington, D.C.
HONKY-TONK
Just as bluegrass began a slow rise to nationwide acceptance outside of its southern hearth area, the last two grassroots forms of twentieth century Anglo-American country music (honky-tonk and rockabilly) emerged. Bluegrass has basically remained conservative in its instrumentation, repertoire, and world-view. Hard-core bluegrass musicians eschew amplified instruments, revere Bill Monroe’s pioneering work, and are loath to add instruments beyond the basic five—guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and string bass.
In contrast, honky-tonk rose out of the fecund Lone Star State with an unfettered view toward the commercial marketplace. Honky-tonk updated th
e values found in earlier commercial country music and reflected the slow merging of regional styles into the national, anonymous country music sound churned out in today’s Nashville studios. Its roots lie in the western swing bands of the mid- to late 1930s whose noisy beerhall workplaces invited musicians like Rex Griffin, Floyd Tillman, Moon Mullican, and Ernest Tubb to write songs about drinking, extramarital love, and divorce. Similar themes could be found in both black and white rural music, but honky-tonk songs almost celebrated the dissolution of the family unit and the strains on traditional American values. Honky-tonk’s beat was as well defined as its working-class values: live hard and get your pleasure where you can.
The quintessential honky-tonk hit of the early 1940s, Al Dexter’s “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” stayed on jukeboxes throughout the country for several years. Beer-drinking music lovers might then drop their nickels in the slot to hear Merle Travis’s “Divorce Me COD” or Ted Daffen’s “Born to Lose.” These musicians paved the road for Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys, whose music often topped the country music charts between 1949 and 1952. Williams’s fidelity to a honky-tonk lifestyle is reflected in his own turbulent marriages, chronic bouts with alcoholism, frequent emotional upheavals, and his tempestuous relationships with the management of the Grand Ole Opry and an important Shreveport radio program, “Louisiana Hayride.” Honky-tonk music continued to roll through the 1950s with Texans Ray Price and George Jones carrying the torch, while more recent exponents include Buck Owens, Gary Stewart, and Joe Ely. In the late 1990s, Garth Brooks, another neotraditionalist with strong roots in honky-tonk, revitalized the world of country music and also enjoyed widespread commercial exposure as his music crossed over to the pop field as well. George Strait is another commercially successful artist with a strong sense of history.
WESTERN SWING
Honky-tonk drew much of its strength from another southwestern phenomenon, western swing, one of the most interesting and diverse American musical hybrids. Long a cultural crossroads, Texas birthed western swing in the early 1930s. It looked toward the string bands and Norteno music of Mexico as well as the German American communities of the hill country near Austin and San Antonio. The blues and jazz influence came from black musicians and the popular swing bands. Combine these influences with cowboy songs and fiddle tunes and you get western swing.
Bob Wills remains the undisputed king of this genre. He pioneered western swing, and his first band was a small late-1920s hillbilly outfit, the Wills Fiddle Band. By 1931 they became known as the Light Crust Doughboys, named in honor of their radio sponsor Light Crust Flour. The band slowly expanded its size and scope, along with its local popularity. In 1933 the band became known as Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, complete with string bass, tenor banjo, and piano. This expansion reflects their affinity for swing music and a desire for increased musical flexibility. Shortly thereafter the Wills band shifted from Waco, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they remained until 1941.
About 1933 Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies emerged from a minor schism in the Bob Wills band. Using Fort Worth as his base, Brown toured Texas playing for dances. Fiddler Cliff Bruner, steel player Bob Dunn, and tenor banjoist Ocie Stockard emerged as the band’s leading instrumentalists with improvised solos that impressed their fellow musicians. Their broadcasts and Decca records reached a large audience before the group disbanded following a traffic accident that killed Milton Brown in April of 1936.
The mid-1930s repertoire of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys reveals the breadth of western swing’s most influential band. Their 1935 and 1936 ARC (Columbia) records demonstrate their catholic approach to music: “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” “Oklahoma Rag,” “Just Friends,” “Mexicali Rose,” “There’s a Quaker Girl in Old Quaker Town,” and “Get Along Home Cindy.” But above all were their interpretations of black blues, especially the light-hearted double-entendre songs taken from records by Tampa Red, Big Bill, Frankie Jaxon, Memphis Minnie, and others: “Fan It,” “No Matter How She Done It,” “What’s the Matter with the Mill?” and “Sitting on Top of the World.” This strong dose of the blues underscores not only the influence of the mass media upon Wills but also his love for black music.
By the late 1930s the more free-spirited western swing bands included a complement of horn and reed players in the groups. Inspired by the success of Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, and Glen Miller, western swing bands began using jazz-influenced musicians who soloed over the pulsing 2/4 meter provided by the rhythm section. The orchestras led by African American band leaders like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, and Fletcher Henderson also informed Wills. Their vocalist, Tommy Duncan, could croon with the best of the big band singers.
Only Texas in the 1930s could produce bands such as Adolph Hofner’s, led by an accordion-playing Czech American. Another San Antonio band, the Tune Wranglers, recorded popular tunes such as “Texas Sand” that further underscore the identification these musicians hold with the Lone Star State. Dallas was home to Roy Newman and his Boys, another jazz-influenced group that woodshedded with black jazz records before recording “Tin Roof Blues,” “Sadie Green, the Vamp from New Orleans,” and “Tiger Rag.” Gene Sullivan, Newman’s prized singer, later teamed with Wiley Walker to form one of the more enduring pop/country vocal teams of the 1940s.
East Texas western swing groups mingled with other artists who combined Cajun music with country sounds. Cliff Bruner played out of Beaumont, Texas, on the edge of Cajun country. He helped bring country swing into Louisiana, inspiring Leo Soileau to form his Cajun swing band, the Four Aces. The Rayne-Bo and Hackberry Ramblers followed Soileau in mixing blues, swing, and hillbilly with Cajun two-steps.
Clarence Ashley, one of the tri-state’s best old-time banjo players and singers (1961). Bob Yellin photo courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution.
Bob Wills’s impact was felt nationwide, but the Sons of the Pioneers (a swing-influenced cowboy singing band) proved to be nearly as influential. This small ensemble brought cowboy swing to the entire country by way of their syndicated radio programs and an extensive recording career that began in the middle 1930s. The Farr Brothers (Hugh and Karl) and Bob Nolan forged a unique string band that eschewed horns in favor of virtuoso musicianship and nostalgic songs about cowboy life. This irresistible blend also helped to establish a movie career that saw them on the screen with Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, and Gene Autry. The Sons of the Pioneers—who often performed with Roy Rogers—were moved by the duets by the French gypsy guitarist Django Rheinhart and his fiddle-playing partner Stephan Grappelli. These wonderful improvised swing recordings are still regarded as jazz classics. It is ironic that French musicians playing swing music should exert such a strong influence over a group of western singers—a global musical village decades before the concept became fashionable.
Western swing continued as a strong regional tradition well into the early 1950s, when rock ’n’ roll hit the Texas airways. This music undergoes periodic revivals, and Wills’s name remains magical in Texas despite his death in 1975. The eventual dissemination of western swing beyond its Texas/Oklahoma birthplace suggests the importance of cultural geography in understanding American vernacular music. Both western swing and bluegrass rather quickly emerged from their hearth areas, moving out across the entire country. Bob Wills, along with other western swing band leaders like Spade Cooley, found enough transplanted Texans in California to relocate his band there in 1946. Significantly, he did not move to Marquette, Michigan, or Miami, Florida, in search of an audience to support his music. When people move, their love of regional music, food, and expressions migrates with them.
Anglo-American Country Music, Pre-1945
FINAL THOUGHTS
Anglo-American folk music forms the basis for today’s commercial country music. British and Native American balladry paved the way for the storytelling aspect of Nashville’s
songwriters. The evolution of folk music into commercial music is illustrated by the popularity of western swing and honky-tonk in the 1940s and 1950s. Some musicians, such as Ernest Stoneman, who began as “folk,” ended up as part of the world of commercial country music. This process underscores the ongoing interaction between popular and folk music that marks our postmodern world.
Anglo-American Country Music, Post-1945
KEY FIGURES AND TERMS
Gene Autry
bluegrass
broadsides
Child ballads
“come ye all”
cowboy singers
honky-tonk
G. Malcolm Laws
leaping and lingering
lyric songs
Bill Monroe
Native American ballads
Carl T. Sprague
Ernest V. Stoneman
Harry von Tilzer
Tin Pan Alley
variant
western swing
Hank Williams
Bob Wills
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Dock Boggs. His Folkways Years, 1963–1968. Smithsonian Folkways 40108. These two compact discs contain all of the 1960s performances by this staunchly iconoclastic, important southwestern Virginia banjo-playing songster.
Woody Guthrie. The Asch Recordings, 4 vols. Smithsonian Folkways 40100-03. These four compact discs contain some of Guthrie’s best-known and rollicking performances, such as “This Land Is Your Land” and “Hard Travelin’,” from the late 1930s through the 1940s—the prime of his career. Each disc comes with a detailed booklet.
The Lilly Brothers and Don Stover. Bluegrass at the Roots, 1961. Smithsonian Folkways SFW40158. Particularly strong recordings by one of the best second generation bluegrass bands.