Southern Music and American Music

University of Kentucky
UKnowledge
Cultural History History
1979
Southern Music/American Music

Bill C. Malone
David Stricklin
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SOUTHERN MUSiC/AMERICAN MUSIC
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SOUTHERN MUSiC/AMERICAN MUSIC
REVISED EDITION
BILL C. MALONE AND DAVID STRICKLIN
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

Publication of this volume was made possible in part by
a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Copyright © 1979 by The University Press of Kentucky

Published 2003 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Malone, Bill C.
Southern music / American music.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9055-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Folk music, American—Southern States—History and criticism.
I. Title. II. Series.
ML3551.M27 781.7'75 79—4005
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting

the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Member of the Association of

American University Presses
Bill C. Malone wishes to dedicate this book to his wife Bobbie
and to the memory of his parents, Cleburne and Maude Malone.
David Stricklin wishes to dedicate it to his daughters, Annie
Bowyer Stricklin and Sarah Browder Stricklin.
CONTENTS
Preface to the Revised Edition IX
Introduction 1
1. Folk Origins of Southern Music 5
2. National Discovery 20
3. Early Commercialization: Ragtime, Blues, Jazz 39
4. Expanding Markets: Tejano, Cajun, Hillbilly, Gospel 58
5. The Great Depression and New Technologies 71
6. The Nationalization of Southern Music 90
7. The 1960s and 1970s: Rock, Gospel, Soul 108
8. The National Resurgence of Country Music 129
9. A Future in the Past 155
Conclusion 176
Notes 181
Bibliographical Notes 191
Suggested Listening 217
Index 221
[llustratiom follow page 116

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
Southern Music/American Music first appeared over twenty years ago. In pre-
paring this revision I have been joined by David Stricklin, who brings to the
task an expertise in U.S. cultural history, southern vernacular culture, and the
personal experience of having grown up as the son of AI Stricklin, piano player
for Bob Wills during the "glory years" of the famous Texas Playboys. Abun-
dant and enduring evidence reaffirms for us the relevance of our subject and
the truth of its central thesis. We remain convinced that the South and
southerners have shaped American music and its reception in significant ways.
As this new edition is being prepared, the dramatic success enjoyed by a popu-
lar movie set in the South, 0 Brother, Where Art Thou?, once again demon-
strates the fascination that music of presumed southern origin holds for
countless listeners. A CD of the movie's soundtrack has passed the six-million
mark in sales and has earned five Grammy awards, and one song from the
collection, "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow," has won awards from the Na-
tional Academy of Recorded Arts and Sciences (NARAS), the International
Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) , and the Country Music Association
(CMA). Reviews of this Coen Brothers' movie, and of another popular film,
Songcatcher, speak of a rediscovery of "Appalachian music" and of country
music's periodic returns to its "mountain roots."
The 0 Brother phenomenon, however, more accurately reminds us that
the idea of the South is generally more attractive than its reality, and that old
symbols, images, and stereotypes still shape the ways in which the region's
music is viewed. For all of its strengths, 0 Brother profited from the long-held
perception of the South as an exotic region inhabited by an intellectually-
retarded and culturally-degenerate people who nevertheless sure can make good
music! Most significantly, the movie is not about Appalachia at all; it is set
during the Great Depression in another time-honored mythic locale, the rural
Mississippi Delta. The movie in fact makes use of one of the central myths of
black musical folklore, the visit made by the blues singer to the mysterious
crossroads where he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for the gift of ex-
traordinary talent. Most of the music heard on the soundtrack, however, has
x Preface to the Revised Edition
little identification with any specific locality or time period but is instead
generically rural and southern. Apparently, the fact that the music sounds old
and is played on acoustic instruments was enough to suggest to some review-
ers a romantic Appalachian identity.
Appalachia, on the other hand, did speak to listeners through the lone-
some voice of Ralph Stanley, a haunting sound that seemed to echo the stark
and timeless roots from which much of our modern music grew. Stanley's
singing was, incongruously, lip-synched by a character playing the role of a Ku
Klux Klan wizard who "sang" the widely known southern ballad, "Conversa-
tion with Death." Stanley's voice dearly lent to the movie soundtrack an un-
mistakable southern presence, as did that of Norman Blake, who grew up in
Rising Fawn, Georgia, and who actually made "You Are My Sunshine" sound
poignant and sweet. Other singers, who dearly profited from Stanley's influ-
ence, illustrated the ways in which the southern sound, style, and repertoire
have insinuated themselves into the performances of people who came from
beyond the Mason-Dixon line. The Vermont-born Dan Tyminski, for example,
won the IBMA's award for the best male vocalist of2001 on the strength of his
compelling performance of the movie's centerpiece song, "Man of Constant
Sorrow," performed in an arrangement borrowed from Ralph Stanley. Alison
Krauss and Gillian Welch, from Illinois and California respectively, acted as
co-producers, along with Texan T-Bone Burnett, for the movie's music and
earned awards for their duet rendition of ''I'll Fly Away" and for a trio per-
formance witli Emmylou Harris of "Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby."
The movie, in short, provides all the evidence we need to realize that "south-
ern music" still profits from the romantic associations that cling to the South,
and that both insiders and outsiders have made vital contributions to its
popularization.
Revising Southern Music/American Music is a response in part to the ex-
plosion of scholarly and popular writing that has occurred since the book's
original release in 1979, much of it greatly insightful, some of it given to the
romantic notions we have sought to dispel. Writing on blues and jazz has
particularly benefited from the long-overdue intensification of attention to
African-American culture and the many ways it has shaped the culture of the
United States at large and that of much of the western world. We have felt the
need to show how southern white music drew and benefited from southern
black music, often in ways that surprised those who wanted and needed to
view southern white musical culture as independent and "pure." In all these
matters, we have tried to be sensitive to how scholarly writing owes a debt of
responsibility to the people whose stories it reflects. We have also tried to place
the music in the broader context of national events in which it arose, to give at
Preface to the Revised Edition Xl
least brief consideration to the social, economic, and political influences on

these cultural phenomena that say so much about who the people of the United
States have been and are.
Finally, while we have tried to be aware of the role played by fantasy and
romance in the making of southern musical styles, we have striven above all to
present the reality that undergirds the romance-the fact that the South has
been America's most fertile domain for creative music making. Our central
focus, then, is on the region's singers, musicians, and songwriters. This book is
a tribute to them.
Bill C Malone
The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Kenton Adler, Ramiro

Burr, Charles Chamberlain, Gene Hyde, Ben Sandmel, Peggy Weaver, Sally
Browder and Bobbie Malone.
INTRODUCTION
Few regions have been more cloaked in mythology than the American South.
George B. Tindall speaks of "the infinite variety of Southern mythology," but
suggests that most southern myths have become casualties of historians' end-
less speculations about the region or of the region's own flirtations with progress
and social change. 1 The lazy South bows to the booster South; the genteel
South wars with the violent South; the rural South recedes before the urban-
industrial South; the solid Democratic South gives way to the Republican
South. The focus alters with every interpretation, but one romantic notion
persists-that of the South as a land of music. Conjure up almost any image
of the South, whether of Mississippi Delta cotton fields and toiling slaves,
East Texas pine barrens and poor whites, Birmingham factories and industrial
laborers, or Atlanta office buildings and aggressive executives, and music will
be an essential accompaniment. Hoedown fiddlers, Cajun accordionists, gos-
pel and soul singers, barrelhouse piano players, blues guitarists, honky-tonk
balladeers, hillbilly string bands, jazz groups, and Conjunto and rock bands
populate the southern landscape of the imagination.
Although romance and fantasy have affected the perception, acceptance,
and performance of southern styles, the idea of the musical South is more
than myth. Music has been one of the great natural resources of the South and
one of its most valuable exports. The South has exerted a powerful influence
on American music in two important ways: as a source of images and symbols,
both positive and negative, which have fueled the imaginations of musicians
and songwriters, and as an incubus of entertainers and styles that have shaped
the entire realm of American popular music. At least since the 1830s, when
blackface minstrels began their exploitation of southern musical forms and
images, and increasingly after the 1870s, when Nashville's Fisk Jubilee Singers
became the first of a long and continuous line of southerners to take their
music north, the world has grown ever more aware of the South's musical
wealth.
The "southern music" that reached the ears of most Americans in the
nineteenth century, however, was largely a caricature of the South and
southerners, and was created and performed mostly by non-southerners. South-
2 Southern Music/American Music
ern plain folk, both black and white, made music at home, in church, at dances,
or at work, but few "outsiders" heard them perform. The South had almost no
real popular culture of its own or commercial venues through which music
could be merchandised or distributed. A few tunesmiths and enterprising
publishers-mostly in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley-had been producing re-
ligious songbooks since the early nineteenth century, but except for a handful
of concerns such as Werlein's and Blackmer's in New Orleans, almost no one
in the region issued secular forms of music. Even during the cataclysmic Civil
War, when southerners put forward a body of music they hoped would sup-
port their bid for independence, especially through songbooks with names such
as Robert E Lee Songster, their songs tended to be reprints or pale imitations of
those produced in New York, London, and elsewhere. With rare exceptions, the
most popular songs in the Confederacy were such northern-produced tunes as
"Listen to the Mockingbird" and "Lorena."
Southern reliance on the North for much of its musical culture in the
nineteenth century is seen nowhere more strongly, nor more surprisingly, than
in the realm of religious music. Although southerners convinced themselves
in the years after the Civil War that theirs had been a holy cause, and that their
institutions were morally superior to those of the North, they nevertheless
borrowed many of their most beloved songs from Yankee composers. South-
erners still sing songs such as "Shall We Gather at the River," "There's a Land
that Is Fairer" (popularly known as "Sweet By and By"), "On a Hill Far Away"
("The Old Rugged Cross"), and others that came from the pens of northern-
born writers such as Ira Sankey, P.P. Bliss, George F. Root, and Fanny Crosby.
If southern-produced musical material was rarely heard in American
popular culture, North or South, prior to the twentieth century, then promi-
nent southern-born entertainers seem to have been even more rare. Most of
the blackface minstrels were northern-born, with a few exceptions such as the
famous Dan Emmett, whose parents came from Virginia, and Joel Walker
Sweeney, the alleged inventor of the five-string banjo, from Appomattox, Vir-
ginia. The one songwriter of the late nineteenth century who might be identi-
fied as "southern," Will S. Hays of Louisville, was highly derivative in style
and sentiment. His songs bear the Victorian flair and ethos that colored the
works of most songwriters who came after Stephen Foster, until the writers of
the New York songwriting district that came to be known as lin Pan Alley
introduced new traits and techniques to the trade. After 1865, Mrican Ameri-
cans began to form their own minstrel units and did so increasingly for the
rest of the nineteenth century. These secular minstrel entertainers, along with
the Fisk Jubilee Singers and other purveyors of spirituals who began to thrive
after 1867, were certainly born in the South. They reaffirmed the long-held
Introduction 3
belief that blacks were inherendy a "highly musical people," and they contrib-
uted to what had been a vague perception that the South was a land of music.
Not until the ragtime "revolution" of the last years of the nineteenth century
and early years of the twentieth, however, did southern-born musicians and
styles enter u.s. popular culture in great profusion. By the time the ragtime
style was co-opted and absorbed by non-southern musicians and by the
tunesmiths and publishers of Tin Pan Alley, southerners had found perma-
nent places in the musical life of the nation.
Since the days of Charleston's Saint Cecilia Society in the eighteenth
century, the fine arts have had their champions in the South, and the fruits of
their endeavors have borne witness in the performances of the region's own
artists such as Leontyne Price, Van Cliburn, and Wynton Marsalis, and in the
emergence offine symphonies and opera houses in most southern cities. South-
ern-born "classical" musicians, however, are not the subjects of this book, nor
are the multitude of southern-born singers and musicians-such as Johnny
Mercer, Kate Smith, Mary Martin, Tex Beneke, and Dinah Shore-who did
not simply adapt to, but often shaped, the mainstream popular music of the
nation in the twentieth century. Our chief focus is on the folk music of the
South and the popular commercial forms that emerged from it.
Early southerners, of course, were not unique in their indebtedness to
folk traditions. All American folk music grew from European and African
roots, but, as David Potter has argued, "the culture of the folk survived in the
South long after it succumbed to the onslaught of urban-industrial culture
elsewhere."2 In the South it assumed a rich and varied texture, in part because
here more than anywhere else in the United States a long and vital interrela-
.tionship linked the country's two· greatest folk music traditions, the British
and the African. Southern folk music also acquired a special character because
it arose in a society long defined by its limitations: a social context of poverty,
slavery, suffering, deprivation, religious extremism, and cultural isolation.
Southerners turned naturally toward music because it was an integral part of
their cultural inheritance and because it provided a means of release and a
form of self-expression that required neither power, status, nor affluence. The
result was the creation of a body of songs, dances, instrumental pieces, and
musical styles-joyous, somber, and tragic-that simultaneously entertained,
enriched, and enshrined the musicians and the folk culture out of which they
emerged. Southern musicians thus transformed the limitations of their region
into a bounty of worldwide dimensions. This musical transformation reflected
and paralleled the South's rise in national prominence, a process in which the
region became more like the country and the country became more like the
South. Our premise in this book is simple: that the South, where great Ameri-
4 Southern Music IAmerican Music
can folk music traditions met and fused, was the land that gave rise to virtually
every form of American popular music. The premise is simple, but the story is
as complex as the multilayered relationships between the South and the rest of
the United States. To begin to understand it better, we shall first turn to the
folk roots of the music.
Chapter 1
FOLK ORIGINS OF SOUTHERN MUSIC
The folk music reservoir of the South was formed principally by the confluence
of two mighty cultural streams, the British-Celtic and the Mrican. But if one
looks for purity in the music of the South, one searches in vain. Southerners
are often thought of as highly traditional people, and southern music has deep
roots in the past. However, to ignore the adaptability of southern music is to
miss one of its greatest realities. British and Mrican styles did not leave their
home continents in undiluted forms; constant population movements and
economic transformations warred against the kind of stability that would have
promoted musical isolation or stasis. In this country, they did not simply over-
lap and interact; they also borrowed from and influenced the musical folk-
ways ofother subcultures in the South-the Germans of the Southern Piedmont
and Central Texas, the Cajuns of Southwest Louisiana, and the Mexicans of
South Texas. Music from Spanish sources, already admixed with African idi-
oms, also came in from the Caribbean via New Orleans and the Gulf South or
across the Mexican border into Texas. Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton spoke of
the "Spanish tinge" as an essential ingredient of early New Orleans jazz, but
the influence was also felt in the rhythms of other styles as well. Furthermore,
the songs and styles of English, Irish, Scotch-Irish, Scottish, and Welsh settlers
intermingled so rapidly and frequently on the southern frontier that they defy
the efforts of folklorists and ethnomusicologists to distinguish conclusively
among them or to determine their exact origins. Alan Lomax is probably cor-
rect when, recalling the composite quality of this music, he describes it as
"more British than anything one can find in Great Britain,"l but these styles
reached across cultural boundaries and were influenced by the music of people
who were not British at all.
Slaves built and occupied a community that white people could observe,
and sometimes appreciate, but never wholly understand. In many ways, as
Lawrence Levine has argued, their music "remained closer to the musical styles
and performances of West Mrica and the Mro-American music of the West
Indies and South America than to the musical style of Western Europe."2
Intimately linked to work and worship, and marked by improvisation, an

"overriding antiphony," and expressive bodily movement, Mrican-American
music spoke to the deepest needs of its creators with idioms that seemed both
irresistible and alien to white listeners. Nevertheless, black and white southerners
also shared a musical sphere. Acculturation of enslaved Mricans to the ways of
Europeans began early, from the first moments they encountered one another,
particularly on board the slave ships. No one can date precisely the exact mo-
ment when black and white southerners began to exchange musical ideas, but
the process probably began about the middle of the seventeenth century, when
slaves and indentured servants mingled on the farms and plantations of colo-
nial Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas. 3 Racial prejudice, then and since,
did not deter cultural borrowing: slaves absorbed much of the white people's
music while also retaining as much of their Mrican inheritance as they could,
or dared. White musicians, of course, ran up a huge, and continuing, debt to
black sources. Levine notes that this "relatively free trade of musical ideas and
forms" continued long after the imposition of segregation at the end of the
nineteenth century. 4
Musical interchange existed from such an early date in the South's his-
tory that it is not only difficult to calculate the degree of borrowing on either
side, but also nearly impossible to determine the "racial" origin of many south-
ern folk songs and styles. In fact, one can posit the existence of a folk pool
shared by many blacks and whites, a common body of songs known in one
form or another by poor people, regardless of race, that defied the ugly facts of
racial bigotry and exclusion. Poor whites and blacks did not simply share a
milieu that was rural, agricultural, and southern; they also had common expe-
riences with poverty, isolation, and exploitation. The oppression of slavery,
and the cruel system of racism on which it rested, set Mrican Americans apart
from poor whites in many crucial ways, but the two groups nevertheless fash-
ioned an overlapping reservoir of culture and music that largely defined the
rural South. Much that came to be termed "soul," for example, was not so
much the product of a peculiar racial experience as it was of a more general
rural southern inheritance. A taste for cornbread, black-eyed peas, and collard
greens is not the exclusive province of anyone race; it once was a class prefer-
ence, and something of a necessity, that cut across racial lines. Common song
preferences similarly reflected such a shared culture, permitting outlets for
emotion, distractions from the cares of the day, occasions for communion
with friends, and encouragement in the face of adversity.
That inclinations in music were not rigidly segregated, even during sla-
very, can be seen in the ballad tradition of the South, in the singing of the
"songsters"-Mrican-American singers who built diverse repertQries aimed at
Folk Origins of Southern Music 7
both blacks and whites-and in much of the religious music that prevailed in
the two communities. Black singers sometimes sang their own versions of the
venerable British ballads, often regarded as the most durable manifestations of
British culture in North America. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
African-American songsters fashioned repertories that went far beyond what
is now described as the blues, providing music for all sorts of social occasions,
white and black, in the years before phonograph recordings appeared. Song-
ster expectations were very high, and they prided themselves, says Paul Oliver,
"on their range, versatility, and capacity to pick up a tune," a skill that came in
handy particularly in their work singing and playing for dances. According to
Oliver, they used "social songs, comic songs, the blues and ballads, minstrel
tunes and popular ditties" to set the tempo for a variety of dancing require-
ments, "for spirited lindy-hopping or for low-down, slow-dragging across a
puncheon floor."5 Even well into the twentieth century, such songsters as Henry
Thomas, John Hurt, Mance Lipscomb, and Huddie Ledbetter dung to a rep-
ertory that was older and more diverse than those of most blues artists, singing
ballads, love songs, and pop tunes as well as blues numbers.
Religious music of southern blacks and whites also drew from common
sources. The degree to which the Christian message replaced the religious
world view of the Africans has been a much debated question,6 but slaves
received religious instruction from their masters by the mid-seventeenth cen-
tury and the Church of England had begun its missionary work in the Ameri-
can mainland colonies as early as 1701. Along with the teachings of Christ
came the English tradition of hymnody, a body of music that evolved from
psalmody, the singing of the Psalms with a faithfulness to the English text, and
with a minimum of melodic variation. White people, of course, had the great-
est access to such music, but slaves learned songs from the English hymnbooks
at least as early as the 1750s. Many blacks long cherished the old, stately long-
meter hymns, which they often called "Dr. Watts's hymns" because of their
similarity to the compositions of Isaac Watts, the eighteenth-century English
composer who made the first significant departure from psalmody by creating
new songs with less literal reliance on Scripture and greater melodic diversity.
Black choirs still sing these old songs, revering a song such as "Amazing Grace"
as strongly as white singers do and performing it in varying styles that appeal
to both white and black audi:ences.
Although slaves received formal instruction in the Christian religion at
an early date and worshipped often in segregated sections of white churches,
their first major exposure to the religious music of the poorer whites came in
the camp meetings of the Second Great Awakening in the early years of the
nineteenth century. This revival movement had dramatic manifestations both
8 Southern Music!American Music
in the North and in the South. It became especially noted, however, because
of the use on the southern frontier of an evangelistic method called the "pro-
tracted" meeting, a revival event lasting several days, held in a rural setting in
which participants camped, heard preaching, and sang, often having just learned
the songs at the meeting. The camp meetings were giant outdoor arenas in
which poor black and white southerners learned both songs and styles ftom
each other. In these emotional, ecumenical gatherings, streams of Presbyte-
rian, Methodist, and Baptist evangelists thundered their diverse yet remark-
ably compatible messages of foreboding tempered with hope. Along with the
preaching, songs floated freely through the forest clearings and brush arbors
from one group to another. Some old hymns were supplemented by the addi-
tion of choruses-possibly a black innovation that broadened a song's appeal
by guaranteeing the sort of regular repetition that oral cultures frequently
employ in memorized material, a feature of benefit to poorly educated south-
ern whites as well as to African Americans. Other old hymns were replaced by
new, spirited songs specifically designed for quick comprehension and mass
performance. 7 Many of the songs were soon forgotten, but others appeared in
printed hymnals or were absorbed into the folk culture where they became the
common property of southern blacks and whites.
Many of the camp meeting songs, along with other types of religious
song material, circulated in the South, and northward, accompanied by a form
of musical notation long cherished by rural southerners. The shape-note
method, introduced in New England around 1800 and first made available in
1802 in The Easy Instructor, published in Philadelphia, was a simplified form
of musical instruction in which four musical syllables, "fa-sol-Ia-mi," were
designated by geometric shapes to denote their pitch, with three shapes re-
peated to make a complete scale. The itinerant singing-school teachers of the
early nineteenth century took their shape-note method from New England
into Pennsylvania and then into the Shenandoah Valley where the first great
concentration of southern shape-note activity occurred, proving of great ben-
efit to earnest would-be singers with limited education and little or no formal
musical training. Shape-note composers and songbook compilers adjusted
readily to a new seven-note "do-re-mi" system, introduced in 1827 and widely
popularized after the Civil War, but the most popular of all the southern-
produced books, and one long revered in many southern homes as second
only to the Bible, was Benjamin F. White's Sacred Harp (1844), a book that
adhered to the four-note style and still serves as the principal instruction manual
for many southern singers. White and other shape-note teachers and writers
ministered largely to the needs of white people, but the method, and the hym-
nals that conveyed it, also moved into the homes of some African Americans.
George Pullen Jackson referred to black shape-note singers in 1933, and Joe
Dan Boyd noted remnants of the tradition in the 1~70s. 8 The paperback gos-
pel songbooks of the twentieth century, which contained both the oldest hymns
of Protestantism and the newest compositions, were color-blind. Songbooks
with compositions by both blacks and whites, such as those published by R.E.
Winsett in Dayton, Tennessee, could be found in great profusion in homes
and rural churches throughout the South. Through such material, and through
radio transmission after 1920, the gospel composers circulated their songs, on
the whole oblivious to racial considerations. As a result, songs such as ''I'll Fly
Away" and "Turn Your Radio On," both by Albert Brumley, the popular Okla-
homa-born white composer, became fixtures in the repertories of black sing-
ers. White gospel singers, on the other hand, might have been surprised to
learn that such familiar songs as "Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley"
were written by the black composer Thomas Dorsey, or that such standards as
"Stand by Me" and "Take Your Burdens to the Lord (Leave It There)" came
from the pen of a Philadelphia Mrican Methodist Episcopal minister, Charles
H.1indley.
In response to the musical needs of southern religious folk, there arose
in the nineteenth century a set of enterprising purveyors of tunebooks for
singing schools and songsters for camp meetings whose love of music and the
gospel was matched by their business sense and marketing expertise. They
combined evangelistic and entrepreneurial instincts for the purpose of mak-
ing religious music accessible to southerners of modest means but also inad-
vertently contributed to creating one of the few ways southern-produced music
made its way into the North before the Civil War. The Shenandoah Valley
became the seedbed of southern religious music, especially due to the efforts
of a Mennonite named Joseph Funk, a resident of the little community of
Singer's Glen, near Harrisonburg, Virginia. He printed, in German, his first
songbook, Choral-Music, in 1816 and began educating students and siring
offspring who contributed greatly to the circulation of the shape-note method
throughout the southern backcountry and as far west as East Texas. The
songbooks, usually paperback in the twentieth century but normally oblong
hardbacks known as "long boys" in the nineteenth, were sold throughout the
South and into the North by a network of companies mostly descended from
the Ruebush-Kieffer Company, founded by J.H. Ruebush and Aldine Kieffer,
two descendants of Joseph Funk. It was the parent organization, directly or
indirectly, of virtually all of the southern religious music publishing houses
that appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and of many
of the singing schools and teachers that flourished throughout the South.
Ruebush-Kieffer and its descendants and the R.E. Winsett Company helped
blacks and whites, North and South, shape a body of religious music that came
to be one of the most powerful forces in vernacular music in the country.
In addition to the often-intertwined religious music traditions of south-
ern blacks and whites, a string-band tradition also encompassed musicians of
both races, although Mrican Americans tended to excel and innovate in the
use of stringed instruments earlier than their white counterparts. Many slaves
brought with them to the Americas a facility with stringed instruments that
was deeply rooted in Mrica. Several West Mrican cultures possessed a wide
array of stringed instruments, one-stringed or more, which were both plucked
and bowed, descendants of which can still be found occasionally in the Deep
South. Mrican Americans mastered the guitar in the late nineteenth century,
long before southern white musicians. In the most inaccessible regions of the
South, the guitar appears to have been a somewhat late acquisition among
white folk musicians, coming to the Appalachians after the 1880s and to the
Cajun bayou country of Louisiana even later. Black musicians may have in-
spired one of the most distinctive of all styles of guitar playing, the so-called
Hawaiian guitar technique of fretting with a steel bar, usually with the instru-
ment lying flat across the musician's lap. Folklorist David Evans suggests that
Mrican-American sailors may have prompted this style when they introduced
their bottleneck style of guitar playing into the Hawaiian Islands at the end of
the nineteenth century.9 At about that time, guitarists of both racial groups
benefited from the arrival of widespread marketing of guitars by Orville Gibson.
c.P. Martin had built guitars as early as 1833, but the instruments were not
widely available until after 1894 when Gibson made his innovations. Both
companies funher strengthened the instrument's imponance among south-
ern folk musicians with the introduction of steel strings in 1900, ali innova-
tion of great benefit to musicians who often struggled to make themselves
heard in noisy dance settings.
Long recognized as an instrument of Mrican origin, the banjo has been
associated with black Americans as early as 1749. The addition of the fifth, or
drone, string is often attributed to a white southerner, Joel Walker Sweeney, a
popular minstrel entenainer from Appomattox, Virginia, although there is
little proof for this assumption and some evidence that slaves had added a fifth
string long before Sweeney's time. Scholars also disagree about the means by
which the instrument moved into the hands of southern white folk.1O Did
they learn directly from black people, as Sweeney probably did in the 1830s?
Did the "frailing" and "dawhammer" styles of banjo picking-later popularly
identified with white Appalachian musicians--come to the mountains with
black musicians who arrived as slaves or as industrial laborers? Or did south-
ern white rural musicians adopt the banjo and its performance styles from
touring white song-and-dance artists, who came to the South as blackface

minstrels or as members of circuses or medicine and tent shows? The answer
to each question is probably "yes." Confederate soldiers, in many cases, were
already playing banjos when they marched off to war, and they and other
white rural musicians had ample opportunities to see and hear the instrument
played by slaves and free blacks and by itinerant professional musicians. After
the war, in fact, many of those traveling musicians were Mrican Americans
who had begun to professionalize their art through performances in blackface
troupes. Regardless of its origins and stylistic sources, by the middle of the
1920s the five-string banjo was presumed to be the exclusive property of white
musicians, first popular with stage entertainers, then with such southern folk
or hillbilly performers as Uncle Dave Macon.
No instrument has been more readily identified with southern whites
than the fiddle. Small enough to fit in a saddlebag, the fiddle moved westward
with the southern frontier. Fiddler~ could be heard practically anywhere a
crowd gathered: at county court days, political rallies, militia musters, race
days, county fairs, holidays, house-raisings and similar work/social functions,
and of course at fiddle contests, which have been held in the South since at
least 1736, when fiddlers competed for prizes in a contest in Hanover County,
Virginia. The fiddle tunes constituted America's largest and most important
bodyoffolk music preserved and transmitted without benefit of written scores,
and many of the tunes are still performed by country musicians, although in
styles that their European or Mrican forebears would scarcely recognize. In-
cluded among them were old British dance tunes such as "Soldier's Joy," in-
digenous tunes of anonymous origin such as "Hell among the Yearlings," songs
commemorating historical events such as the Battle of New Orleans in "The
Eighth of January," and songs learned from the popular stage or from sheet
music such as "Arkansas Traveler" or "Over the Waves."
Aside from public gatherings, the country dance was the natural setting
that showcased the fiddle's versatility. The country dance was the most impor-
tant social diversion among rural southerners, and it continued to be so through
the 1920s, although the tradition dates from the earliest stages of British colo-
nization of the South. Southern colonists often described dances as "frolics,"
borrowing a British expression, by which they meant essentially any social or
community event centered around dancing but usually accompanying wed-
dings, holiday celebrations or some other occasion such as the conclusion of a
barn raising or other communal work project. Although some dances con-
vened in public settings such as taverns or dance halls, most typically they
took place in private farm homes. Such dances were so closely associated with
people's homes that they were commonly called "house parties" in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After a family sent out the word that
a dance was scheduled for a particular evening, farm folk came by horse and
wagon from allover the countryside and gathered in a room that had been
stripped bare of furniture, usually moved outside the house. In some cases,
two rooms were prepared for the dancers, and a fiddler sat or stood in the
doorway between the two rooms. Because of the central importance of fid-
dlers to the house dance tradition, they were among the most prized members
of a community. Quite often they played alone for the long duration of the
dance, keeping the dancers happy with a variety of numbers, often featuring
numerous choruses to guarantee everyone ample opportunity to dance to a
particular favorite tune. It was exhausting, if rewarding, work. Occasionally,
though, a fiddler worked with an accompanist playing a parlor organ, piano,
French harp, banjo, or guitar. As late as the 1920s, in some parts of the Appa-
lachian South, a fiddle and banjo duo was considered to be a band. Elsewhere,
a fiddle and guitar formed the most popular combination, and it was this unit
that anticipated and often formed the nucleus of the larger and more diverse
country music bands of the future.
Fiddling has been so important in white country music for such a long
time that it is easy to forget how popular it once was among blacks. Newspa-
pers, travel accounts, memoirs, plantation records, runaway slave narratives,
and WPA interviews with ex-slaves abound with references to slave fiddlers.
Black fiddlers often played simply for the enjoyment of their fellow quarters-
dwellers, but they were also in demand for the social festivities sponsored by
the planters. Plantation balls and barbecues and town functions featured both
individual fiddlers and entire orchestras composed of slaves. To what extent
modern country fiddling is indebted to the techniques or styles of slave musi-
cians, or to the tunes played by slaves, is unknown, but the degree of mutual
borrowing between blacks and whites may have been very large. In the twen-
tieth century, black fiddlers such as Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, "Papa"
John Creech, and Butch Cage performed publicly, but their numbers were
dwarfed by the hordes of white country fiddlers.
No definitive explanation exists for the decline of the black fiddling
tradition. Its demise, along with the virtual disappearance of the string-band
and ballad traditions among Mrican Americans, coincided with their transi-
tion from slavery to freedom and the emergence of widespread racial segrega-
tion. Emancipation brought Mrican Americans new forms of discrimination
and oppression, but it also permitted a self-expression that was not possible
under slavery. Post-Civil War black musicians eagerly sought forms of artistic
assertion that were uniquely their own, and they experimented with all types
of instruments. Mrican Americans' musical inclinations were shaped par-
ticularly by their contacts with cities. As their immersion in the urban experi-
ence deepened, ties to their rural past weakened. Younger black musicians
generally rebelled against that which was reminiscent of the slave past. The
fiddle not only evoked "old plantation days," it was also identified with the
presumed enemies of the African Americans, the southern poor whites. Ex-
ceptions existed, of course, such as could be found in the family of DeFord
Bailey, one of the early members of the Grand Ole Opry, the musical bastion
of southern poor whites. Bailey, an African-American harmonica player, had a
grandfather who was a contest fiddler. He recalled how black and white musi-
cians shared string-band tunes, incorporated them into his harmonica reper-
tory, and bemoaned the fact that "black hillbilly music" got overwhelmed in
the 1920s by the "blues craze."))
Musical interchange among southern working people did not take place
in a cultural vacuum independent of either commercial or cultivated sources.
Folk musicians did not simply learn from each other. They also absorbed songs
and musical ideas from professional entertainers and from formally trained
musicians. Little is kriown concerning the extent to which the southern lower
classes were exposed to the fine arts during the colonial period or even during
the nineteenth century. While some formal education was available for the
children of the poor, only rarely did they gain admission to musical conserva-
tories. Plain folk sometimes attended concerts given by such musicalluminar-
ies as Jenny Lind and Ole Bull, but opportunities for them to have heard
concerts or recitals of high-art music during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries would have been uncommon. The difficulties of travel and the ve-
neer of social elitism associated with the music naturally inhibited attendance
at these events.
Music audiences in the South, as elsewhere in the United States, were
divided very early between people who clung to the idea of music as a formal,
academic art that could only be appreciated by an educated elite and people
who thought that music was an informal, emotionally perceived expression
accessible to the masses. High-art music, defined in such terms, was not only
aesthetically elitist, it was also inherently class-conscious. Musical preference
became, and remains, a means of distancing oneself socially and economically
from one's neighbors. During the colonial era the southern upper classes did
not yet possess a cultural sense of mission that encouraged inculcating musical
appreciation among the lower classes. On the contrary, Charleston's Saint Cecilia
Society, founded in 1762, the first organized group of music devotees in the
South, rigorously limited its membership to 120 men, each of whom paid
dues of twenty-five pounds a year. The society, which sponsored concerts and
recitals and organized its own troupe of instrumentalists, was above all a so-
cially exclusive club of gentlemen. There is no reason to believe that the "lower
orders" ever heard any of the concerts sponsored by the organization. Other
concerts, such as those given by touting groups of French musicians at the end
of the colonial period, were also oriented primarily to the upper classes. Social
extravaganzas sponsored by planters were exclusively upper-class affairs too,
for the most part, although black house servants certainly heard the music
performed at these functions, and slave musicians were encouraged to learn
the varieties of music featured there. Lower-class whites normally were not
invited to the plantation balls or to the other gala social affairs conducted by
the planters, but on very special occasions such as weddings or political barbe-
cues, the social barriers might come down, and poor white neighbors or rela-
tives might be invited to partake of the festivities.
Music of high-art origin, however, did insinuate itself into the con-
sciousness of the southern folk, if not through direct contact then through the
performances of popular entertainers who had somehow absorbed music from
the cultivated tradition. The first incidence, of course, of the interrelationship
between the cultivated and folk traditions may very well have been the cher-
ished British ballads. No problem of folk scholarship has been more hotly
debated than that of ballad origins,12 and it is not known whether such be-
loved old songs as "Sir Patrick Spens," "The Wife of Usher's Well," and "The
Lass of Roch Royal" originated among the anonymous folk or were the cre-
ations of sophisticated writers who intended them for a literate audience, though
both sources probably played a part in the process. Regardless of where they
began, ballads were adopted by the folk, who reshaped and preserved them
and then bequeathed them to their American descendants.
Folk dances of the southern United States, both black and white, clearly
demonstrate the interplay between the cultivated and folk traditions. At least
since the mid-nineteenth century, when minstrel performers popularized such
folk forms as jigs, clogs, hornpipes, and "patting juba," dance steps of pre-
sumed folk origin have persistently made their way into the realm of popular
entertainment. The origins of such dances as the Charleston, the Black Bot-
tom, and the Bunny Hug are generally well known, but it is less well known
that many "folk dances" were survivals or imitations of formal or even courtly
dances. The cakewalk, so important in the development of ragtime music,
may have originated among slaves as a parody of formal plantation dances,
although their white masters may not always have recognized the satire. 13 Square
dancing, strongly identified with frontier America, appears to have been a
survival of the early-nineteenth-century upper-class fascination with cotillion
dancing. Cotillions were popular with members of the English upper class
who adopted them from continental European sources, especially French.
Country dancing moved back and forth across the English Channel, popular-
ized among the upper classes in France and England by John Playford's book
of 1651, The English Dancing Master. When the English country dances moved
to France, they became fashionable, were renamed "cotillions" and "quadrilles,"
and were published along with printed instructions for the dancers. From
France they were re-exported to England and North America. The terminol-
ogy of square dancing-promenade, allemande, dos-a-do, sashay-suggests
its French associations. 14
Though mostly identified in recent decades with Scottish Highland danc-
ing and Irish step dancing, solo dancing was quite common both in the Brit-
ish Isles and in North America until well into the nineteenth century. Until
then, a hornpipe was a solo dance, a fact long forgotten by most folk dancers
and musicians. Probably the ancestor of the tap dance, it was featured by stage
entertainers and nimble equestrian performers. The dance was brought to.
North America by French and English dancers in the eighteenth century. Ru-
ral southerners no longer remember the dance, but they have preserved some
of its accompanying tunes. Virtually every country fiddler knows "Sailor's
Hornpipe," familiar to many people as the theme song of the cartoon charac-
ter Popeye, "Rickett's Hornpipe," and "Durang's Hornpipe." Probably only a
few of them, however, know that John Bill Ricketts gained his fame, and
inspired the tune named for him, by dancing hornpipes on the backs of gal-
loping horses or that John Durang of Philadelphia, the greatest dancer in the
United States in the early nineteenth century, earned the honor of having a
dance tune written to commemorate his exploits.
It may never be known how such material found its way into the
backcountry South, but enough circumstantial evidence is available to suggest
the manner in which the process occurred. In the years following the War of
1812, several troupes of actors and musicians moved into the South bringing
their various brands of culture and entertainment to the most remote regions.
The dramatic companies of Noah Ludlow and Sol Smith, which were com-
bined after 1834, made regular annual circuits from Louisville to St. Louis to
Memphis to New Orleans to Mobile and thence to Nashville. They, and other
groups similar to them, typically offered songs and variety entertainment, in
addition to dramatic presentations running the gamut from farce and melo-
drama to Shakespeare. In 1822, for example, Ludlow gave the first public
performance of "Hunters of Kentucky," the famous song celebrating the Battle
of New Orleans that had taken place just downriver from that city in 1815.
"Serious" dramatic performers learned to give audiences what they wanted,
especially if they hoped to compete with an expanding list of entertainers
whose central aim was to amuse and not to elevate. Before the Civil War
blackface minstrels, singing clowns, Punch and Judy shows, which often had
accompanying fiddlers or other musicians, equestrian performances by trick
riders such as John Bill Ricketts, showboats, and the omnipresent medicine
shows roamed far and wide through the towns and villages of the South. These
performing units, along with the scores of tent and vaudeville shows that toured
the region after 1865, created and circulated vast numbers of songs, dances,
performing styles, and comedy routines. These remained popular long after
their original creators had been forgotten, though it must be pointed out that
the "original creators" can never be known conclusively because so much of
this material arose from folk sources.
Phineas T. Barnum, the great humbug, was the first promoter to realize
that with the proper ballyhoo the American people could be encouraged to
patronize the highest forms of art as well as the low. When Jenny Lind, the
"Swedish Nightingale," visited the United States under Barnum's tutelage in
1850 and with a guarantee of $187,000, she encountered a tumultuous recep-
tion everywhere she visited, including such southern cities as Memphis and
New Orleans. The size and enthusiasm of the crowds that responded to her
presence suggest that the Jenny Lind mania was not confined to the upper
classes. Ole Bull, the flamboyant Norwegian violinist, also attracted large, en-
thralled audiences during his southern touts of 1843-1844 and 1853. Whether
the reception of such musicians indicates a genuine hunger for, or apprecia-
tion of, high culture among southerners is open to question. In the days be-
fore phonograph records, radio, or television, many audiences starved for
entertainmem thronged to whatever was available. They could alternate easily
between a melodrama and a Shakespearean tragedy, a minstrel show and a
concert by Jenny Lind" 5
New Orleans may have been atypical of the South in its devotion to
music and in the breadth of its cultural imerests, but chroniclers of its music
history argue that people of all social classes patronized opera there.' Operas
were performed in the city as early as 1791, and at least three opera houses
flourished there before the Civil War, mounting productions by French, En-
glish, and Italian companies. Beginning in 1827, a New Orleans-based opera
company staged well-received productions in such nonhern cities as Philadel-
phia, Boston, and New York. Many of these early productions were ballad or
light opera, but several of the grandest of operas, such as The Barber ofSevilk,
were presemed in New Orleans before they were performed anywhere else in
the United States. Opera has certainly become separated from the masses in
New Orleans, as it has elsewhere in the United States, but at least two scholars
of the New Orleans music scene, Ronald Davis and Henry Kmen, argue that
attendance at opera performances in the antebellum era was much more so-
.cially diverse than it became after the war. According to Davis, "opera became
an integral part of the city's life not for just the wealthy and elite, but for the
humblest citizen as well." Street vendors and draymen hummed melodies from
the latest productions, and Kmen contends that some elements of this music
may have made its way into jazZ. 16
While attempts to separate music into categories reflecting social dis-
tinctions have generally succeeded, various forms have often intermingled in
unexpected ways. Even the most "serious" music has occasionally been adopted
and reshaped by folk communities, and devotees of high-art music are well
aware that some of the world's great music has a folk basis, such as the peasant
music borrowed and adapted by Liszt and Bartok. In the United States, many
high-art proponents have supported the utilization or exploitation of folk music,
as long as the composers involved had sufficiently rigorous traditional aca-
demic training. Further, they have not necessarily opposed folk musicians as
long as those musicians adjusted their styles to the demands of the cultivated
tradition. Occasionally, gifted folk musicians found themselves encouraged to
abandon their uneducated tastes and cultivate their natural talents in a conser-
vatory or under the direction of a master teacher. Folk music in its natural
state was seldom appreciated, and performers of such music were almost to-
tally ignored.
Nevertheless, cultivated musicians in the South occasionally explored
the folk resources of their region in order to appropriate them for artistic
purposes. This exploration did not assume the proportions of a crusade until
about the turn of the twentieth century, but there was at least one major mani-
festation of it before the Civil War. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, born in New
Orleans in 1829, was the South's first great classical musician and composer,
and the nation's first musical matinee idol. As a child prodigy, Gottschalk
received the best formal musical education available, studying under such
European-born masters as Francois Letellier, the organist and choirmaster at
the Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans, and then traveling to Europe at the
age of twelve for further study. His ability impressed his European teachers
and Frederic Chopin, who heard him in concert, and he won great acclaim in
Europe before he became widely known in his own country. Impressed by
Jenny Lind's earlier success, he came back to the United States in 1853 and
made a whirlwind concert tour of major cities, including New Orleans. Like
most crowd-pleasers in American musical history, Gottschalk achieved fame
with more than just splendid musicianship. Dramatic stage presence, dark
good looks, and an exotic Latin charm all contributed to the charisma that
earned Gottschalk his international reputation. He also learned to give his
audiences what they wanted to hear: patriotic songs, "classical" arrangements
of popular melodies, and genteel, sentimental airs such as his own most en-
during composition, "The Last Hope."
Gottschalk was more than an entertainer, however. He was also a com-
poser, and in his role as songwriter he tapped, at least partially, the folk re-
sources of the South. In compositions such as "Bamboula," uLe Bananier,"
and "La Savanne," written during his European sojourn in the late 1840s and
early '50s, Gottschalk drew upon the Mrican, Creole, and Caribbean resources
of New Orleans music. Gottschalk's first principal biographer, Vernon Loggins,
points to his subject's childhood experiences in New Orleans as the primary
factors that motivated such compositions: the drumbeats accompanying slave
dances at the Place Congo, now known as Congo Square, the site of the city's
Municipal Auditorium; the rhythmic chants of street vendors; and the lulla-
bies and other snatches of tunes sung by his slave nurse, Sally.17 Gottschalk's
second principal biographer, S. Frederick Starr, discounts the role of Congo
Square in the making of the young Gottschalk's music, saying he learned his
Creole songs "in his own home" from his grandmother as well as from his
nurse: "The music of old Saint-Domingue formed an essential element of the
Gottschalks' family life."IB Folk music of various kinds was certainly available
to Gottschalk during his formative years, but so was the popular music of the
traveling entertainers who often visited the city. Blackface minstrelsy was still
in its early stages when Gottschalk sailed for France in 1841, but "Negro
music" as conceived by white men was already the rage of both the United
States and Europe by the time he returned to this country twelve years later.
Although Loggins refers to "The Banjo" (1853) as Gottschalk's most enduring
black composition, the piece seems more obviously modeled on Foster's
"Camptown Races," just as "La Savanne" had earlier drawn on the frontier
dance tune "Skip to My Lou."19
Thoroughly grounded in the European art tradition, Gottschalk was
also a highly eclectic musician who scarcely could have avoided either con-
sciously or unconsciously drawing upon the varied musical forms that so vig-
orously interacted in the middle years of the nineteenth century. In addition,
according to Starr, he was a thoroughgoing American nationalist and demo-
crat. Several of his uncles fought with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New
Orleans in 1815 and, though he was an ardent regionalist, he emphasized
national themes over regional ones. Although he was greatly cosmopolitan, he
resisted the tendency prominent at the time to segregate classes according to
presumed cultural attributes. It so happened that the peak of Gottschalk's
artistic production came during the first great flourishing of popular culture
in the United States. 20 The boundaries between folk and popular culture al-
ready were so thin that it is next to impossible to determine the origin or
"authenticity" of much of the music of the era. Gottschalk's work only served
to obscure those already hazy boundaries. His sensitivity to the unique presen-
tation of the varieties of music available, especially that of the people of New
Orleans-slaves, free people of color, Creoles, Jews, the Irish, "Americans"-
and his ingenuity in translating these musical forms into his own composi-
tions demonstrated the potential that the southern folk tradition already held
for musicians, both high-art and vernacular. Whatever the precise sources of
his compositions, their imagery and rhythm captivated the popular imagina-
tion in a way that anticipated a continuing fascination with romantic south-
ern themes.
Chapter 2
NATIONAL DISCOVERY
The South as a source of romantic images and ideas exerted a powerful influ-
ence pn American popular music long before the region developed musicians
with national reputations. As a land of violent contrasts, picturesque terrain,
and exotic peoples, the South proved irresistible to poets and songwriters who
saw in its lazy rivers, wagon-rutted roads, and old folks at home endless mate-
rial for art. Stephen Foster was not the first, nor has he been the last, American
composer to seize upon the endlessly appealing romantic myth of the South. l
American musicians, from the blackface minstrels of the 1830s to the popular
entertainers of the recent past, have persistently exploited southern images
and have drawn upon southern-derived instrumental and vocal styles in order
to shape and enhance their own careers.
Blackface entertainment after the 1830s provided the first dramatic evi-
dence of the fascination exerted by the South on American performers.
Blackface entertainers, of course, had been popular long before the rise of the
minstrel show, but their acts did not typically include music until the Jackso-
nian era. The early minstrels were itinerant song-and-dance men who traveled
widely throughout the United States. Most of them had a strong familiarity
with the South and an acquaintance with southern folkways. Northerner Tho-
mas D. "Daddy" Rice, the creator of the "Jim Crow" character and the man
who inaugurated the craze for blackface comedy in Louisville in 1829, was
only one ofseveral entertainers who had picked up themes in his rambles through
Ohio and Mississippi river towns. Daniel Emmett, the composer to whom "Dixie"
is commonly attributed2 and one of the most popular of the minstrels, told of
the old circus people such as himself, whose thoughts had always turned toward
"Dixie Land" when the icy blasts of winter ravaged the North.
Early minstrels, then, were certainly familiar with the South, and they
demonstrated through their stage garb and makeup that they were particu-
larly fascinated by the African Americans of the region. Nevertheless, it is
quite uncertain how much of the minstrel music was derived from south-
erners. Considering the close identification blackface minstrelsy had with the
National Discovery 21
South, it is remarkable how few prominent minstrels before the Civil War
were southerners. leRoy Rice's reminiscence of his minstrel days, Monarchs of
Mimtre/sy. included a lengthy list of blackface entertainers. It showed a heavy
preponderance of New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians, with an occasional excep-
tion such as Joel Walker Sweeney, the banjoist from Appomattox, Virginia,
who toured with his own troupes in both England and the United States. A
fairly sizeable number of New Orleans-based minstrels were virtually the only
southerners who made their living in minstrelsy.
The long-held presumption that blackface minstrelsy was a direct bor-
rowing from plantation slave music has considerable merit. The banjo and the
rhythm instruments-the tambourine and bones principally-most likely had
their origins in Mrica and/or in Mrican-American slave experience. Some of
the dance forms, such as the juba or jumba, sometimes called "patting juha"-
a dance done by one person using hand clapping as a rhythmic accompani-
ment-probably originated with persons who were enslaved in the West Indies
and moved to southern plantations. But even the juba was popularized in
northern entertainment in the 1840s by the black stage dancer William Henry
Lane, billed as Master Juba, one of the great dancers of the antebellum period.
Lane's career suggests that white minstrels may have learned many of their
techniques from the commercial urban stage entertainers of their day or from
urban blacks, rather than directly from plantation folk sources. Daddy Rice,
for example, received inspiration for the Jim Crow character from a crippled
black stable worker whom he saw in Louisville. Henry Kmen, in his study of
New Orleans music, further alludes to the probable influence of urban blacks
on antebellum popular music when he describes the immense popularity of a
black street vendor named Old Cornmeal, who took his street routine onto
the stages of New Orleans. 3 The itinerant song-and-dance men of the ante-
bellum era were more likely to visit southern towns and cities than they were
rural areas, and the folklore they appropriated, though perhaps rural in origin,
came through urban contacts. Certain songs, rhythms, and dance steps defi-
nitely came from rural black sources, but, as Robert Toll has argued, the min-
strels absorbed material wherever they traveled in the United States. 4
Furthermore, folk styles so often interacted in America that it is difficult to
determine the ethnic origin of a piece of folklore. Minstrel music was an amal-
gam of all the rural folk styles-British, German, Mrican, West Indian-and
urban popular forms the minstrels encountered, plus the original routines
they were busily creating. Through it all, however, ran the constant factor of
racism, which pervaded the art of the minstrels in their parodies of Mrican
Americans, and white working-class values, which thrived on keeping blacks
in their place, whether that place happened to be in the North or in the South.
By the time of the Civil War, minstrelsy had become such an overpower-
ing factor in organized entertainment, in the United States and abroad, that it
moved far beyond its folk roots· and spawned a large contingent of profes-
sional musicians and independent composers who had little or no relation-
ship to rural folk America. Such songs as "Jordan Am a Hard Road to Travel,"
"Old Dan Tucker," and "Old Zip Coon" may have had folk origins, or they
may have been the original brainchildren of such composers as Dan Emmett
and Stephen Foster, who merely imitated folk styles. Foster, of course, was the
most important, if not necessarily the most popular, product of the minstrel
school of songwriters. Robert Toll argues that minstrelsy as a whole presented
to northerners a "non-threatening picture" of blacks, but Stephen Foster spe-
cifically must be given much of the credit for implanting the romantic image
of the Old South in American popular culture. 5 Foster's conception of the
South represented a victory of the imagination because he had lirtle firsthand
acquaintance with the region. He spent a short time in central Kentucky and
took one trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans in 1852. No doubt he saw
some of the great houses along the river, but he s~ems to have seen little else,
and he did not acquaint himself with the lives of the plain people who lived
inland from the river's banks.
Like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Foster painted descriptive pictures of south-
ern characters and themes, but his music did not come from southern sources.
According to William Austin, Foster's music came from the general and di-
verse body of influences available to most popular songwriters of his era. He
absorbed some influence from German music, but more came from American
hymnody and the international body of genteel popular music, including that
of the Irish composer Thomas Moore. 6 Much of Foster's success, again like
that of Harriet Beecher Stowe, came from his immersion in the sentimental
tradition. Like much of the popular music of the antebellum U.S., as well as
the developing American literature of the period, Foster's music drew on a set
of staple themes, the appeal of faraway places and times, the lure of the
homeplace, and the recurrent sense of loss that accompanies these two oppo-
site attractions. People responded to his music not so much because it pre-
sented a realistic picture of southern blacks or of life in the South in general,
which it did not, but because it reinforced the values of the family fireside and
featured the stereotypical characters of nineteenth-century sentimental litera-
ture: the beautiful but doomed maiden, the dying child, the departed mother,
the saintly old man.
Foster's reputation steadily grew in the years after the Civil War, but his
real enshrinement as America's greatest popular composer came at the end of
the nineteenth century when Czech composer Anton Dvorak essentially
anointed him by applauding some of his songs, thus suggesting their affinity
with high-art music. 7 Foster's songs seemed particularly appropriate in the
late-nineteenth century, when the country was still trying to heal the wounds
of the Civil War. The appeal of Foster's nostalgic songs cut across regional
lines, for a complex set of emotional reasons. Northerners and southerners
alike, even westerners, could identify with the themes of domestic sentiment
and a pastoral society that now seemed to be succumbing to the inroads of
industrial progress. Whatever the bases for its appeal, notions of an unchang-
ing, placid, yet exotic Southland with gentle manners and contented, nostal-
gic "servants" became a perennially enduring myth oflife in the United States.
Foster was but one of several minstrel-derived songwriters who contrib-
uted to the myth of the Old South. Others, in fact, may have been more
popular than he, with compositions that have more readily endured in folk
tradition without the support accorded to Foster by the high-art establish-
ment. Such writers as Septimus Winner ("Listen to the Mockingbird," "Whis-
pering Hope"), Daniel Emmett ("Old Dan Tucker," "Jordan Am a Hard Road
to Travel," "Dixie," supposedly), and Henry Clay Work ("Kingdom Com-
ing," "Father, Dear Father," "Grandfather's Clock") produced songs that were
cherished by nineteenth-century Americans who bequeathed them aurally to
their descendants.
The writer who had the closest relationship to the South, though his
characterizations of it never went beyond the romantic, was Will S. Hays. A
native of Louisville, Kentucky, and for a time a riverboat pilot on the Ohio
River, Hays spent most of his life as a reporter for the Louisville Courier-jour-
naL He was also a prolific songwriter whose lyric themes were highly reminis-
cent of Stephen Foster's. Hays was a gifted melodist and an effective composer
of gentle, Victorian lyrics, and several of his songs remain singable even though
their messages seem alien to modern ears. He wrote comic songs occasionally,
but his general repertory was saturated with the sentimentality typical of so
much of the popular music of the nineteenth century, including that of Fos-
ter. Sentimentality, in fact, often descended to bathos, as in the tale of the
penniless orphan girl in "Nobody's Darling on Earth.» Many of Hays's songs
swelled with Victorian sentiment: faithfulness, unrequited love, domesticiry,
passion devoid of eroticism. Such songs as "Molly, Darling," "I'll Remember
You, Love, in My Prayers," and "We Parted by the Riverside" told of tender
but broken love affairs that ended among scenes of pastoral charm. The moon
forever shone, dewdrops kissed the roses, and rivers murmured to the sea as
lovers parted. Hays also wrote an occasional song of nostalgia, plaintive remi-
niscences of the departed village or farm or evocations of a vanished way of life
with which many could identify. One such song, perhaps the most enduring
in the Hays repertory, was "Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane," long a staple of
country music. The song was typical of the "faithful slave laments" often heard
in minstrelsy, depicting the sadness of a poor old slave who surveyed the decay
of his once-happy cabin as "ole massa and missus" slept nearby. Such lyrics
could be used to defend the idea of a racially harmonious Old South or of the
inability of those formerly enslaved to adjust to freedom. But, like many of
the songs that came out of minstrelsy. "Little Old Log Cabin" ceased to be
merely a "darky song" and became a lament for the departed rural home. s
Sentimental parlor songs in the nineteenth century, though generally
northern in origin and aimed at an urban, middle-class audience, often dealt
with romantic southern themes. Though they appealed immediately to audi-
ences everywhere, they found a natural, and seemingly permanent, home in
the rural South. Such songs are known in the North, if at all, as amusing,
quaint relics of an unsophisticated era. Southerners, on the other hand, are
more likely to cherish and preserve such "regional" songs as "Mid the Green
Fields of Virginia," "My Little Home in Tennessee," or "Carry Me Back to
Ole Virginny" (written by a black northerner, James Bland), as well as such
weepers as ''The Dying Girl's Message," "The Blind Child," "The Little Rose-
wood Casket," "The Letter Edged in Black," and "Baggage Coach Ahead,"
also written by a black composer, Gussie Davis.
Although minstrelsy may not have been of southern origin, the phe-
nomenon made a great impact on the region, and it left a long-lasting legacy
in southern music. Minstrel troupes still visited southern cities as late as World
War I, and by that time several of them had made their headquarters in the
South and staged their shows with southern-born entertainers. Minstrel songs,
styles, dances, jokes, even the corking of the face, became central facets of
southern folk and popular culture. Exhibiting the continuous interflow be-
tween folk and popular music, minstrels adapted material from folk sources,
reworked it to appeal to urban audiences, and fed it back to the folk through
the traveling shows. Nowhere was such material more deeply cherished, or
longer preserved, than in the rural South. With their continuing tendency to
retain social phenomena that had lost favor in the industrializing North, rural
southerners absorbed minstrel ideas and made them the bases for their own
personal and localized musical expressions. Commercial black entertainment,
for instance, owed a large debt to minstrelsy. African Amc;ricans had little
access to professional entertainment before such all-black troupes as the Geor-
gia Minstrels took their shows to towns and cities allover the United States.
The early black minstrel groups corked their faces, as custom demanded, and
generally performed in a self-mocking manner that was degrading to their
race. Nevertheless, these pioneer performers created the commercial route that
later black entertainers were able to follow and modify, and the original black
minstrels included some of the most gifted song-and-dance artists American
audiences had yet witnessed, performers such as Sam Lucas, Billy Kersands,
Bert Williams, and James Bland. Black entertainers carried the burden of min-
strelsy with them into the twentieth century, and southern black performing
groups still called themselves "minstrels" through the World War I period.
These latter-day groups-such as Mahara's Minstrels, headed by the young
we. Handy, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, led by the great blues singer Ma
Rainey and featuring Bessie Smith-playing the "chittlin' circuit" of the South
finally forged independent forms of black musical expression in the South and
elsewhere in the United States.
White rural musicians, on the other hand, did not move into profes-
sional show business as early as southern blacks, but they also strongly dis-
played the lingering influences of minstrelsy. Early hillbilly music especially is
filled with evidence of this indebtedness. The five-string banjo, a fixture of
minstrelsy, became an integral component of white rural instrumentation,
particularly in the Southeast, and some minstrel-derived banjo sryles remained
common in country music until Earl Scruggs introduced the three-finger blue-
grass style in the 1940s. The major link between nineteenth-century minstrel
music and modern country music was Uncle Dave Macon, an outstanding
five-string banjoist and member of the Grand Ole Opry from 1926 to 1952.
Uncle Dave was born in McMinnville, Tennessee, in 1870 but was exposed at
a very early age to minstrel entertainers when his parents moved to Nashville
and opened a theatrical boardinghouse. He learned banjo techniques and stage
patter from the minstrels, as well as numerous songs that later appeared in
both his recordings and personal appearances, such as "Rise When the Rooster
Crows," "Hold That Woodpile Down," "Rock about My Sara Jane," and "Jor-
dan Am a Hard Road to Travel."
Many of the more rousing minstrel tunes and routines, those suited for
comic, dance, or instrumental purposes, regularly found their way into coun-
try repertories. The early hillbilly string bands of radio and recording-such
as the Skillet Lickers, AI Hopkins and the Buckle Busters, Charlie Poole and
the North Carolina Ramblers, and the Fruit Jar Drinkers--often featured fiddle-
and-banjo-dominated versions of old minstrel songs with the same rollicking
spirit that probably characterized the original performances. The "rural skits"
recorded by the Skillet Lickers on the Columbia label-comic dialogues in-
terspersed with music-also reflected the influence of earlier minstrel rou-
tines. The comedy of minstrelsy, in fact, long remained a feature of country
music. The blackface comics Jamup and Honey appeared regularly on the
Grand Ole Opry and headlined a popular touring tent show through the World
War II period. Musicians from Uncle Dave Macon to Lew Childre, Grandpa
Jones, and Roy Clark-as well as stand-up comics such as Rod Brasfield and
Benny Ford, who played a character known as the Duke of Paducah-persis-
tently delved into minstrel-derived humor to bolster their routines. Television's
syndicated hillbilly variety show "Hee Haw," which premiered in 1969, dis-
pensed a considerable amount of minstrel-like material, even including a varia-
tion of "patting juba." The sentimental songs of minstrelsy-such as "Sweet
Allalee," ''Away Down upon the Old Plantation," "Listen to the Mocking-
bird," a virtuoso fiddle piece, and "Yellow Rose ofTexas"-also appeared with
great frequency in the repertories of country musicians. The minstrel per-
formers had drawn so much material through the years from the folk culture
of the South that it was only fitting that much of it should be returned to its
home. 9
While serious doubts can be entertained about the legitimate southern,
folk, or African-American content of minstrel music, the authenticity of an-
other musical form that came our of the South after the Civil War, the spiri-
tual, is undeniable. Spirituals, unlike minstrel tunes, were introduced to the
world at large by bona fide southerners-the Fisk Jubilee Singers from Nash-
ville. The music was first circulated in printed form by northerners, the teach-
ers and missionaries who came south during and after the Civil War to work
among former slaves. As in the case of minstrelsy, moreover, the perception
and reception of this music were affected by external, especially northern,
images of both Mrican Americans and the South. While the minstrels often
exploited for its entertainment potential a demeaning caricature of blacks based
on their supposed hedonism, promoters of the spirituals either stressed the
innate religiousness of blacks or sought to repress their sensuality by trying to
turn them away from dancing and "sinful music." Advocates of the latter view-
point intended that southern blacks should emulate the decorum and propri-
ety of middle-class evangelical Protestantism. Northern observers were generally
impressed or intrigued by black spiritual singing, but, as Dana Epstein ob-
serves, "very few were able to dissociate themselves from European norms of
musical performance and to evaluate Mro-American music on its own terms."10
Too often former slaves were encouraged to replace their own songs with the
"more dignified" hymns of the evangelical churches, or they were urged to adopt
the more sedate and conventional performing styles of their benefactors.
Individual spirituals began to appear in northern magazines as early as
1861, when "Go Down, Moses" was printed, but the first significant collec-
tion of spirituals, Slave Songs ofthe United States, came in 1867. Although it is
now recognized as one of the foundational works of American folk scholar-
ship, the book was generally ignored in the music periodicals of the day, and
there was no immediate explosion of interest in spirituals, either by musicians

or by the public. When the Fisk Jubilee Singers took their versions of the
spirituals north in 1871, they sparked the first real national flurry of interest
in southern-derived folk songs. These young black singers were genuine prod-
ucts of folk communities, even though their performing styles were far from
representative of folk tradition. Nevertheless, the vogue they inspired for the
spirituals did not diminish until well into the twentieth century. They also
encouraged a major excursion by high-art musicians into the realm of south-
ern folk culture. The choir was organized in 1867 by George White, the white
treasurer of Fisk Universiry, in order to raise money for the Nashville scho~l.
The singers, it was believed, would be particularly effective among middle-
class white Americans interested in the "cultural uplift" of the black race. The
young black students were to demonstrate both the potential and the docility
of ex-slaves, and, incidentally, reinforce the already deep-rooted assumption
that, whatever else their limitations, music was something at which blacks
excelled.
Studen~ who went to Fisk, Hampton, Tuskegee, and other southern
schools that were products of northern religious philanthropy certainly did
not go there to be reminded of the humiliation of their enslavement experi-
ence. They hoped they were on their way to the world of the middle class.
Understandably, the Fisk Jubilee Singers did not at first feature the perfor-
mance of slave-derived religious music. But after audiences at Oberlin and
elsewhere in the North made clear their desire to hear such music, the Fisk
Jubilee Singers made the spirituals the nucleus of their repertory. They sang to
the enthusiastic acclaim of genteel audiences allover the North and then made
a highly successful tour of Europe in 1872, the first of several such trips. Though
their subject matter was indigenous and rooted in black folk experience, their
style of performance came directly from the European cultivated tradition.
On recordings made in 1913 of a later version of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the
singing is in a restrained, highly polished manner, with none of the swinging,
uninhibited, emotional style associated with the southern, downhome black
churches. 11 Nevertheless, they made the world conscious of the spirituals, and
after the example of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, they initiated the first real
excursion by Mrican-American high-art music advocates into the folk resources
of the South.
Public fascination with spirituals, and the subsequent popularity of other
types of southern-derived folk music, should be considered, at least in part, as
a facet of the larger quest for a national music. This quest, of course, was not
new. It had been pursued at least since the mid-nineteenth century when Lowell
Mason had sought to create a music that would represent America's distinc-
tiveness while also winning the respect of the world. Implicit in this search
was the belief that a true national music must embody "native" American
material, that it must rest upon an indigenous folk basis. During the last de-
cade of the nineteenth century, and increasingly in the years immediately fol-
lowing World War I when nationalism was at a peak, high-art music advocates
vigorously debated the merits of various folk traditions. Some people, of course,
denied the existence of any type of indigenous folk music in the United States,
while others stressed the usefulness of Indian, black, and Anglo-Saxon themes,
or even commercial materials such as ragtime or jazz, as the raw stuff from
which a finished American musical product could be built. The spirituals,
though not the raw secular or down home gospel material of southern blacks,
obviously appealed to some musicians because they were both beautiful and
presumably of American origin.
The person who did the most to promote the high-art potential of the
spirituals was Antonin Dvorak, who came to the United States in 1892. Set-
tling into a New York apartment and on a farm near Spillville, Iowa, during
the summers, Dvorak began producing a number of musical works said to be
based on American themes. Although Dvorak was an ardent and outspoken
advocate of the utilization of Mrican-American themes,12 there is still some
question about whether or not he actually used black melodies himself. The
appealing theme of the symphony From the New World, "Goin' Home," in-
deed sounds like a spiritual melody, but it seems to have no precise analogue
in Mrican-American music. Dvorak had been inspired to create "folklike"
melodies, but, much as Stephen Foster before him, he exhibited a larger in-
debtedness to the cultivated musical traditions of the world.
In the years following Dvorak's American sojourn, numerous singers,
instrumentalists, and composers became enamored of spirituals, though there
were limits to the form's popularity. Frequent instrumental and vocal concerts
of spirituals were given well into the 1920s; these performances launched the
careers of such great American singers as Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson.
At least one of these singers was a southerner, the Georgia-born Roland Hayes,
who built a very successful first career singing spirituals and then moved on to
another career as one of the country's leading opera singers. The composers
who dealt with spirituals were usually white men who arranged the material to
fit the tastes of white middle-class concertgoers. But a few black composers,
such as Harry Burleigh and Nathaniel Dett, specialized in spirituals, and Wil-
liam Grant Still, from Mississippi, wrote concert pieces based on spirituals or
adaptations of them and achieved considerable fame and success. Despite the
rage for spirituals, however, many musicians and composers denied that they
were legitimate sources for a national music. The spirituals, so the argument
ran, did not spring from the majority of Americans and therefore could not
represent the soul of American experience. One of the leading scholars of
southern religious folk music, George Pullen Jackson, denied the originality
of the spirituals and asserted that they were borrowed from older white reli-
gious music. 13 Proponents of a national American music and critics of the
spirituals argued that they should look elsewhere for a folk basis for the high-
art form they wished to create.
Considering the American social context at the turn of the twentieth
century, it is not surprising that an Anglo-Saxon school of folk music emerged.
The country's decisive turn toward imperialism at the time of the Spanish-
American War and thereafter helped renew the sense of mission many of its
"Anglo-Saxon" people felt, to use their God-given talent and energy to help
re-form the world in the image of a Christian USA. This missionary impulse
to spread the American Way to the unenlightened peoples of the world was
accompanied by the disquieting concern that the Anglo-Saxon core of "Ameri-
can" culture was disintegrating or being dangerously diluted by urban indus-
trialism and immigration. Such fears, at least among scholars, partly explain
the resurgent interest in folklore at the end of the nineteenth century, a phe-
nomenon marked by the founding of the American Folklore Society in 1888
and by the collecting of British ballads by the Harvard scholar Francis James
Child. A sense of urgency accompanied the collection and classification of
folklore in this country, as if the scholars had only a short time to work before
the folk tradition succumbed to the processes of modernization. Folklore was
not only equated with peasant pastoralism, but in this country the best of that
folklore was presumed to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. The Anglo-Saxon rural
peasantry was presumed to be disappearing, through urban migration, adjust-
ment to industrial occupations, increasing literacy, and intermarriage with
outsiders, and this meant the disappearance of the purest forms of American
folklore. Burdened by these biases, then, early folk song scholarship in the
United States became infused with a heavy strain of romanticism. Gazing
through the misty lens of this myth-tinged scholarship, it was difficult to see
the folk as they actually were. 14
When looking for survivals or remnants of the Anglo-Saxon past, the
scholar-romantics naturally turned their attention sourhward. It had long been
assumed that in a nation characterized by ceaseless change the South was a
land of stability and a repository of traditional values. Furthermore, the region
was already being described as the most Anglo-Saxon part of the country. This
view was reinforced by interest in the music of the West because the agrarian
nature of so much western enterprise called to mind southern rather than
northern associations. The publication of John A. Lomax's Cowboy Songr and
Other Frontier Ballads in 1910 sparked a great surge of interest in folk songs of
all kinds, and, in fact, inspired a search for folk material in all regions of the
nation. It also suggested links between the downhome music of southern whites
and the folk music of western settlers, especially that of cowboys, most of
whom had come from the South. These links, both real and imagined, pro-
foundly influenced country music, which for a time in the twentieth century
was prominently known as country-anti-western music. Cowboy culture actu-
ally was a composite of many racial and cultural groups, with invaluable Mexi-
can and Mrican-American, even northern, contributions to its creation. But
in the popular imagination in 1910 the man on horseback more closely re-
sembled characters in the old dime novels or in Owen Wister's The Virginian.
In short, he was a latter-day Anglo-Saxon knight. To many people, the cowboy's
commemoration in popular culture could not have come at a better time,
when Americans needed such a symbol to counter their anxieties concerning
the disappearance of rugged individualism in modern society. They were aided
in their quest by the Wild West shows that arose around the turn of the twen-
tieth century, which helped create the myth of the cowboy and popularized a
stylized form of attire considered appropriate for performing or stage cow-
boys. Depictions of cowboys in vaudeville routines, popular song lyrics and
the cover art on the sheet music by which they were distributed, and silent
films were strongly influenced by the Wild West shows. Oddly enough, the
shows seem not ro have used "western" or "cowboy" music at allY
If the cowboy symbolized what many white people in the United States
would like to have been, the southern mountaineer was, many of them felt, a
living reminder of what the archetypal American once was. Isolated from the
currents of social and economic change, the mountaineer remained "our con-
temporary ancestor," a self-reliant frontiersman who clung to Elizabethan ways.
Mary Noailles Murfree, writing under the pseudonym Charles Craddock, made
a powerful contribution to the romantic myth of the mountains with her
short stories and novels of the 1880s, but the most decisive entry of the moun-
taineer into American popular culture came with the novels of John Fox Jr.,
written just before World War I. By the time the folklorists began venturing
into the mountain regions in the early twentieth century, many people in the
United States were already predisposed to think of mountain people as quaint
relics of a bygone era or as simple conservators of an archaic tradition. The fact
that they sang songs no one else remembered was not surprising to anyone.
Mountaineers were of special interest to the teachers in the mountain settle-
ment schools. These Protestant missionaries, predominantly women, had come
south in the years after the Civil War to educate mountain children, to bring
"cultural uplift" to them, replacing the rough edges of mountain culture with
something approximating the New England middle-class ideal. The settle-

ment women's interpretation of the fine arts was much influenced by their
northern genteel upbringing, and their concept of folk music was naturally
shaped and limited by their high-art sensibilities. They were clearly not pre-
pared either to understand or to appreciate the rural music that enveloped
them in their adopted mountain surroundings and, in fact, fostered images of
Appalachian music that ran counter to what mountain folk actually sang and
played. Furthermore, many of the mountain families who sent their children
to the settlement schools wanted to have their sons and daughters exposed to
that finer world outside. They and their children were sometimes embarrassed
by their culture and were actively seeking "improvement," a sign of which was
abandonment of their traditional music. Still, some settlement workers con-
ceived of the schools as "folk schools" where mountain people were encour-
aged to preserve their own culture in the form of traditional ballads, folk songs,
and dances. In some cases, students learned about these traditions or had a
chance to think seriously about them for the first time. The teachers' biases,
however, ran toward the oldest and rarest British songs and against the newer
songs that had long been moving into the mountaineers' repertory, including,
among others, gospel and parlor songs. Moreover, like the academic folklorists
of their day, the settlement teachers had a static view of folklore, and in the
moral fervor of their mission they rejected songs they considered "unsuitable,"
such as "Frankie and Johnny" or "The Birmingham Jail."16
One of the settlement women, Olive Dame Campbell, wife of John C.
Campbell, director of the Southern Highland Division of the Russell Sage
Foundation, contributed directly to bringing the folk music of Appalachia to
the attention of the nation. An experienced folk song collector, she wrote to
English folk dance authority Cecil Sharp and encouraged him to come to the
southern mountains where, she predicted, he would find a body of folk songs
larger than that in his own country. From 1916 to 1918, Sharp spent a total of
about twelve months in the hills, talking to local singers and, with the assis-
tance of Maud Karpeles, transcribing in his notebooks both words and melo-
dies of traditional songs. Many of these songs were included in English Folk
Songs .from the Southern Appalachiam, which Sharp and Campbell first pub-
lished in 1917. Sharp suggested in his commentary that folk singing in the
mountains was far from being an archaic practice confined to a few old timers,
that indeed it was common among both young and old, a vigorous, living
force. He confirmed, therefore, much of what the literaty romancers had long
said about the Southern Appalachians. The region was indeed a land of an-
cient values, a cultural outpost of England, a preserve. Other students fol-
lowed Sharp's example, and in subsequent decades they explored the resources
of a number of folk communities in the United States, both mountain and

lowland.
Sharp's contributions to the broadening of understanding of America's
cultural history were many and positive, but his conservative, academic ap-
proach to folk music created a false impression about the breadth and scope of
southern music that later scholars have never really overcome. Sharp traveled
to the United States to find "English" songs, and, like most literary folk song
scholars of his day, he was much influenced by the scholarship of Francis
James Child. In his English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Child had selected
305 ballads and their variants, a corpus of material presumed to be literary in
origin and the most valuable surviving examples of the British tradition. Folk
scholars ever since have searched eagerly for specimens of the Child canon
extant in oral tradition, and they have generally described their collected bal-
lads or variants by the numbers ascribed to them in the Child volumes (as in
the case of "Barbara Allen," Child 84). Sharp was understandably quite pleased
to find such songs still being sung in the mountains, but he was not nearly so
delighted with the other varieties of music that he heard. Consequently, Sharp's
book did not present to its readers the total picture of folk music preferences
in the southern mountains, omitting religious music, for example, while rein-
forcing prevailing romantic ideas about the Upland South as the isolated re-
pository of old English ways.
Largely inspired by Sharp's scholarship, a host of folk-song enthusiasts
descended upon the Appalachians: not just scholars, but amateur collectors,
seekers after local color, and musicians and composers searching for concert
material. The 1920s witnessed a vigorous exploitation of mountain folk music
by concert performers, men and women who "interpreted" the music for their
sophisticated urban audiences. Elaine Wyman and Howard Brockway, for ex-
. ample, compiled a 1920 book called Kentucky Folk Songs, consisting of songs
they had originally collected for use in recitals. Some of the folk-song per-
formers of the period specialized in costume recitals, wearing clothing of the
time period or ethnic group from which the music derived. Grace Wood Jess,
a Kentuckian, gave concerts allover the United States dressed as a slave, a
plantation mistress, a Creole belle, a Mexican maiden, or whatever the occa-
sion or song dictated. Ethel Park Richardson, a long-time performer of folk
songs who had her own radio show, "Hillbilly Heart Throb," and the com-
piler of American Mountain Songs (1927), sometimes dressed like a mountain
woman and churned butter or shelled peas as she sang. Oscar Fox, a former
ranch boy from Burnet, Texas, who had studied classical piano in Germany,
arranged cowboy songs such as "Rounded Up in Glory" he found in John
Lomax's collection and presented them to his concert audiences. He was some-
times assisted by Woodward Maurice Ritter from Murvaul, Texas, appropri-

ately attired in cowboy regalia, who went on to win fame and affection among
fans of western movies and country and western music as "Tex" Ritter.
Of the costume recitalists, the most active and probably the most suc-
cessful was Edna Thomas of New Orleans. Thomas had performed classical
and semiclassical compositions in New York around the time of World War I,
but she began concentrating more heavily on folk material in the 1920s. Usu-
ally dressed in the costume of a gracious plantation lady, she carried southern
folk songs to genteel audiences in the United States and Europe. Such audi-
ences had never heard these songs before and would not have listened to them
at that time had the songs not been presented in a cultivated, semiclassical
style.
Edna Thomas and her folksinging colleagues of the 1920s, including
Carl Sandburg, who published The American Songbag in 1927, were the first
of that breed of collectors and entertainers who eventually were termed "ur-
ban folk singers." Thomas, Elaine Wyman, Grace Wood Jess, and such later
singers as Richard Dyer-Bennett, Burl Ives, Theodore Bikel, Pete Seeger, Bob
Dylan, Judy Collins, and Joan Baez were not folksingers at all, but interpreters
of folk traditions with which they had only remote connections, if any. Their
material was taken from the folk, but whether presented in a concert or recital
hall, a universiry student center, or a coffeehouse, it was performed for a non-
folk audience and in styles compatible with either cultivated or popular tastes.
Geographically closer to the folk and probably closer in spirit, though not
socioeconomically, was North Carolina folk song collector and festival orga-
nizer Bascom Lamar Lunsford. While pioneering the collection of folk songs
in the South, Lunsford worked very hard to preserve and present traditional
songs in the most authentic manner possible and made many invaluable re-
cordings for the Library of Congress even as he was contributing to the estab-
lishment of the commercial hillbilly music business. I? Generally, though, while
audiences for the Fisk Jubilee Singers or Edna Thomas came away with a
broader perception of the kinds of songs that circulated among the southern
folk, they received scarcely any inkling of how the folk themselves actually
sounded.
Cecil Sharp's research and that of the folklorists who followed him quick-
ened the interests of those who believed that "Anglo-Saxon" folk music should
be the basis of a national American music. It did not matter to them, if they
ever realized it, that the music of the mountains was a composite of the het-
erogeneous groupings of people who had settled the Appalachians-English,
Scots-Irish, Irish, Welsh, Germans, Indians, and even a few blacks-and was
therefore anything but purely Anglo-Saxon. It did not seem to matter that the
mountains had never been the totally isolated sanctuary of Elizabethan folk-
ways so celebrated in romance. What seemed important for the Anglo-Saxon
theorists to believe was that they had found at least one bastion of racial purity
in a society increasingly given over to racial and ethnic diversity, religious
pluralism, and cultural amalgamation. Henry Shapiro argues, in fact, that to
many Americans beset by unsettling changes in the 1920s, mountaineers "now
appeared as the conservators of the essential culture of America" and "Appala-
chia seemed to provide a benchmark against which to measure how far the
nation had come from its essential sel£"18 The romantics never mentioned the
irony of all this, if they ever pondered it, that the people they were promoting as
the most "American" were those they were also promoting as the most British. 19
Anglo-Saxon nationalists extracted from the Appalachian repertory the
music that best reflected a romantic view of mountain life, marked by social
conservatism, fierce individualism, simplicity, and morality, a general set of
characteristics that many Americans liked to ascribe to themselves. The songs
chosen for concert adaptation usually included the oldest and most pastoral
items in the body of Appalachian music. The emphasis on such material was
not false; it was merely incomplete. Indeed, mountaineers preserved much
British folklore, including some of the famous Child ballads, and they had
created their own store of songs reflecting their pioneer inheritance. But newer
songs and styles had been gradually moving into the mountains for at least a
century before Sharp came to the United States. Despite their supposed cul-
tural conservatism, mountaineers assimilated this new music with no sense of
contradiction or inappropriateness.
Mountain people had been learning about the outside world through
various means long before Cecil Sharp and the others "discovered" Appala-
chia, and their music reflected this fact. Young mountain men had seen ser-
vice in all of America's wars, one of the most common ways young people of
limited means encounter other cultures. By the early 1900s, too, the indus-
trial revolution had touched the mountains. Highways and railroads were pen-
etrating the most isolated hollows, and the timber, coal, and textile interests
were blasting the image of a wilderness paradise as they robbed the land of its
resources. Long before the radio and recording industries accelerated the pro-
cess of acculturation, new songs, styles, and instruments had moved into the
mountains, and mountain musicians had created their own songs to deal with
the changing socioeconomic realities of their region. Mountain singers knew
and loved the old "lonesome songs" such as "Little Matty Groves" and "The
Wife of Usher's Well," but they were equally fond of the more recent senti-
mental songs of pop origin such as "Bury Me Beneath the Willow," "Kitty Wells,"
and "Little Rosewood Casket." They saw nothing at all wrong with mixing
National Discovery 3S
these two types of songs, even if the academic folklorists abhorred the sentimen-
tal tunes and only reluctantly included them in their printed collections.
Proponents of theories of Anglo-Saxon purity in mountain culture rec-
ognized the threat to that culture represented by the encroachments of indus-
trialization. That realization gave their campaign a great deal of its sense of
urgency. Also, their disapproval of the newer songs grew in part from the
belief that these songs were signs and agents of cultural corruption. In fact, a
dual purpose often characterized the folk-song ventures of both the Anglo-
Saxonists and the academic folklorists: the need to preserve the old songs and
to combat their strongest competitors, the hillbilly songs, which were, in fact,
largely folk songs disseminated for commercial purposes via radio and phono-
graph recordings. Part of the hostility the collectors and scholars felt toward
commercialization of folk music, from the period of exploration through the
various folk music crazes of the twentieth century, stemmed from their belief
that the folk would remain pure only if they remained poor. These well-to-do
outsiders did not think it corrupt or impure that they were enriched to vary-
ing degrees by the music of the people they met in the mountains.
Chief among proponents of the Anglo-Saxon folk-song school was John
Powell, a Virginian and one of the South's leading classical musicians. In addi-
tion to being a composer and prominent pianist, Powell lectured, wrote ar-
ticles, and sponsored associations and festivals designed to promote the
preservation of the folk music of the South. Although he had decidedly racist
views, his work in southern vernacular music was not limited to that of white
mountaineers. He had made piano arrangements of African-American spiri-
tuals before he ventured into the field of Anglo-Saxon balladry, and he sub-
mitted an article to the first issue of the Southern Folklore Quarterly in which
he noted the survival of ancient British songs in southern locales outside the
mountains. 20 But in the 1920s, Powell was a dedicated evangelist of Anglo-
Saxon balladry and its suitability for classical artistic expression.
Powell, David Guion, and Lamar Stringfellow were the three most ac-
tive classical arrangers of southern folk music. But significant work along these
lines was done by Oscar Fox and Aaron Copland, a New York native who in
the 1930s and '40s adapted various American folk music motifs for his piano
and orchestral compositions based in part on his experiences visiting relatives
in Texas. Guion, a composer and pianist from Ballinger, Texas, was more catho-
lic in his approach to folk music than most of his academically trained peers.
His arrangements included elements of African-American tunes, fiddle tunes
such as "Turkey in the Straw," and cowboy melodies such as "Home on the
Range." Stringfellow, a North Carolinian, was the director of the North Caro-
lina Symphony Orchestra, the first state-sponsored orchestra in the nation.
His most imponant work drawing upon southern folk music was his Pulitzer
Prize-winning Suite from the Southern Mountains, composed in 1930.
Powell was often associated with Texas native Annabel Morris Buchanan
in the campaign to promote an appreciation for folk music in the South.
Together they founded the White Top Mountain Folk Festival in Virginia in
1931. Though it was not the first festival in the South, White Top seems to
have inspired the first collaboration by people with a background in high-an
music in the direction and control of such an event. It reflected the sense of
cultural mission of the southern upper class to teach and elevate the masses.
Annabel Buchanan was director of the folk music section of the Federated
Women's Music Clubs of America and a "serious" musician. She and Powell
occasionally wrote anicles conveying their theories of folk music and revealed
their ideas about the proper cultural and moral implications of such music,
which mixed cultural uplift with social control.
Buchanan and Powell were more tolerant toward the folk than were most
high-art advocates. That is, they encouraged the singing of old songs by the
folk themselves, rather than by cultivated singers who came from outside the
tradition. But Buchanan and Powell manipulated the performance styles ex-
hibited at the festival, seeking to reinforce their ideas of how traditional
music should be performed. They also tried to restrict the kinds of songs mak-
ing their way onto the festival stage. They might exclude a song on the basis of
its age, but more likely because of its nature and tone. They seemed to be
trying to transfer the cultural mission of the mountain settlement schools to
the festival setting. In an anicle in the Southern Folklore Quarterly, Buchanan
described the songs that would never gain admittance to a White Top Festival:
"products of the streets ... the penitentiaries ... the gutter." Songs from the
paperback gospel hymnals and songs about carousing and getting into trouble,
such as "Birmingham Jail," she said, would "beg admittance to the White Top
programs in vain." Buchanan and Powell excluded more than just songs. They
also went to great pains to keep black musicians from performing at the festi-
val, reflecting especially Powell's nativist and white-supremacist notions. White
Top's part in the efforts of the cultivated elite to use traditional southern moun-
tain culture as the basis for a distinctive (white) American "national culture"
historian David Whisnant calls "systematic cultural intervention," a conscious
effort by outsiders to affect a culture, not preserve it. 21
In rejecting certain types of music, the White Top Festival people were
also rejecting major historical developments in the lives of the plain people of
the South. The festival conception of southern folk society was that of a static,
racially homogeneous, pastoral, and isolated people. This projected idealiza-
tion had some basis in fact. The South was overwhelmingly rural and its people
tended to be socially more conservative than people in other parts of the United
States. But change had come to the mountains and to other parts of the South,
and newer songs and styles persistently made their way into the repertories of
the folk. Southern singers still occasionally sang ballads that were already old
when the first American settlements were made, but they also composed and
sang songs that reflected a commercial-utban-industrial order slowly supplant-
ing agriculture in the South. The distorted White Top Festival point of view
failed to recognize that the folk music of the South was an organic reflection
of the changes in the world of the southern folk and that their music mirrored
their grappling with the emerging social forces that challenged the whole of
their existence. 22
By the end of the 1920s, the proponents of high-art music had discov-
ered three general types of southern folk music and had appropriated them for
artistic purposes: the spirituals of African Americans, the ballads of the moun-
tain folk, and the cowboy songs of southerners and others presumed to have
affinity with southern culture. But in each case, members of the cultural elite
romanticized the music so heavily that the lives of its creators were distorted,
sometimes beyond recognition. The country as a whole, while enriched by
these borrowings, received a decidedly limited view of the cultures of black
and white southerners. The total richness and diversity of southern music
remained largely hidden.
Meanwhile, these same black and white southerners had been building
their own forms and styles of music, largely unaffected by what the high-art
advocates did or believed. Southerners in increasing numbers became aware
of the high-art philosophy and agenda, through schoolbooks and musical pro-
grams that they tolerated, assimilated, or ignored as their interests dictated.
Furthermore, hillbilly singers such as Carl Sprague from Texas and Ernest
Stoneman from Virginia recorded songs that they learned from the Lomax,
Sharp, and other folk song collections. But southerners of modest means went
on having their fiddling contests, singing conventions, and house parties dis-
tinct from the attempts of high-art advocates to reorient southern music. Some
southerners, such as the family of singer Jean Ritchie of Kentucky, learned
from the settlement schools with deep appreciation. Others took what they
wanted from the encounter with the settlement workers and festival organiz-
ers and set about fashioning forms that they thought might enable them to
use their music to improve their economic straits. The result was a change of
a sort unintended by the high-art advocates and of a magnitude unforeseen by
anyone. These musical forms, disseminated to the American audience through
commercial means, became in the twentieth century the bases for virtually
every style of popular music in the United States. Instead of being used artifi-
cially to fashion an outsider's version of a national musical culture, southern

music appropriated for itself, with the help of a number of talented producers
and marketing professionals, a vast section of the nation's musical culture in
ways and with results John Powell and his compatriots could scarcely have
imagined.
Chapter 3
EARLY COMMERCIALIZATION
RAGTIME, BLUES, JAZZ
With the emergence of ragtime in the late 1890s, southern-born singers and
styles first entered the realm of American popular culture. The ragtime craze,
which did so much to make the popular music business a major industry in
the United States, was only the first of several vital infusions of southern-
derived folk styles into mainstream popular music. But like the other forms
that continually followed it, such as blues, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues,
rock 'n roll, and country, ragtime lost its unique regional and racial identities
as it became absorbed into the national mainstream.
Ragtime was only one product of the Mrican-American search for musi-
cal individuality in the decades following emancipation, and the style reflected
the rise of the city and the entrance of blacks and "ethnics" in general into
American popular culture. To an even greater degree than blackface minstrelsy,
ragtime represented the most serious threat that the genteel tradition of popu-
lar music had yet faced in the United States. With Scott Joplin and other
blacks providing the initial impetus for making the music nationally popular,
and Jewish firms such as Shapiro and Bernstein dominating the publishing
business, it is no wonder that such an Anglo-Saxon nationalist as Henry Ford
could later charge that Tin Pan Alley was a Jewish conspiracy to ''Mricanize''
America's music.
Although white publishers and promoters contributed to the making of
ragtime at every stage of its evolution, black composers and performers pro-
vided its driving force during the style's formative years. The roots of ragtime
lay in Mrican American dance music, in the fiddle-and-banjo music of the
plantations and its accompanying rhythm of foot stomping and hand clap-
ping. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, ragtime became inti-
mately associated with the piano, an instrumental adaptation that constitutes
a major innovation in American black music. The late nineteenth century was
the great age of the piano in the United States, and blacks differed little from
whites in their desire to purchase an instrument whose ownership was equated
with social standing and respectability. Few blacks, however, could afford pi-
anos, and as Eileen Southern has argued, many black musicians received their
introduction to keyboard instruments on the little parlor organs their families
bought on lifetime installment plans. 1 Other musicians learned by watching
pianists in restaurants, saloons, honky-tonks, brothels, churches, or music stores.
A few managed to receive formal musical instruction. Most of the ragtime
pianists, however, were itinerants, roaming through towns and cities from
New Orleans to Chicago or along the East Coast, playing in the flimsy
barrelhouses of the lumber camps, in the sporting houses of New Orleans,
Memphis, and St. Louis, and in saloons, gambling establishments, and bars
everywhere. The instrument they played was new to the black folk experience,
but the music to which it was adapted, and the styles that became identified
with it, came out of the older traditions of black dance music. Although the
piano soon became a valuable component of instrumental ensembles, the early
pianists had to simulate the sound of a band themselves. Consequently, they
used the left hand to beat out a percussive, often march-like rhythm, while
playing a syncopated melody with the right hand, a technique perfected by
Scott Joplin.
Although he neither created the music nor coined the term "rag," Joplin
became most dearly associated with the developing art form. He strove mightily,
but with tragic frustration, to gain acceptance for the genre as "serious" music.
Joplin was born into a family of self-taught musicians near Texarkana, Texas,
in 1868. His father, a railroad worker, somehow managed to buy a piano, and
Scott soon picked up the basics of the instrument. He received some training
in classical music from a German immigrant piano teacher believed to have
been named Julius Weiss, but his first sustained experience as a pianist came
in the honky-tonks and brothels of the Mississippi Valley. Joplin and other
early ragtime composers absorbed the music they heard in the black communi-
ties, like the folk music collectors in other parts of the South, and organized it
into "brief suites or anthologies which they called piano rags."2 Some of these
suites featured sections that amounted to variations on themes while some
passages developed entirely new themes, although they usually kept the same
rhythm throughout the entire rag. Many of Joplin's compositions had dance
annotations following their titles such as "A Ragtime Two Step" for "Sun-
flower Slow Drag" (1901) and "The Entertainer" (1902) and "Cake Walk
March" for "Something Doing" (1903). By the time he published his first
composition, "Please Say You Will," in Syracuse, New York, in 1895, Joplin
had already served about a ten-year apprenticeship in the honky-tonks, as well
Early Commercialization 41
as more reputable establishments, of St. Louis, Chicago, and Sedalia, Mis-

souri. Joplin's most popular song, "Maple Leaf Rag," named for the Sedalia
club where he .often played, was published by John Stark, his partner until
1909. "Maple Leaf Rag," which consists of an elaborate series of passages,
choruses, bridges, and variations, was one of the biggest sheet music sellers in
popular music history.3 Along with other ragtime compositions that began
pouring out of the publishing houses, "Maple Leaf Rag" helped to fuel the
first great boom in the popular music industry.
In the late nineteenth century, the urban-industrial revolution created
an audience hungry for musical innovation. As the principal source of music
in urban residences in the days before the development of recording technol-
ogy and the appearance of radio, pianos appeared in thousands of American
homes. A corresponding unprecedented growth in demand for sheet music
appeared. The ragtime craze lured songwriters from allover the nation, and
the syncopated rhythm was often fused in the 1890s with the "coon song," a
very popular type of song of minstrel origin that stereotyped African Ameri-
cans as shiftless, dishonest, sex-crazed buffoons. The form became so per-
vasive and lucrative a force in American show business that even a black writer,
Ernest Hogan, composed a song called ''All Coons Look Alike to Me."
After 1900 the term "rag" became affixed to many kinds of songs, such
as Irving Berlin's ''Alexander's Ragtime Band," which had only the remotest
relationship to real ragtime music, and "Ragtime Annie," a fiddle tune that
probably dates from the nineteenth century. Joplin was frustrated by his in-
ability to get his music accepted as serious art-his rag opera, Treemonisha,
had only one performance in Harlem in 1915-and he died in a mental hos-
pital in 1917. But he, Tom Turpin, James Scott, Eubie Blake, and other com-
posers had made the nation ragtime-conscious, and in so doing they had
"brought attention to black musicians, either as serious artists or as capable
and inventive entenainers."4 They had also demonstrated once again the per-
sistent appeal of southern images to a nation moving rapidly toward the com-
plexity of urban society. This time, however, the image was not necessarily one
of stability or security. Although one is struck today by the gentle or innocent
sound of ragtime, in 1900 "respectable" patrons of cultivated music were scan-
dalized by it, while its adherents found escape in a music that suggested the
reputed gay charm and sensuality of black and/or southern life.
Ragtime's challenge to Anglo-Saxon supremacy and the genteel music tradi-

tion was reinforced by another product of the folk South, the blues. Develop-
ing and maturing since the Civil War, the blues emerged from the tradition of
field hollers, work shouts, and spirituals common among southern rural Afri-
can Americans. Emancipation brought a new freedom to articulate grievances

or desires and permitted black music to develop in something other than a
communal setting. Indeed Lawrence Levine argues that the blues were "the
first almost completely personalized music that the Afro-Americans developed"
and therefore "represented a major degree of acculturation to the individual-
ized ethos of the larger society."5 Blues musicians became famous as solo per-
formers, but they were not merely voicing their own private feelings. They
were entertainers who sought also to divert, amuse, and provide escape for
their listeners. The blues arose out of pain, poverty, and injustice, which many
of the songs address directly, but the general mood of the music was not exclu-
sively sad or self-pitying: "Like the spirituals of the nineteenth century the
blues was a cry for release, an ode to movement and mobility, a blend of
despair and hope."6
As innovative as the blues might appear to be as a solo expression, the
form continued to demonstrate its indebtedness to and interrelatedness with
older Mrican-American folk music forms. Vocal mannerisms of blues singers
were not original to the new music, nor was the classic twelve-bar, three-line
aab stanzaic formula of t..lte blues. Even the most pervasive and group-oriented
black musical trait, the call-and-response pattern, was borrowed from earlier
folk music forms and perpetuated by solo blues stylists as singers interacted
with their audiences or carried on dialogues with themselves or with their
instruments. Much of the foundation of the blues was built on skillful guitar
playing. During the concluding years of the nineteenth century and in the
early years of the twentieth, black musicians achieved a mastery over the gui-
tar that they had never exhibited during the days of slavery. In the hands of a
skilled blues musician the guitar became, in effect, a second voice, punctuat-
ing the singer's remarks, or responding to them. The blues also benefited from
both personal and communal feelings. An individual singer might utter a very
personal message, but it was one that his or her listeners could easily under-
stand and share, and it drew upon the total body of black folk experience. In
a sense, improvising blues singers "composed" songs each time they performed,
but the lyrics of these songs, as Samuel Charters maintains, were a distinctive
language that had the "inflection and richness of the spoken language ... the
way people talked to each other on the street, the way men and women talked
to each other."? The lyrics of blues songs floated freely from singer to singer
and from one part of the South to another and on to the ghettos of the North.
The blues were the common possession of the Mrican Americans of the South
and then of the United States as a whole.
While it is accepted that the blues were rooted in the black experience in
the South, there is considerable disagreement concerning where exactly in the
South the form began. Several researchers, including Samuel Charters, who
wrote the first general study of the rural blues, postulate a genesis in the Missis-
sippi Delta, where a heavy concentration of black field workers built "a strongly
developed tradition of rhymed work song material" in the context of almost
total isolation from white society.8 Jeff Todd Titon suspects that blues had
multiple sources, but he agrees that "the tradition developed most fully in east
Texas and the Mississippi River Delta region during the first decades of the
twentieth century. Other authorities have proposed East Texas origins for the
blues, as well as the area around Atlanta. 9
Many of the most famous early Mississippi bluesmen of commercial
recording fame such as Charley Patton, Sam Collins, Tommy Johnson, Son
House, Skip James, and John Hurt began their careers playing for plantation
social functions such as fish fries, picnics, and Saturday night dances. They
learned from each other and bequeathed much of their music to younger
musicians who often heard them only on recordings, which became one of the
central means of popularizing and modifying blues styles across the South.
Strong vocal and instrumental similarities exist among Mississippi bluesmen,
but the migration of musicians began so early after the Civil War, and the
influence of other forms of music, such as ragtime, was so pervasive, that it is
dangerous to make hard and fast judgments concerning musical style or the
purity of its origins. It is also easy to underestimate the role played by song-
sters in the development and distribution of blues music. The itinerant musi-
cal jacks-of-all-trades incorporated blues into their repertories, catching the
attention of certain members of their audiences who were captivated by the
blues numbers more so than by the popular and sentimental songs that ap-
peared in the same performances. Some of those audience members went on
to become blues performers of renown. The style of Mississippi Delta singers
was often "hard and unrelenting," melodically limited, and marked by growl-
ing tones that sometimes ascended into falsetto. But John Hurt, from Teoc,
Mississippi, one of the state's most beloved singers and one who made its
name part of his own, sang in a gentle, relaxed, and almost lyrical style. 10
Similarly, Mississippi blues performers generally favored "harmonically am-
biguous and polyrhythmic" guitar styles, but so did such musicians as Blind
Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson who came from Texas. II The use of
devices to make a guitar simulate the sound of a human voice-the sliding of
bottlenecks, pocket knives, or other objects along the strings, or pushing a
string to one side of the fingerboard, called "choking" the string or "bending"
the note-was most common among guitarists in Mississippi but appeared
prominently in the playing of artists from other places, such as Blind Willie
Johnson.
Texas blues, by and large, exhibited a greater stylistic variability than did
the Mississippi blues, suggesting Texas's greater cultural complexity. Alger
"Texas" Alexander confounds generalizations because this highly respected Texas
bluesman sang in a rough wail suggestive of the field holler origins of the blues
while Blind Lemon Jefferson achieved fame with his high-pitched, almost
ethereal singing. Some of the variety in Texas blues style can be attributed to
the decentralization of the black population of Texas. It was much less con-
centrated than that of the Deep South, and it evolved in proximity to a num-
ber of important musical traditions, those of rural Anglos, Cajuns, cowboys,
Hispanics, and Central Eutopeans. Texas blues singers in eastern and south-
eastern Texas sang for parties and other rural social functions and in the
barrelhouses of the lumber camps. Singers who grew tired of working local
functions ventured into nearby towns to sing on street corners or in bars or for
crowds that assembled at county fairs, political rallies, trades days, or medi-
cine shows. Musicians also wandered into the bigger towns and cities of the
region such as Austin, Shreveport, Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston, and
several of the best of them were heard on phonograph recordings in the late
1920s and early 1930s. Texas blues also exerted an influence beyond state
lines, exhibited by the emulation of artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson by
performers from other parts of the South. While Alan Lomax calls the legend-
ary Delta bluesman Robert Johnson "one of the two or three great originals of
the blues," he says that Johnson's recordings of the 1930s suggest that he was
"one of Lemon's brilliant disciples."12
Although the rural blues were widely known throughout the South to
whites as well as blacks in the years before World War J, Americans elsewhere
scarcely knew of the music, or vaguely conceived of it as "songs of the South-
ern underworld."13 The blues in its rawest form did not get a national hearing
until the mid-1920s. Like most manifestations of folk music, the southern
blues moved into the American consciousness by a circuitous route. They
were first popularized by professional, nonfolk entertainers who arranged, or
watered them down, for respectable, urban consumption. The agents through
whom the blues revolution was inaugurated were two southern black men,
William C. Handy and Perry Bradford, both of whom had absorbed musical
material from the grassroots but aspired to better things .
. As he describes it in his autobiography, Handy's first encounter with the
raw, rural blues was a revelation, a turning point in his career. 14 One day in
1903, while he and his Knights of Pythias band were stopping in Tutweiler,
Mississippi-in the heart of the Delta country-Handy heard a black rural
bluesman strum his guitar and wail that he was going where "the Southern
cross the dog," a reference to the junction of the Southern Railroad and the
Yazoo and Mississippi Valley line, locally nicknamed the "Yellow Dog," at
Moorhead. The song eventually became the basis for Handy's own "Yellow
Dog Blues," but it also inspired his larger campaign to seize upon the ingredi-
ents of the southern rural blues for his own artistic purposes. Like Scott Joplin,
Handy was a trained musician who sought to rise above his humble origins
seeking his musical fortune in urb~ settings using more elevated types of
music. But, again like Joplin, he was an unwitting folklorist who absorbed
and revitalized the musical styles he heard during his wanderings through the
South and Midwest. When he made his fateful contact with the rural blues in
1903, Handy had thirty years behind him of varied experiences and exposures
to virtually every kind of music available in the United States, from classical to
ragtime. Born in Florence, Alabama, on November 16, 1873, Handy had to
combat the prejudice of his father, who believed that stringed instruments
were tools of the devil, and that of his first music teacher, who told him that
professional musicians were wastrels and drunkards. But the irrepressible Handy
could not be kept away from music. He played cornet in a local band, sang
first tenor in a quartet, toured with a small Alabama minstrel unit, played in a
brass band, and in 1896 went to Chicago and joined WA. Mahara's Minstrels,
a large organization playing everything from marches and overtures to Stephen
Foster songs. This diverse background in popular music, along with a stint as
an English teacher and band leader at the Agricultural and Mechanical Col-
lege in Huntsville, Alabama, where he encountered a strong prejudice against
music written by U.S. composers, lent an eclecticism to his music that few
musicians possessed.
After another short period with Mahara's Minstrels, in 1903 Handy be-
came director of a Knights of Pythias band in Clarksdale, Mississippi. From
this date until 1914 Handy became immersed in the blues, hearing the form
often during appearances throughout the Delta, and then in Memphis where
he relocated. When Handy moved there, Memphis was a hub of musical en-
ergy, and Beale Street had already become the fabled center of saloons and
brothels where such bands as the one led by West Dukes played for the nightly
enjoyment of the rural African Americans who had been pouring into the city
since emancipation. In 1909 Handy made his first contribution to the emerg-
ing blues genre when he wrote, at the request of the organization promoting
Edward Hull "Boss" Ctump's mayoral campaign, a song whose tune became
known as "Memphis Blues" but was originally titled "Mr. Crump." ("Mr.
Crump don't 'low no easy riders around here.") He sold the song for only fifty
dollars, but it was immensely popular in the Memphis area and established his
reputation as a songwriter. The tune was followed by other blues composi-
tions, but the one that did most to make the nation blues-conscious was "St.
Louis Blues," which Handy wrote in September 1914, inspired by memories

of an 1893 visit to Targee Street in St. Louis. "St. Louis Blues" well illustrates
Handy's eclecticism, the sophistication lent to a rural-derived form by a pro-
fessionally trained, urban-oriented musician, and his gifts for marketing. The
tune features a Latin-influenced introduction and bridge, which Handy in-
cluded, he said, because "the tango was in vogue. I tricked the dancers by
arranging a tango introduction, breaking abruptly into a low-down blues."15
Between 1914 and 1920 people throughout the United States gradually
became introduced to the blues, but usually in a sophisticated form largely
shorn of rural characteristics, both written and performed by people who knew
the form only secondhand. Many of the songs that gained popularity in these
years were vaudeville blues composed for torch and cabaret singers. w.e. Handy,
for instance, inspired many imitators, white and black, who churned out songs
for the emerging city blues singers. One such successful blues composer was
Perry Bradford, born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1895, but by 1919 a resi-
dent of Harlem, where he produced musicals, played the piano, and wrote
songs. Bradford fought valiantly in those years to gain national acceptance for
Mrican-American entertainers and their music. When he moved to New York,
he entered an active black show business scene in Harlem that was vigorously
breaking away from the constricting influences of minstrelsy. Bob Cole and
others were producing all-black revues, and the Johnson Brothers from Florida,
J. Rosamond and James Weldon, were busily producing songs such as "Under
the Bamboo Tree" that competed favorably with the music of the white com-
posers oflin Pan Alley. The Johnsons, who were well educated, worked strenu-
ously to eliminate grotesque black stereotypes in popular music that were left
over from the days of the coon songs. Bradford sought to move black music
out of Harlem and into the national limelight, while also expanding the per-
forming horizons of African-American singers. In the years immediately after
World War I, the most effective means of quick and expanded exposure ap-
peared to be phonograph recording. Black entertainers had been conspicu-
ously absent from recordings, and Bradford set out to correct the imbalance.
He approached recording company officials at both Victor and Columbia and
tried to persuade them to record Mamie Smith, a young singer from Ohio
who had become well known in New York because of her singing in the 1919
production "Made in Harlem," an all-black revue. Those two companies re-
jected his requests, but the General Phonograph Company, owner of the Okeh
label, recorded Smith's singing of two Bradford compositions, "That Thing
Called Love" and "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down." Neither song was a
blues tune, but they were among the first examples of a black singer recorded
in solo performance, and they were soon followed, on August 10, 1920, by
Smith's recording of another Bradford song, "Crazy Blues," the first vocal blues
recording. 16 Significantly, Okeh had renamed the song, once called "Harlem
Blues," in order to attract white as well as black customers. Bradford had told
the Okeh people that southern blacks would enthusiastically buy records by
members of their race and that southern whites, who had heard such music all
their lives, would buy them "like nobody's business."I?
"Crazy Blues," as well as subsequent recordings by Mamie Smith, sold
well indeed and set a precedent quickly followed by other recordings. Smith,
however, was a cabaret singer rather than a blues stylist, and many of the
women who emulated her, recording for other companies that quickly fol-
lowed Okeh's lead, were "overnight converts from pop music who learned the
form but lacked the feel of the blues idiom."18 Regardless of the diluted nature
of some of the recordings, the black population of the United States was hun-
gry for black music, and the recording industry, after decades of neglect, be-
gan to satisfy the demand. In the years following 1920 an extraordinarily wide
array of Mrican-American talent was recorded, on major labels such as Okeh,
Victor, Brunswick, and Columbia, on small labels such as Gennett and Para-
mount, and occasionally on black-owned labels such as Harry Pace's Black
Swan. The music recorded ranged from primitive blues. renditions that ech-
oed the field hollers or work shouts to sophisticated and complex jazz arrange-
ments. Despite the diverse nature and style of the material, black recordings
for many years were categorized as "race records," a term coined by Okeh's
Ralph Peer and used by that label as early as January 1922 and for years there-
after in racially segregated catalogs and brochures put out by various record
companies. The term race was used widely before 1920 to describe the emerg-
ing and self-conscious black population of the United States, so when militant
newspapers such as the Chicago Defender advertised or endorsed "race record-
ings," they meant that such songs sprang from or represented the feelings of
Mrican Americans. It became a matter of racial pride, and an example of
incipient black nationalism, to support such musical expression. Pullman por-
ters brought armloads of records south on their runs out of Chicago, and
Mrican Americans everywhere purchased records in great quantities. Pho-
nographs were highly prized pieces of furniture in black tenant farmers' homes,
and even those farmers who did not own them often bought records that they
played on their neighbors' machines. Surveys of African-American families in
the late 1920s and early '30s routinely showed more ownership of phono-
graph machines than radios. Partly because radio reception was still somewhat
unreliable, especially in rural areas, phonograph records remained the key means
of distributing black music during that period. 19
Mamie Smith's recording of "Crazy Blues" in 1920 represented a mile-
stone in the cultural transformation that made folk music in the United States
available to the general populace. She was neither southern, folk, nor rural,
and "Crazy Blues" was really a sophisticated imitation of the rural blues. Paul
Oliver refers to her as a "professional singer on the vaudeville stage," but she
helped spread the blues, including more authentic versions of it, throughout
the country by inspiring the recording of singers whose voices carried both the
inflections and the feeling of the southern blues. The greatest of these singers
was Bessie Smith, "the Empress of the Blues," who made her first records for
Columbia under the direction of veteran talent scout Frank Walker on Feb-
ruary 16, 1923. 20
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1894, Bessie Smith was the young-
est of seven children. Both of her parents died before she was nine years old,
by which time she was singing for nickels and dimes on Ninth Street in Chat-
tanooga to the guitar accompaniment of her brother Andrew. About 1912 she
became a member of a show that included her brother Clarence and the leg-
endary singer Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, who, like Mamie Smith, sang blues songs
but became best known for her minstrel work in vaudeville. Only a few months
later Bessie Smith joined another traveling troupe along with Ma Rainey and
her husband, Will. Gradually she gained extensive popularity in the South,
and in some of the northern ghettos, traveling with all-black troupes, some of
which still carried the "minstrel'? tag, and appearing in far-flung clubs and
theaters. Many of the theaters, which included the 81 Theatre in Atlanta, the
Frolic in Birmingham, the Bijou in Nashville, and the Palace in Memphis,
were part of a chain of white-owned vaudeville houses that catered to black
audiences. Organized in 1911, the chain was called the Theatre Owners Book-
ing Association (TOBA). Because of the low pay and grinding performing
schedule associated with it, black entertainers often said TOBA stood for "tough
on black artists" (or "asses"). Smith continued to play the southern circuits
throughout her career, but by 1920 she had moved to Philadelphia. By 1923,
when she made her first records, she had amassed a large following in most
northern communities where blacks had congregated. Ted Gioia states that
after her hit "Down Hearted Blues," she was earning $2,000 a week, a far cry
from the $2.50 a week she earned with TOBA.21
In all likelihood, no singer before Bessie Smith communicated so effec-
tively with a mass Mrican-American audience and none achieved such a he-
roic stature among them. As her commercial appeal broadened, her repertoty
also expanded to encompass songs well outside the blues idiom, including the
newest popular hits of the day. But she invested even the most sophisticated
songs with the moaning, soulful quality of the downhome South. Although
her personal life would have shocked many church members, her style was
strongly suggestive of religious singing, and she, in turn, influenced the style
of some later gospel singers, including Mahalia Jackson. Smith's reputation
became such that many of America's greatest musicians, especially from the
developing jazz field, sought to be associated with her on recordings and in
personal appearances. In addition, the careers of several fledgling musicians
were enhanced by being identified with the great Empress. Fletcher Henderson,
for example, began recording with her in 1923, and on January 14, 1925, the
young Louis Armstrong participated in three recording sessions with Smith,
one of which included her great recording of "St. Louis Blues." Smith's per-
sonal career, thus, is closely intertwined with, and largely responsible for, the
popularization of both the blues and jazz.
After the mid-I920s Bessie Smith was usually in command of her own
touring shows, some of which were highly organized and elaborate operations
such as the 1925 Harlem Frolics. These shows featured a large orchestra, a
group of dancers, a stage crew, and stage equipment. Smith, too, was highly
conscious of her image and lived the blues queen role, dressing regally, spend-
ing money lavishly, and traveling in grand style. In the mid-1920s, for in-
stance, she traveled in a private railroad car equipped with a kitchen and a
bathroom. She won fame and fortune that lasted at least until the mid-1930s;
but her personal life was often fraught with tragedy and pain, marital distress,
drugs, and alcohol. She was only forty-three when she died on a lonely road
near Clarksdale, Mississippi, the victim of an automobile accident on the night
of September 26, 1937. Tragically, but perhaps fittingly, the Empress of the
Blues died in the region where the blues was born and not -many miles ftom
where w.e. Handy first heard the form.
Commercial successes enjoyed by Bessie Smith and other "classic blues"
singers, a term that came to be used for women who sang with jazz accompani-
ment, awakened the recording industry to the existence of a large black audi-
ence that wanted to hear real blues music performed by its own people, and
not the watered-down adaptations composed and arranged for white audi-
ences. The rural blues, however, the music that provided the basis for the
entire blues genre, experienced a relatively brief recording history. It was not
recorded with any frequency until 1926, and it suffered a drastic decline after
the onset of the Great Depression. The rural or country blues, in contrast to
the classic or city blues, was essentially music performed by men to their own
guitar accompaniment. Jeff TIton describes the rural material as downhome
blues, whether performed by a singer living in a southern city or in a northern
ghetto, because the music reflected, or reminded the listener of, the old south-
ern rural home and the associations it brought to mind and to heartY TIton
argues that the first downhome singer on records was Daddy Stovepipe, who
50 Southern Music /American Music
recorded two songs on May 10, 1924, but the singer usually credited with the
first recordings was an ex-minstrel entertainer, Papa Charlie Jackson, who re-
corded with his own guitar accompaniment in August 1924. Although it be-
gan to take on characteristics of the urban blues as the 1920s went on, the
downhome blues style flourished on recordings from about 1926 to 1930.
During that time, approximately two thousand titles were issued and the en-
tire range of rural blues material, if not the total preference of the musicians,
was recorded on 78-rpm discs. Echoes of unaccompanied nineteenth-century
field hollers (epitomized by "Texas" Alexander), the songster tradition (Henry
"Ragtime Texas" Thomas), Delta blues (Charley Patton), gospel blues (Blind
Willie Johnson), hillbilly blues (Coley Jones), jug band blues (Cannon's Jug
Stompers), and sophisticated blues (Lonnie Johnson) were only a few of the
styles available to the record buyer.
Blind Lemon Jefferson's recording in April 1926 was the catalyst for the
first major search for downhome talent by the phonograph companies. Jefferson
was born in 1897 in Couchman, Texas, not far from Wortham. Blind from
birth, he was already singing on the streets of Wortham well before World War
I and soon was a fixture at country dances throughout the county. In about
1917 he moved to Dallas, where he remained for almost ten years, using that
city as a base for his, performances in north central Texas and becoming a
fixture in Dallas's Elm Street "Deep Ellum" music district. Occasionally
Jefferson worked with another musician, but usually alone, often playing all
night for dances. Jefferson was a physically striking man. He was grossly over-
weight and, though totally blind, wore wire-rimmed glasses on the end of his
nose. But he had an uncommon power over his listeners, especially women,
who fawned over him. Some of the most famous blues singers, such as Huddie
Ledbetter (Leadbelly), Josh White, Lightnin' Hopkins, and T-Bone Walker
later claimed to have had a close association with him. Long before he made
his first records for Paramount, evidently after a Dallas record dealer named
Sam Price told the company about him, Jefferson had already built a regional
reputation and had developed the individualistic style that made him a popu-
lar recording performer on both the Paramount and the Okeh labels. Jefferson
sang in a freewheeling, wailing manner that set him apart both from his Texas
contemporaries and from the Mississippi Delta singers. His guitar playing
also contributed to his popularity, providing an expressive second voice that
complemented rather than repeated the shouted lyrics. Jefferson was already
virtually a legend among his fans and fellow blues artists when he died of
exposure on a Chicago street one wintry night in 1930. He was buried in an
unmarked grave in a country cemetery near Wortham. Other performers car-
ried on the tradition of the downhome blues, in the city of Jefferson's death
and elsewhere. Leroy Carr, Lonnie Johnson, and others created urban deriva-
tives of the form that spoke to the feelings and experiences of African Ameri-
cans in the North as well as the South. They all contributed to the creation of
a sense of cultural autonomy among black people in the United States at a
time when they had little independence of any other sort.
Downhome blues reminded African Americans of their humble, rural origins,

even as it moved into such places as Chicago and other cities. In contrast, from
its beginnings, jazz suggested the aura and liberation of the beckoning cities.
Jazz moved into the national consciousness as a southern-derived music, but its
roots lay in many places in Mrica, in the Caribbean, in Europe, and in the
United States and its most extensive development occurred in the urban centers
of the U.S. and Europe. The songs in the jazz repertory came from a multitude
ofsources including folk music, religious music, minstrelsy, ragtime, blues, march-
ing and concert band music, and modern high-art compositions. But jazz was
overwhelmingly an instrumental style, and it developed when musicians welded
these various musical forms into ensemble instrumental patterns.
Although jazz drew from many sources, nowhere were these diverse
musical influences so concentrated as in New Orleans. Some interpreters of
jazz who emphasize its Mrican origins posit a simple progression from Mrica
to the Caribbean to New Orleans, where it became concentrated in the broth-
els of Storyville, the red-light district that flourished from 1897 to 1917. Then
with the closing of Storyville by the U.S. Navy Department, jazz musicians
took the music up the Mississippi and to Chicago and ultimately to the rest of
the United States. But the musical culture of New Orleans put its stamp on
the development of jazz in complicated ways, and the northern migration of
Mrican Americans took more forms than simply going up the river. For one
thing, the city was peculiarly situated to receive music from many places in
the world. It had a close relationship with the Caribbean, but it also had a past
under French and Spanish as well as American rule. As a seaport, it also re-
ceived visitors and cultural and economic influences from allover the world.
Furthermore, like the great port cities of the East, New Orleans received large
waves of Irish, German, and Italian immigrants in the nineteenth century.
Throughout that century the city was known for the breadth and variety of its
music. As previously mentioned, light opera was performed there from the
1790s on and grand opera after the 1830s. In addition balls and street parades
occurred constantly, and virtually all fraternal and benevolent organizations,
black and white, had marching bands ready to perform at the slightest provo-
cation. One could hear their music in the parks on weekends, as well as a
myriad of musical styles from street entertainers and vendors.
Jazz bands borrowed their instruments and many of their songs, what
has been called "the bedrock of the New Orleans jazz repertoire," from the
marching street bands. According to William J. Schafer, the street bands also
introduced the African-American technique of syncopation to jazz in its for-
mative stages: "The process changed the plodding, walking march measure
into a varied dance rhythm. The march beat shifted from the stiff l-and-3
accent of military cadence to the springy 2-and-4 of Afro-American music."23
The real transition to jazz came at the turn of the century when small groups
of musicians, drawing on marching-band experience, began playing what was
generally called ragtime for the hordes of partygoers caught up in the great
national vogue for social dancing. The ingredients that made jazz distinc-
tive-syncopation, antiphony, improvisation, polyrhythm, the use of "blue"
notes-<ame from black musicians drawing upon the Aftican-American, and
not solely the African, experience. Jazz did not develop in Africa; it emerged in
the United States when Americans of African descent drew upon their total
experience to create a new musical style out of a multitude of older ones.
Several musicians, including the white bandleader Papa Jack Laine, spoke of
"ragging" tunes before 1900, but the performer who is often viewed as the
"first man of jazz" was Charles "Buddy" Bolden. Between 1895 and 1907
Bolden became "the key figure in the formation of classic jazz and his personal
cornet style, one of a shouting, incredible power, established one of the two
main jazz trumpet styles," the other being that of Bunk Johnson, which was
characterized by a light touch and precise phrasing. 24
Bolden made no phonograph recordings and was not mentioned in the
New Orleans newspapers until he was committed to a state mental institution
in 1907. Consequently, he had always been a shadowy figure in the history of
early jazz until the appearance of Donald M. Marquis's myth-shattering and
meticulously documented biography.25 Although he seems to have been little
known to the white community, Bolden became a heroic figure to blacks
through his performances in the local parks and in the string of bars and
dance halls in the area intersected by South Rampart and Perdido Streets.
Encouraged by the enthusiasm of his listeners and by the fierce competition of
other musicians, Bolden continually sttove to create distinctive sounds and
rhythms. This kind of creativity sparked the transition to jazz. In the peak
years of his activity, 1900-1905, Bolden built the most popular dance band in
New Orleans and pioneered in the employment of the "classic" jazz ensemble:
a front line of horns and a back line of rhythm instruments. This great pioneer
of jazz spent the last twenty-five years of his life in the state mental hospital in
Jackson, Louisiana. His death on November 4, 1931, was scarcely noticed or
mourned, and he now rests in an unmarked grave in New Orleans.
Like all early jazz musicians Bolden drew upon the total musical envi-
ronment of New Orleans, and his performances took him allover the city and
into a wide variety of entertainment formats. Only rarely, however, did he
play in Storyville, the one area that in the popular imagination has been most
associated with the birth of jazz. No facet of the jazz story has had a more
tenacious or romantic hold on the popular imagination than that of its sup-
posed Storyville origins. This notorious haven of legalized prostitution was
named after Sidney Story, the New Orleans alderman who suggested its cre-
ation, but described in the press as "the restricted district." It abounded in
bars, dance halls, and cabarets as well as bordellos, and in all of these places
music was a constant backdrop for the diversions of the flesh. Many fine mu-
sicians played the Storyville establishments, including the great "professors" of
the piano, Clarence Williams, Tony Jackson, and Ferdinand "Jelly Roll Morton"
Le Menthe, and such groups as the Olympia Band, Bunk Johnson's Superior
Band, Freddie Keppard's Creole Band, Kid Ory's Brownskin Band, and Manuel
Perez's Imperial Orchestra. When the district was closed down, many of them
departed for other cities, although as Kathy Ogren and other scholars have
pointed out, the demise of Storyville only accelerated a jazz exodus from New
Orleans already under way.26 Furthermore, jazz began before the district was
established by statute in 1897, and "the majority of black musicians of out-
standing ability in New Orleans never worked so much as a single night" in
the area. AI Rose placed the Storyville-jazz relationship in the proper perspec-
tive when he said that "jazz was not born in Storyville, nor was it even reared
there. Storyville was just one part of the passing scene in which this great art
form happened to thrive," although Linda Dahl has observed that many early
female jazz singers started their entertainment careers as Storyville prostitutes. 27
Though the closing of Storyville contributed to the exodus of musicians
from New Orleans, their departure began considerably earlier than 1917. Jazz,
or at least the forerunner of what came to be called jazz, began moving north
by railroads at the end of the nineteenth century and on the excursion steam-
ers to Memphis, St. Louis, and other points on the Mississippi River by the
1910s. The showboat bands were not always jazz groups, but they included
such great jazz personalities as Warren "Baby" Dodds, George "Pops" Foster,
Johnny St. Cyr, and Louis Armstrong. Furthermore, the Original Creole Band
was already making vaudeville tours to such far-flung points as California and
New York by 1912, and other black musicians were playing in obscure bars on
the south side of Chicago by 1915. Burton Peretti points out that New Or-
leans jazz bands also migrated in significant numbers to the West Coast, find-
ing especially receptive audiences in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland. 28
Despite the vital contributions made by African Americans to the cre-
ation and shaping of jazz, white New Orleans musicians introduced the form
into the national consciousness and first popularized the term "jazz" or "jass."
In June 1915 Tom Brown and his New Orleans band took a job at Lamb's
Club in Chicago. They were derided by the local musicians' union as a "jazz"
group, a term associated with whorehouse music. As might have been ex-
pected, the notorious connotation attracted, rather than repelled, public in-
terest, and people attended the New Orleans group's performances in great
numbers. The band soon began calling themselves Brown's DixielandJass Band.
In 1916 another group of white performers moved from New Orleans to
Chicago, playing first at Schiller's Cafe and then at the Del'Abe Cafe. At the
latter job they adopted the name Dixieland Jass Band. After their move to
New York in January 1917, the spelling was changed to "jazz," and the band
made recording history. An initial record for Columbia was filed away and not
immediately released, but on February 26, 1917, the band recorded "Livery
Stable Blues" and "Dixieland Jazz Band One-Step" for the Victor Talking
Machine Company. The record experienced an extremely large sale, and white
imitators began to spring up allover the country. The national vogue for jazz
music was under way.
Although they did much of their path-breaking work in northern cities,
southern white musicians ushered in the jazz revolution, borrowing and adapt-
ing a musical form developed by Mrican Americans. It was another five years
before the first black jazz records were issued. Therefore, the music that made
the revolution in jazz and first captured the attention of the American public
was "dixieland," a style of music imitative of black music. In his book on the
Original Dixieland Jazz Band, H.O. Brunn discusses the pervasive musicality
of New Orleans and tells how ODJB leader Dominic James "Nick" LaRocca
absorbed such music from infancy, but mentions Mrican-American musicians
hardly at all. Cenainly, no black New Orleans band is cited as having had an
influence on laRocca's or the other ODJB members' styles. Virtually all other
writers, however, described the ODJB as a band imitative of black musicians,
and Rudi Blesh calls it a weak imitation at that. 29
Almost immediately jazz, like rock 'n' roll about forty years later, be-
came the center of controversy, and the term came to be applied to an entire
decade. Many people saw it as an exciting art form and a healthy liberation of
musical styles. Few high-art people recognized any art in it, and many other
Americans thought they saw in it, and in the lifestyle it supposedly repre-
sented, a force potentially destructive not only of good music but of decency
itself. Even the New Orleans Times-Picayune said that "jazz music is the inde-
cent story syncopated and counterpointed" and that "its musical value is nil."
An editorial in the Times-Picayune in 1918 referred to it as "the dime novel or
the grease-dripping doughnut," although some writers ofletters to the paper's

editor defended jazz. Donald Marquis asserts that no friendly accounts of jazz
appeared in the New Orleans newspapers until 1933. 30 It is not surprising
that, given its rhythmic abandon and Mrican-American origins, jazz was soon
denounced by Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent as a threat to public morals
and as further evidence of a Jewish conspiracy designed to debauch American
musicY The inherent conservatism of so much of U.S. culture in the 1920s,
however, could not stem the rising tide, the sea change in music being wrought
by jazz. If not everyone in the United States was being swept away by the Jazz
Age, there certainly were those who believed and behaved as though that were
the case.
"When they finally became available, actual recordings of black jazz mu-
sicians added incredible energy to the force of jazz. The public had to wait for
this development until 1923. Joseph "King" Oliver, born in New Orleans
about 1885, came to Chicago in 1917 or 1918 and played his cornet in several
bands before organizing his own Creole Jazz Band in 1920. After a short so-
journ in California he returned to the Lincoln Gardens Cafe in Chicago where,
in 1922, he added a second cornetist, the youthful Louis Armstrong. The
following year the band recorded for both Paramount and Gennett, the Gennett
records being the first to appear on the market. These recordings, along with
others released by the band on the Okeh and Columbia labels, were described
by Blesh as "the first definitive records of the Negro's classic jazz. "32 This music
attracted imitators as immediately as had the earlier white Dixieland record-
ing groups. In fact, Europeans began to be jazz-conscious almost as quickly as
did Americans. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band went to Britain in March
1919 and played to standing-room-only crowds. "While jazz was winning in-
ternational acclaim, in the U.S. it was also making intoads into the "better
music" audience, though in a greatly diluted form. On February 12, 1924,
Paul Whiteman held his "Jazz Concert" at Aeolian Hall in New York. This
concert of "symphonic jazz," which featured George Gershwin's first public
performance of Rhapsody in Blue, was designed to give jazz respectability and
to break down the opposition of its more refined critics. Already, in a pattern
that had been demonstrated earlier in the case of ragtime and blues and that
surfaced repeatedly in the twentieth century, a black-derived folk art was taken
over by whites who moved it away from its folk moorings. Although jazz
quickly expanded in style and popularity and often merged its identity with
other forms of popular music, its classic style endured. By and large, its direc-
tion was shaped by black southern musicians, with some of the greatest com-
ing from New Orleans, such as Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, Johnny
Dodds, and Louis Armstrong. Morton was a pianist of great diversity and skill
who, despite the fact that his claim to have invented jazz was exaggerated, was
the first successful composer and arranger in jazz music, a key figure in the
transition from ragtime to jazz, and one of the leaders in infusing jazz with
Latin rhythms. Bechet, a Creole of Color, as was Morton, helped popularize
jazz in Europe through highly praised appearances throughout the 1920s, es-
tablished the soprano saxophone as a jazz instrument, and achieved great ac-
claim as a composer. Dodds was a great, though sometimes overlooked,
clarinetist. Armstrong, the most beloved of all jazzmen, was virtually a na-
tional institution at the time of his death in 1971.
Daniel Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans in 1901. He was
introduced to music at the Negro Waifs' Home for Boys, where he was placed
at the age of thirteen after celebrating New Year's Eve by firing his stepfather's
gun on the street, a New Orleans tradition. Although he had broad-ranging
musical interests as a young person, studied music, and became the leader of
the waifs' home's brass band, his real introduction to jazz came from the music
he heard floating out of the Storyville establishments and from his member-
ship in the Kid Ory and Fate Marable bands. He took his style to Chicago in
1922, and then to New York in 1924, as a member of Fletcher Henderson's
band. After 1925, when he returned to Chicago, he usually led his own bands,
including the Hot Five and Hot Seven groups with such preeminent musi-
cians as Johnny Dodds, trombonist Kid Ory, banjoist Johnny St. Cyr, and
pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, his wife. Armstrong was the first genuine star
to emerge from the burgeoning throng of jazz musicians and the first of them
to forge a reputation as a great soloist and innovator. Though jazz fans praised
him for his brilliant cornet and trumpet playing, the populace at large came to
know Armstrong as much for his singing. His gravel-voiced style was pecu-
liarly effective, and his "scat" singing, the use of nonsense phrases to simulate
the sound of horns, influenced other jazz and pop singers. Through his per-
sonal appearances in the United States and on many foreign tours, the first of
which came in 1932, as well as through a prolific outpouring of recordings
going back to his work with King Oliver in 1922, Armstrong became virtually
the symbol of jazz, its U.S. ambassador, to people around the world.
From the time of its early commercialization, jazz established itself, like
blues, as a form with long-lasting power. While ragtime remained largely fro-
zen in the form it had taken by the time of World War I, jazz and blues went
through many stylistic changes and became international phenomena. Rag-
time helped Mrican-American performers establish their credibility and mar-
ketability, but the entire popular music industry profited from the jazz
explosion after the 1920s. For its part, blues formed the basis of several forms
that emerged after World War II and had a profound effect on jazz, as it had
from the beginning. As blues became the possession of the U.S. as a whole and
inspired fervent devotion in other countries, it became less southern. Jazz lost
its southern identity more completely, although many southerners, such as
Fletcher Henderson, Lester Young, Nat "King" Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, John
Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, Charlie Christian, and Thelonius Monk played piv-
otal roles in its periodic reinvigoration or reshaping. In the years since jazz
burst onto the national scene, its various forms, ranging from the traditional
to the most progressive and experimental, built identities somewhat apart from
mainstream popular music and attracted adherents unwilling to listen to or
play any other kind of music. Furthermore, jazz as a whole influenced virtu-
ally every other kind of American music, from country to classical. Most main-
stream pop performers showed the influence of jazz in one way or another,
and in so doing they demonstrated the tendency of popular music to absorb
and dilute all musical genres while also deregionalizing them. Alongside blues,
however, jazz showed the immense creative, and market, potential of black
southern music, running parallel to and occasionally mixing with the South's
other great stream of musical culture, that of rural white southerners.
Chapter 4
EXPANDING MARKETS
TEJANO, CAJUN, HILLBILLY, GOSPEL
The decade of the 1920s witnessed the first full-scale commercialization of

rural southern folk music, made possible by the developing giants of musical
distribution, phonograph recordings and radio. In that decade, the two indus-
tries were not as intimately related as they later became. Radio stations rarely
played recorded music over the air, broadcasting live performances instead,
often by regularly appearing local groups or soloists or "staff" musicians who
played at different times of the day or night on shows underwritten by local
sponsors. On some programs, musicians promoted recordings they had made,
but just as often they promoted upcoming local or regional live appearances
they planned to make at dances, school shows, or store openings and the like.
Although the record industry predated the broadcasting industry, the growing
popularity of radio, a free medium requiring only the purchase of the receiv-
ing set, forced the recording field to seek means of remaining commercially
competitive. The introduction of electrical reproduction in 1925-26 promoted
better recording quality, and recording industry personnel took various steps
to reach broader audiences, which stimulated the search for ethnic and folk
performers. In searching for these performers, representatives of the electronic
mass media sought to provide musical entertainment that was familiar to people
living in an age before the homogenization or nationalization of vernacular
music in the United States, a process to which these media contributed greatly.
Radio stations appeared in southern cities as early as 1922. Almost im-
mediately they began featuring live local talent, including fiddlers, string bands,
mandolin and guitar clubs, Hawaiian groups, yodelers, quartets, and blues
singers. Usually such entertainers performed on an irregular basis, but by the
mid-I920s a few stations, such as WBAP in Fort Worth, WSM in Nashville,
and WSB in Atlanta, offered regularly scheduled "barn dances" on a week-to-
week basis. The barn dances were inspired by the rural dances of the American
frontier and were composed almost exclusively of string-band music. The most
Expanding Markets 59
famous of these radio shows, ultimately, was the WSM Barn Dance, inaugu-
rated in 1925, and soon to be called the Grand Ole Opry. WSM used talent
found in Nashville and in the immediate surrounding area. The performers,
according to Charles Wolfe, the chief historian of the Grand Ole Opry, were
generally amateurs who had played only in the area of their homes. Occasion-
ally, Opry performers such as Uncle Dave Macon had had some experience on
the southern vaudeville circuits or had built at least minor reputations playing
in medicine shows or entertaining at county fairs, political rallies, or fiddling
contests, or mer~ly singing and hawking their song sheets wherever a crowd
gathered. l
Commercial potential had never been totally absent from southern rural
music, but radio provided a means of immediate and widespread exposure far
more advantageous than any medium yet created. Folk entertainers on the
radio played for increasingly large audiences, built up a string of personal
appearances within the .listening range of the stations, and increased both the
size and scope of their performing repertories. Newly composed songs inevita-
bly, and successfully, competed with traditional material, but folk performance
styles demonstrated a remarkable endurance. Since its inception in 1888, the
recording industry had been preeminently a city-oriented phenomenon and
had generally ignored rural folk music. Folk songs or dance tunes had ap-
peared on records, usually performed by urban professional musicians. Except
for occasional groups such as the Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, hardly any
bona fide southern rural music, performed by southern rural entertainers, had
appeared on disc or cylinder recordings prior to the 1920s. Mamie Smith's
recording of "Crazy Blues" in 1920, however, generated an interest in African-
American music and the subsequent discovery of a large black audience for
recordings of it. Record companies discovered other previously neglected mar-
kets among the nation's ethnic and grassroots groups. Much of this music-
Finnish, Irish, Polish, and so on-was aimed at northern and big-city audiences.
But the rural South was also found to have its enclaves of unassimilated ethnic
elements--especially Hispanics, Cajuns, and hillbillies-and their folk music
forms were also recorded.
Although the blues music of Mrican Americans in Texas had a great impact on
the musical culture of the state and beyond, people of Mexican descent have
long been the largest ethnic minority group in Texas, and they have produced
a vigorous and exciting body of music. Described variously as Tejano, mUsica
Nortefia, mUsica Tejana, sometimes even Tex-Mex, the music has roots deep in
the time before Texas was part of the United States. It grew out of the cultural-
ethnic mix of Spanish and French parlor or salon music and Mexican dance
traditions, drew instrumentation and stylistic innovation from encounters with

German and Czech immigrants, and reflected in South Texas the same free-
dom and experimental spirit the frontier experience inspired elsewhere in North
America. The music had two streams, so to speak, a working-class variety
whose musical groups were called conjuntos, and a middle-class variety whose
bands were called orquestas Tejanas. Commercially recorded for the first time
in the late 1920s, the music ofTejanos has always shared some of the stylistic
traits of the music produced south of the border, including frequent use of
corridos, narrative ballads having historical or romantic associations, a form
with a long tradition in Mexico. The music was formed, however, in the Texas
experience of people of Mexican descent and of their interrelationships with
other cultural groups in the diverse region south of Austin. Joe Nick Patoski
goes so far as to say that the music is "wholly Texan and is considered foreign
even in Monterrey."2
Many musicians contributed to the wondrous blend of Tejano music,
but Lydia Mendoza's career was the longest and most distinctive. Born in
Houston in 1916, she first performed with other members of her family (La
Familia Mendoza) but by 1934 had embarked on a solo career, accompanied
often only by her twelve-string guitar, and recording for the Bluebird label.
With such songs as "Mal Hombre" and "Pero Hay Que Triste," she built a
close bond with her working-class listeners and proudly declared that she "sang
for the workers." Her devoted fans described her as "La Alondra de la Frontera"
(the Meadowlark of the Border). Not only did such music become the chief
cultural staple of working-class Tejanos, it also served often as a symbol of
racial pride for Latinos at other socioeconomic levels. In the same ways that
jazz and blues moved with African Americans from the South to the Midwest
and to California, as Tejanos migrated to Southern California, the Pacific
Northwest, the Great Lakes region, the Upper Midwest, and other regions,
they took their music with them.
While adhering to the Spanish language, especially its South Texas ver-
sion, Tejano musicians built up a peculiar composite of musical styles, draw-
ing heavily on the accordion and on the rhythms of the polka music of their
Texas-German neighbors. From the time of Lydia Mendoza in the 1930s,
Selena Quintanilla in the 1990s, and Little Joe Hernandez and Flaco Jimenez
in between, such performers became sources of immense pride to their com-
patriots and won recognition within the larger Anglo population. Les Blank's
1970s documentary film Chu/as Fronteras, Chris Strachwitz's ten-record col-
lection of music ranging from 1928 to the 1970s, and the Spanish-language
crossover hits by mainstream pop artist Linda Ronstadt in the 1980s and '90s
indicated growing interest in la mUsica Tejana. 3 Its popularity, however, mainly
remained a phenomenon within the community that gave rise to the music, a
community that often also supported country-and-western music, rock 'n'
roll, and pop music drawn from the Anglo market and whose own artists
sometimes engaged in these forms. The country hits ofJohnny Rodriguez and
Freddy Fender (Baldemar Huerta), the country/rock/Tejano styles of the Texas
Tornados, and the incandescent popularity in the 1990s of Selena, whose pro-
motion and staging borrowed heavily from mainstream pop figures such as
Madonna, point to the musical diversity and creative freedom of life in a
borderland. The South Texas region was not the only cultural transition rone,
however, where southern music blended with other forms. The regional popu-
larity of la mUsica Tejana was paralleled in several ways by the music of another
cultural borderland, the Cajun-French territory of southwestern Louisiana and
southeastern Texas.
Cajun music was discovered commercially, and somewhat inauspiciously,
in 1928 when a singer and accordionist ftom Rayne, Louisiana, was recorded
in New Orleans. Joseph Falcon, accompanied by his guitar-playing wife,
Cleoma Breaux Falcon, recorded a song called ''Allons a Lafayene" (Let's Go
to Lafayette), a reference to one of the principal cities in Acadiana. Falcon was
neither the best nor the most representative of Cajun musicians, but his re-
cordings were immensely popular among Cajuns, and Falcon contributed
mightily to the popularization of the accordion in southwestern Louisiana.
Speculation has arisen over the years about how accordions came to that area.
Barry Jean Ancelet and colleagues propose that they may have been brought
to the region by German merchants. In ways probably similar to Tejano musi-
cians' incorporation of accordions into their musical lineups, Ancelet, Edwards,
and Pitre say, "The accordion arrived without instructions or cultural bag-
gage. Acadian and black Creole musicians began experimenting with it, dis-
covering how to coax familiar tunes out of this new music-making
contraption."4 The fiddle, which had long been a fixture at fais-do-dos, the
all-night country dances so beloved in Cajun territory, was temporarily eclipsed
by the accordion's popularity and did not really resume its prominence until
the 1930s. Despite the prominence on early Cajun recordings of the accordion,
which went into its own decline in the 1930s, the fiddle was never totally
absent. While there was no single style of Cajun fiddling, the musician who
did the most to revitalize the instrument, and who also played a central role in
the 1930s in both the popularization and modification of Cajun music, was
Leo Soileau of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Soileau began his recording career in
1928, playing a duet with Mayuse Lafleur, a young accordionist who met his
death from a stray bullet in a tavern brawl in October of that same year. Not
only did Soileau contribute to the development of enduring fiddle styles, he
was also pardy responsible for popularizing the high-pitched, wailing vocal
style so typical of Cajun music.
Cajun culture exelted a powerful impact on all who came into south-
western Louisiana, whether "American," Hispanic, German, or Mrican Ameri-
can. Lauren C. Post possibly overstates the case but says, "the newcomers lost
all contact with their original groups and had no feeling of belonging to any
but the Acadian population."5 As a result, several musicians of mixed ancestry
attained great prominence as Cajun entertainers. Among them were Lawrence
Walker, Dennis McGhee, Harry Choates, and the black accordionists Amade
Ardoin and Clifton Chenier. Early Cajun recordings were probably limited in
circulation to those areas inhabited by people of Cajun-French extraction or
by people who had grown up in the Cajun culture, in the region extending
from southwestern Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast eastward to Mobile
and westward through Beaumont and Port Arthur to Houston. But increas-
ingly in the 1930s people outside of Cajun culture began to learn about the
music. John Lomax made field recordings of Cajun musicians for the Library
of Congress in the 1930s, and Cajun performers appeared at the Texas Cen-
tennial celebration in Dallas in 1936. The western swing craze of the 1930s
drew many Cajun musicians away from their own music and toward more
Arrglicized forms, probably because of the prominence of the fiddle in western
swing and other forms of country music. After World War II, segments of the
populace at large discovered Cajun music in its hybridized country-and-west-
ern form, particularly through Moon Mullican's very popular "cover" of Harry
Choates's "Jole Blon," or as Zydeco, the blues-influenced dance music of the
French-speaking black Creoles. 6 Clifton Chenier did most to popularize the
fusion of r & b and French music now known as Zydeco. Born in St. Landry
Parish in 1925, Chenier began his career as a singer and accordionist playing
mostly blues music in western Louisiana and southeast Texas, patticularly in
an area of Houston called Frenchtown. By 1965 he was freely mixing the
Cajun French patois with his blues tunes. On May 11, 1965, he recorded
"Zydeco Sont pas Sale" ("The Snap Beans Aren't Salty") and therefore con-
tributed greatly to the circulation of a label that was already being used by
folklorist Mack McCormick to describe such music. Chenier was extremely
popular in the region that extended from Cajun Louisiana to Houston, and
he well deserved the title that he proudly bore, "the King of Louisiana." Cajun
music before 1930 had been very strongly rooted in the rural French culture
that gave it birth, even though that music had itself borrowed heavily from
German-, Aftican-, and Anglo-American sources. The music had not lost its
identity, however, even after World War II, when it began to be known out-
side the area of its origins. After the war, according to Barry Jean Ancelet,
"Cajuns began to show signs of learning to better negotiate the American

mainstream in a way that would allow them to preserve their own cultural
identity. Musicians were among the first to announce the change by returning
to traditional sounds."? They were able to do so in large part because record
company officials were more interested in expanding markets than in regulat-
ing minority cultures.
In its competition with radio the recording industry also began to ex-
ploit other varieties of southern white rural music, much of which was re-
corded after it first gained exposure through the broadcasting medium. The
earliest recordings of such music were made by oldtime fiddlers, including
Alexander Campbell "Eck" Robertson, an Arkansas native who made his mark
as a fiddler in Texas. Others soon followed. Much of the rural talent heard on
WSB in Atlanta soon after the station began operating in 1922 made its way
onto recordings later in the decade. The first of such entertainers to record,
and the one who did the most to illustrate the commercial potential of what
came to be called hillbilly music, was Fiddling John Carson from Georgia.
Although the Okeh talent scout Ralph Peer was intensely skeptical of the
marketability of the material he heard, describing Carson's singing as "pluper-
fect awful," Fiddling John's recording of "The Old Hen Cackled and the
Rooster's Going to Crow" and "Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" sold several
thousand copies. Peer had greatly miscalculated the tastes of the Georgia farmers
and millworkers who had enjoyed hearing Carson at fiddle contests and po-
litical rallies for many years. Peer apparently failed to realize as well that mil-
lions of working-class southerners yearned to hear music performed by
entertainers much like themselves. Despite Peer's personal predilections, many
people enjoyed Carson's formal, hymn-singing style. Nevertheless, it seemed·
archaic to twentieth-century urbanites, a dialect that came straight out of the
plain folk, "redneck" South.
In the wake of Carson's success, rural singers who represented a host of
occupations began to appear on recordings: farmers, millworkers, railroad
workers, coal miners, cowboys, and barbers, even doctors and lawyers. But
regardless of background or status, these musicians, and the music they per-
formed, were destined to be labeled "hillbilly," a catch-all term that branded
all southern white grassroots music as culturally inferior. Ralph Peer seems to
have been the first to apply the term to southern rural music when he called Al
Hopkins's string band the Hillbillies in 1925, but given the social context of
the twenties, it is not surprising to find such a label popularly affIxed to a
rural-derived music coming out of the South. As George B. Tindall has shown,
the image of the South as a "benighted" region-a land of backwardness,
decadence, violence, superstition, and racism-gained greater strength in the
1920s, a decade characterized by national progress and social change. 8 In the

minds of ~any observers and social critics, the people who gave the nation the
Scopes monkey trial, the Ku Klux Klan, sharecropping, and prohibition had
also produced hillbilly music. The music thus began its commercial evolution
laden with negative connotations that it never really overcame, presumed to
be the product of cultural degenerates and a projection of their demented
values. The fact that the music was commercial also influenced the reactions
of some people. Hillbilly music, the creation of the folk, did not conform to
the romanticized conceptions of folk music so prevalent in the '20s, and it
certainly did not square with the self-images that many upper-class and for-
ward-looking southerners held of themselves and their region. If anything, the
music seemed to represent the victory of the Snopesian South, the distasteful
fusion of poor white music with the boorish business culture of the United
States. The radio hillbillies seemed far different from the prevalent conception,
held by both scholars and the public alike, of the folk as the isolated and
unchanging descendants of Elizabethan settlers, and the music they performed
could hardly be accepted as the remnants of medieval and pastoral balladry.
If some people rejected hillbilly music because of what they considered
its crassness, others may have gravitated toward it because it represented to
them an image of an older and simpler America and an alternative to the
frenetic dance music of the 1920s. Henry Ford was not alone among Ameri-
cans in deploring the rise of jazz and the subordination of the less complex
and more restrained dance music of earlier, rural America. He struck a re-
ceptive chord in the hearts of many people when he sponsored a series of
oldtime fiddling contests after 1926 in several cities of the United States. If
people in the United States yearned to hear the good old songs of the nine-
teenth century or earlier, they were most likely to hear them on the radio barn
dances or on the hillbilly recordings. The barn dances tried hard to project an
aura of wholesome, down-to-earth, family-style entertainment, and radio pro-
gram directors and advertisers often insisted that hillbilly performers affect
rustic attire and rustic names, even though the performers might have pre-
ferred to dress in a more urban manner.
Issued beginning in the mid-1920s, 78 rpm hillbilly records are valuable
documents depicting song material that urban America had forgotten: vari-
ants of British ballads and love songs, frontier fiddle tunes and play-party
songs, camp-meeting songs and tunes from the shape-note hymnals, and a
very large body of songs that originated as pop songs in the nineteenth cen-
tury, such as "Put My Little Shoes Away," "Over the Garden Wall," "The Fatal
Wedding," and ''I'll Twine 'mid the Ringlets," later known as "Wildwood
Flower." Lovers of old-time sentimental songs had no need to despair about
their disappearance, for they could hear such numbers, or similar ones, on
hillbilly recordings, albeit with southern rural accents. In the newly composed
songs found on hillbilly records one could also find a reaffirmation of tradi-
tional religion and conventional morality, but in many of the songs of rural
white southerners, old and new, one could also detect voices of concern for
the present or the future, of dissatisfaction, and of protest.
Country music, whether in its hillbilly form, or in its more recent so-
phisticated manifestations, has always been a music of social commentary.
Blind Alfred Reed, for instance, voiced a concern felt by many conservative
Americans in the 1920s when he sang "Why do you bob your hair, girls?" A
very popular type of song found on hillbilly records in that decade was the
event song, a type reminiscent of the broadside ballads that commented on
topical events of the day. Such songs as "The Sinking of the TItanic," "The
Wreck of the 1256," "The Fate of Edward Hickman," "Bruno Richard
Hauptmann," and "The Death of Floyd Collins" invariably pointed out mor-
als that could be drawn from tales of tragedy and disaster. Floyd Collins, ac-
cording to the ballad of 1925, met his death in a sandstone cave because he
had not followed his father's advice. Hillbilly music, as the product of the
rural South, conveyed the conflicting impulses and images of the region that
gave it birth.9 It was a melding of rural and urban influences; it was simulta-
neously southern and American; and its performers and audience were torn
by opposing desires, clinging to a self-image of rustic simplicity while at the
same time striving to be accepted in an urban, middle-class milieu. Conse-
quently, the music encompassed widely divergent strains. Hillbilly singers alter-
nately condemned and celebrated demon rum, for instance. Some of the
heaviest drinkers were the most ardent advocates, in song, of abstinence, pro-
hibition, or both. Many hillbilly songs defended law and order on the one
hand and on the other glorified outlaws such as Jesse James and Billy the Kid.
On occasion, the music applauded humanity's mastery over the machine, as
in the classic "John Henry," the story of a black steeldriver that was more
popular among hillbillies than among African Americans. But hillbilly songs
just as often lauded the machine itself, as in Uncle Dave Macon's paean to the
Ford automobile, "On the Dixie Bee Line." Hillbilly singers might extol the
virtues of the old home place, and the sense of security it represented, while
conversely romanticizing the rambling man who refused to be tied down to
such a life. Country music's first two great influential acts, the Caner Family
and Jimmie Rodgers, embodied the conflicting impulses of love of home and
fascination with the wanderer both in their lives and in their repertories.
During the same short time span in the first four days of August 1927
the Carters and Jimmie Rodgers were recorded for the first time in Bristol,
Tennessee, by a crew of Victor recording engineers directed by Ralph Peer.

AP. Carter, his wife Sara, and AP.'s sister-in-law Maybelle, came from nearby
Maces Spring in southwestern Virginia to inaugurate a family career that en-
dured as such until 1943 and, in various other manifestations, for generations
after that. Maybelle Carter, who came to be called Mother Maybelle, per-
formed with her daughters as part of her son-in-law Johnny Cash's traveling
show until her death in 1978.10 The Carter Family built up a large following
through their Victor, Columbia, and Decca recordings, as well as by personal
appearances and transcribed broadcasts over the legendary Mexican border
station XERF. Even though their reputation spread, the Carter Family never
moved very far stylistically from their origins. They always sounded like a
group singing for a small circle of friends gathered in a family parlor or at a
church social, and the bulk of their songs came from the paperback hymnals
or from the nineteenth-century song sheets. Even when they moved toward
the inclusion of newly composed songs, as all hillbilly performers did, their
choices still reflected the values, aspirations, and fears of the rural Protestant
South and its longings for stability in a world succumbing to change. AP. and
Sara were divorced during much of their performing career, so when the Carter
Family sang "Will the Circle Be Unbroken,» one of their most enduring songs,
they sang with an acute consciousness of family dissolution, something many
of their listeners knew too well but longed to forget.
Jimmie Rodgers, on the other hand, had never enjoyed the advantages
of a settled home ljfe. Born near Meridian, Mississippi, in 1897, he lost his
mother before he was four years old, and because his father's railroad work
often took him away from home, the boy lived in a succession of relatives'
homes. Rodgers became a railroad worker when he was fourteen years old and
remained one until 1925, when a worsening case of tuberculosis forced his
retirement. By late 1927, when he became a full-time professional musician,
Rodgers had seen more of the world and had sampled a broader range of
experiences than most rural southerners could have imagined. His railroad
work had taken him to Texas and the Southwest, and he had lived for a brief
period in New Orleans. Before he made his first records for Victor, Rodgers
had played in a dance band in Meridian, had toured the southern mountains
as a blackface entertainer with a medicine show, and had played briefly with a
string band in Asheville, North Carolina.
While the Carter Family was a repository of nineteenth-century popular
music, Rodgers was more responsive to the popular currents of his own day,
and his recordings were important vehicles by which such forms as yodeling,
Dixieland jazz, and Hawaiian music moved into the country genre. The en-
during and eclectic nature of his music is evidenced by the diverse character of
artists who offered recorded tributes to Rodgers in the last decades of the
twentieth century, including Merle Haggard, Leon Redbone, and Bob Dylan.
One hundred years after Rodgers's birth, even the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame
in Cleveland prepared a special tribute to him because of his influence on
early expressions of that form. Eclecticism was only one of his contributions
to country music, however. Through his songs, his devil-may-care personality,
and his early death at the age of thirty-six, Rodgers contributed to an en-
duringly popular mystique in country music, that of the free, rambling, but
star-crossed young man. There was nothing menacing in his personality, and
certainly no tinge of the outlaw, but Rodgers projected the image of a man
who had been everywhere and who had done everything. He was the worldly-
wise rounder who loved the women and left them behind, but who also pos-
sessed a tender solicitude for children and mothers, as in "Sleep, Baby, Sleep"
and "Mother, the Queen of My Heart." Rodgers often sang about hoboes, as
in "Waiting for a Train" and "Hobo Bill's Last Ride," rounders, as in "My
Rough and Rowdy Ways," and convicts, as in "Moonlight and Skies" and
"Ninety Nine Year Blues," both written by a real convict, Raymond E. Hall,
then serving in the Texas state prison. Rodgers, in short, drew upon images
that had been popular among white southerners' European ancestors and per-
haps among poor and oppressed people everywhere. Although the rambling-
man image had Old World origins, it gained a new validity during the
Depression era among poor, confined, and isolated rural southerners who
could find escape, if nothing else, in an identification with the unfettered and
footloose characters who populated much of the music they heard on their
radios and record machines. Hillbilly music, like the people who produced
and nourished it, was typically ambivalent about home, the country, and the
South, idealizing them while exhibiting a fascination with rambling. Home
was often extolled after it was abandoned, and the wandering life was some-
times glorified because it was unattainable. Ironically, but not surprisingly,
Jimmie Rodgers's favorite song among his own recordings was "Daddy and
Home."
Another expression of the white grassroots mind that underwent commercial-

ization during the 1920s was gospel music. White gospel music has always
been closely related to the rural secular music of the South, with both phe-
nomena drawing from the folk resources of the region. Secular and sacred
music represented two different expressions of the same mind, and they expe-
rienced similar commercial evolutions. The gospel music business, which be-
came a major facet of the nation's entertainment industry, developed out of
two aspects of nineteenth-century American religious history, the shape-note
singing schools and the evangelical revivals. But it drew much of its dynamism
and much of its personnel from the Holiness-Pentecostal movement of the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By 1900 a great stream of reli-
gious songs, fed by the big-city revivals of the era, flowed into U.S. popular
culture, and in the South such songs circulated invariably in shape-note form.
On an average of twice a year, several publishing houses printed paperback hym-
nals designed for church conventions and singing schools. The publishing houses
were sometimes aligned with religious denominations, or adjuncts of them, but
even the independent ones defined their goals in missionary terms. They were
intent on evangelizing the nation through the power of song.
While concerns such as those headed by A.J. Showalter and R.E. Winsett
made important contributions in popularizing and distributing southern gos-
pel music, the Vaughan Publishing Company of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee,
made the most crucial innovations in the marketing of the music. Until at
least the late 1930s it was the most effective of the southern gospel publishing
houses. The founder of the company, James D. Vaughan, was a devout mem-
ber of the Church of the Nazarene, one of the principal denominations of the
Holiness movement in America. Vaughan never wavered in his commitment
to the Holiness faith, and he was acutely perceptive in his ability to advertise
his belief while also enhancing the commercial viability of his publishing con-
cern. Vaughan and his gospel cohorts preached an otherworldly message, but
they very astutely utilized the techniques of the world to popularize that vi-
sion. Vaughan's business was the selling of songbooks, and as a salesman he
was an ingenious innovator. He appears to have been the first southern pub-
lisher to send quartets to churches and singing conventions to plug the Vaughan
songbooks. The members of the early quartets were employees of the com-
pany who presumably shared J.D. Vaughan's spiritual mission. Their purpose
was to advertise the songbooks and their contents, not their own particular
talent. In 1922 one of the Vaughan quartets, of which there were as many as
sixteen on the road during the decade, recorded for a Vaughan-owned label.
Though the discs were not recorded in the South, "they were the first records
designed for a specifically southern audience." 11 Then in 1923, Vaughan opened
radio station WOAN, one of the earliest commercial stations in Tennessee, as
a medium for advertising his company's religious merchandise.
As important as it was, the Vaughan Company was only one of several
publishing houses that carried on the shape-note tradition. A.J. Showalter, a
descendant of Joseph Funk of Singer's Glen, Virginia, and the composer of
"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," conducted such a business in Dalton,
Georgia, and educated a long list of Southerners who in turn fanned out through
the South holding their own music schools. R..E. Winsett published his widely
circulated songbooks in Dayton, Tennessee, site of the Scopes trial in 1925.

Eugene Bartlett worked through his Hartford Music Company in Hartford,
Arkansas. EO. Eiland and the Trio Company of Texas made a significant im-
pact on regional gospel publishing. The chief competition to Vaughan, how-
ever, came from J.R Baxter, from Tennessee, and from Virgil O. Stamps, from
Texas, who merged their concerns in 1926 to create another giant in the field
of southern gospel music.
Stamps-Baxter dominated much of the white gospel market until World
War II, particularly in the region west of the Mississippi River. v.O. Stamps,
the son of a saw mill operator and state legislator in Gilmer, Texas, sent out
several quartets bearing the name of "Stamps" and often sang bass and acted as
the genial master-of-ceremonies in one of the touring quartets. One of these
quartets, the Stamps All-Star Quartet, which included V.O.'s brother Frank as
bass singer, achieved a wide popularity and did much to establish a separate
identity for the quartets apart from the publishing house, a development quar-
tets representing other houses soon emulated. In October 1927 the quartet
made some recordings for Victor under the direction of the ubiquitous Ralph
Peer, apparently without the consent or foreknowledge of Virgil Stamps. Peer
encouraged them to record some of the older, stately hymns, but one of their
alternative, newer selections, "Give the World a Smile," became an immediate
hit. In fact, it became one of the best-loved songs in the Southwest, primarily
because every Stamps-sponsored quartet used it as a theme song. "Give the
World a Smile" featured a bass lead on the chorus, but was made distinctive by
the use of an after-beat rhythm in which the other three quartet members
made antiphonal, syncopated responses to the lead. The style, obviously bor-
rowed from instrumental jazz, was likely the product of gospel pianists who
had absorbed the technique from secular sources. The pianist for the Stamps
All-Star Quartet, for instance, was Dwight Brock from Gadsden, Alabama,
who expressed an affinity for the work of such pop pianists as Little Jack Little
and Whispering Jack Smith.
White gospel quartet music drew considerable inspiration from the domi-
nant secular music forms of the nation. Quartets, in fact, often sang popular
songs or "semiclassical" numbers such as "The Lost Chord" during their con-
certs. Gospel singers learned much of their four-part harmony from shape-
note singing schools, but they also picked up elements from barbershop
quartets, black gospel quartets, and the other popular quartets of their day.
Publishing houses promoted competition among their quartets, and singers
adopted mannerisms and techniques that contributed to their public appeal
and acceptance. Religious zeal either gave way to show business or made an
accommodation to it.
By the end of the 1920s the white gospel quartets had taken long strides
away from both the publishing houses and the singing schools and had be-
come more thoroughly immersed in the world of commercial competition,
using the same methods of marketing and distribution-radio, recording, and
personal appearances-that were available to secular singers. As the nation
descended into the depths of the Great Depression, the quartet business suf-
fered drastically, but the messages of the gospel songs brought succor and
relief to millions of Americans, especially those in the South. No music was
ever more cherished by southerners than such songs as "Precious Memories,"
"Farther Along," and "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again." No amount
of market innovation, sophisticated production techniques, or borrowing from
secular forms could turn southern lovers of gospel music from the artists who
brought it to them. Like the people of the other relatively unassimilated sub-
cultures of the South, rural whites and their plain-folk cousins in the cities
and towns of the region or the nation as a whole faced a time of trial indeed
during the Depression. It changed their lives, and it changed their music.
Chapter 5
THE GREAT DEPRESSION

AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
The Great Depression was a cultural as well as an economic event. Along with
the distress it brought to virtually every segment of the u.s. economy, includ-
ing the entertainment industry, it also wrought serious changes in the nature
and structure of the various forms of commercialized southern folk music. For
the most part, the period from 1929 to 1941 was far from disastrous for south-
ern musicians. It was a transitional era during which southern regional folk
styles evolved and matured, becoming more professionalized and gaining greater
national recognition and acceptance. The record industry severely curtailed
its operations under the impact of hard times. Some of the smaller companies
collapsed, while a few were consolidated with other companies. RCA Victor
responded to the economic crisis by introducing a budget label called Blue-
bird, specializing in hillbilly and race recordings. In 1934 Decca came into
existence with a thirty-five-cent record that proved so successful that it en-
couraged other companies to introduce cheaper subsidiary lines and to lower
the prices for other records.
In the urge to economize, record companies dropped from their rosters
some of the folk talent that had shown little commercial appeal. Traditional
songs, or adaptations of them, did not disappear from recordings, but their
numbers declined during the 1930s. While record companies retrenched eco-
nomically, performers sought fresh and commercially stimulating material
to satisfy the tastes of their gradually expanding audiences. Performers who
began to record for the first time in the 1930s were as likely to have learned
their material from commercial recordings of entertainers of the 1920s as the
latter were to have learned theirs from the folk sources of their communities.
Therefore, many of the folk songs that appeared on recordings, on radio per-
formances, and in personal appearances in the thirties were learned from ear-
lier commercial sources.
While newer and younger personnel affected the nature and scope of
southern grassroots music forms, the inexorable force of technological inno-

vation probably did more to alter the character of commercially available folk
music in the United States. The replacement of acoustical recording by elec-
trical innovations in 1926 greatly improved the fidelity of recorded sound,
and the introduction of electrical transcription in the mid-1930s expanded
the radio audience potential for all entertainers. This process of recording
radio shows made it possible for performers with regular broadcasting com-
mitments to go on tours, leaving behind recorded shows that could be played
in their absence, thus expanding their audience through personal appearances
promoting their radio programs. Electrical transcriptions also could be played
on other radio stations, further expanding the audience base of the artists. The
development of microphones changed both the presentation and nature of
music. The amplification that microphones made possible encouraged the
development of both "natural" and contrived styles. Singers could be heard,
and could hear themselves, in front of large or noisy audiences, and they were
also freer to experiment and improvise. Most crucial, however, in the modifi-
cation of rural or folk-derived musical forms was the introduction of electri-
cally amplified instrumentation. Although musicians had long experimented
with electronics, the first commercially successful employment of electric in-
struments came in the mid-1930s when guitarists, first in blues and jazz and
soon thereafter in country music, attached primitive electrical pickups to their
instruments. Instrumental amplification allowed soloists, especially guitarists,
to develop improvisational styles featuring subtle or intricate note patterns
and chord progressions that would have been virtually inaudible on acoustic
instruments in noisy settings.
While the recording industry was forced to make serious adjustments in
order to survive the Depression, radio was in its heyday. Radio was the cheap-
est form of entertainment available, and it brought both solace and security to
anxiety-ridden Americans who sought escape in its programming. In the South,
depending on the location, one could usually begin the day, or spend the
noon hour, which radio programmers considered primetime, listening to a
program of hillbilly, Cajun, blues, gospel and ethnic styles of music. Radio
entertainers generally built their personal appearance schedules on the strength
of their radio broadcasts. The size and scope of the listening audience could be
estimated by the nature of the correspondence received from fans-hence the
hillbilly admonition, "Keep them cards and letters coming in."
Among the most powerful forces in the popularization of hillbilly and
gospel music were the Mexican border stations, popularly called the X-sta-
tions because of their call letters and somewhat untouchable characteristics.
They were powerful, literally, in the days before extensive government regula-
The Great Depression and New Technologies 73
tion of radio broadcasting, using extremely high-powered transmitters to send

their signals throughout North America. These stations were owned by Mexi-
can nationals but were often leased or managed by businessmen from the
United States who used them to promote their own products or those of other
advertisers. The first of these entrepreneurs was the "goat gland man," Dr. J.R.
Brinkley, who began the operation of XERA, later XERF, in 1932 in Villa
Acuna, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Texas. Brinkley
became a wealthy man by selling his medical books and advertising his scheme
to promote male sexual rejuvenation through goat gland transplants. XERF,
and other stations such as XEAW, XENT, XEPN, and XEG, "the Voice of
North America," aimed their transmitters toward the United States and blan-
keted North America with power that sometimes exceeded 100,000 watts.
The X stations, furthermore, exerted another kind of power on the musical
culture of the South and of the U.S.
Much of the material from their broadcasts became part of the folklore
of the twentieth century. Long-winded announcers hawked the virtues of such
patent medicines and remedies as Kolorbak and Black-Draught, as well as
baby chicks, songbooks, prayer cloths, resurrection plants, and "autographed
pictures of Jesus Christ that glow in the dark." Once-in-a-lifetime offers con-
stantly advertised as scheduled to go off the air forever at midnight somehow
generally reappeared the next night on another program. X-station broadcasts
could be heard occasionally in every region of the United States and in Canada,
though it is difficult to know who listened to them. Late-night listeners, par-
ticularly people who had car radios and listened while driving in order to stay
awake, were most likely to hear these broadcasts because the border stations
were often the only ones on the air during these hours. Regardless of who they
were, or what their motivations may have been, listeners to the Mexican bor-
der stations could hear, usually by transcription, some of the most important
acts in hillbilly and gospel music. The Carter Family, the Pickard Family, the
Callahan Brothers, Jesse Rodgers Oimmie's cousin), Cowboy Slim Rinehart,
J,R. Hall (the Utah Cowboy, who was really from Texas), the Stamps Quartet,
and the Chuck Wagon Gang were among the most prominent entertainers who
could be heard on border radio. Something of the rural South thus made its way
into the nation at large through the medium of border radio programming.
Radio's exploitation of folk music was, of course, accompanied by the
expanded role of commercial advertising. Hillbilly music, for example, reached
its first national audience through the sponsorship of certain products that
became household words through their association with various hillbilly acts
or shows. Crazy Water Crystals, produced in Mineral Wells, Texas, was the
premier national advertiser of country music during the 1930s. Although it
was ballyhooed as a curative for a wide array of ailments, Crazy Water,Crystals

was essentially a laxative. Beginning first in Texas with the sponsorship ofloca1
radio shows, the Crazy Water Company soon branched out into cities through-
out the Midwest, South, and East, aligning its product with all kinds of music
shows, but especially those with a country flavor. In the Carolinas and Geor-
gia, the company was particularly energetic in its recruitment and use of hill-
billy talent. A Crazy Barn Dance broadcast each Saturday night from Charlotte,
North Carolina, with a large roster of performers, and several hillbilly acts in
the Southeast carried the term "crazy" in their tides, such as the Crazy Moun-
taineers and the Crazy Hillbillies. The popularity of Crazy Water Crystals did
not extend beyond the 1930s, but some of the products that first gained na-
tional recognition through their association with hillbilly music became fix-
tures in U.S. advertising. Alka-Seltzer, for example, was catapulted toward its
status as a ubiquitous household commodity in 1933 when it began sponsor-
ing a thirty-minute segment of the National Barn Dance. The collaboration
between hillbilly music and various brand names worked to the benefit of
both. The music repeatedly demonstrated its ability to sell products while
simultaneously entering millions of homes through its association with popu-
lar brand names advertised on radio shows. The Grand Ole Opty, though a
fixture on WSM in Nashville since 1925, might never have become a show
business institution in the United States had it not attained in 1939 the spon-
sorship of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for thirty minutes each Satur-
day night on NBC. Hosted first by Roy Acuff, and later by Red Foley, the
Grand Ole Opry, along with pitches for Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco, moved
into millions of homes where it formerly had been denied admittance.
While hillbilly music gained a national forum in the 1930s through radio
exposure, race music had widened its geographic range and altered its basic
forms through the migration of African Americans. Ordinary forms of popu-
lation movement slowed during the Depression years, but the "great migration
north," which had reached its peak during World War I and the early 1920s,
and similar migrations to the West Coast did not really ebb in any significant
way until well after World War II. Much of the blues music of the post-1930
era was produced by southern migrants, or by their children, in the communi-
ties of black newcomers in the North and in California. The music made
occasional references to bygone southern experiences and most certainly evoked
images of life "down" or "back" home, but it had a decidedly different quality
from the music of the previous decade. Younger musicians, especially, rebelled
against sounds that seemed too reminiscent of slavery, plantation life, or rural
matters in general, so the country blues, a solo singer with a guitar, was rarely
recorded after 1930. Instead, the music became more closely attuned to a
generation living in the city and more sophisticated in its arrangements and
instrumental accompaniment. Led by such musicians as Eddie Durham, Charlie
Christian, and Aaron "T-Bone" Walker, blues performers everywhere after
1934 began electrifying their guitars. They also increased the size of their com-
bos, adding pianos, saxophones or other horns, basses, and drums. By the end
of the 1930s, the term race was passing out of usage and blues as it had been
known was being replaced by a form more consonant with the city, what came
to be known as "rhythm and blues." Like race music before it, rhythm and
blues served as an umbrella phrase for a large number of black styles that were
often very different from each other and were played by a diverse set of musi-
cians. It drew energy from the boogie-woogie jazz rhythm developed by the
late 1920s and prefigured even in certain ragtime pieces. Its progenitors ranged
from Count Basie and Lionel Hampton to Leroy Carr, Scrapper Blackwell,
Lonnie Johnson, and the Hokum Boys with Georgia Tom Dorsey. But, as the
name implies, rhythm and blues was much more oriented toward dancing
than country blues ever had been. It was urban, aggressive, electrified, and
youth-oriented. It projected an image of hipness that was far different from
the emotional qualities of the often rough-edged country blues and the rustic-
ity to which hillbilly music still clung at the end of the '30s. Rhythm and blues
also helped bring about the music revolution known as rock ' n' rolL Part of
the reason this hip new set of styles emerged was that in the late 1930s and
,40s, the four main record labels had such a stranglehold on the market that
they inhibited creativity. The small, independent labels, and the artists drawn
to them, were freer to experiment, to reach across the artificial barriers be-
tween styles. T-Bone Walker, for instance, perfected his single-note electric
style in the early 1940s playing with Freddie Slack and His Orchestra and
recording for Capitol, but he really made a name for himself when he began
headlining with Marl Young, Jack McVea, and AI Killian and recording for
such labels as Rhumboogie, Mercury, and Black & White. I He provided a
great deal of inspiration for B.B. King, who drove the blues forward in the
1950s and said of Walker, "If! could have played like him, I would have."2
Walker and King, like Charlie Christian, inspired guitarists and other musi-
cians who went in a dizzying array of directions, from standard jazz to boogie
to r&b and bebop, "rockabilly," and rock 'n' roll, as a result of the increasing
musical freedom that flowed out of the Great Depression. B.B. King also
quoted something T-Bone Walker once said, "Blues is just gospel music turned
around. It's feeling great, and feeling sad right on, besides." Paul Oliver notes
that much of Walker's musical inspiration, along with much of his style, came
from the rhythms of church pianists, saying that the first time Walker heard
boogie-woogie piano playing was "in the Holy Ghost Church in Dallas, Texas. "3
Furthermore, many r&b singers employed a shouting singing style reminis-
cent of many gospel soloists. Thus, for all the musical innovations underway
among African-American artists, and their white imitators, a strong measure
of southern traditionalism prevailed. If, as Scott DeVeaux says, "Rhythm and
blues . . . became the soundtrack for the urban black experience of the late
1940s and 1950s,"4 the form still had one foot in the old world of black gospel
musIC.
During the Depression, black gospel music assumed a more indepen-
dent identity apart from secular music than it had possessed in the '20s. To
many black people a clear and unbridgeable chasm separated "sinful" music
and "spiritual" music, and some religious singers would not sing a secular
song. Gospel singers nevertheless exerted a powerful influence over their secu-
lar counterparts. A very large percentage of black blues and pop singers ob-
tained their first experience singing in church and many of them began their
professional careers as members of gospel quartets or choral groups. Tony
Heilbut argues that many vocal techniques and stage mannerisms associated
with blues and soul music actually began with gospel singers.
Several gospel quartets were on the road during the 1930s, some of which,
with new personnel, remained active for decades. While their fan base was
very strong in the southern states, gospel quartets attracted attention through-
out the country, especially in urban areas such as the ghettoes of Chicago,
Detroit, and New York. The Zion Harmonizers, the Fairfield Four, the Five
Blind Boys, the Swan Silvertones, the Sensational Nightingales, the Chari-
oteers, and the Dixie Hummingbirds were only a few of the popular black
quartets that sang in churches, auditoriums, and radio stations. Engaged in
intense competition with each other, such singers as Archie Brownlow of the
Five Blind Boys, Rebert H. Harris of the Fairfield Four, and Claude Jeter of
the Swan Silvertones relied not on beauty of voice alone, but also vocal gym-
nastics calculated to drive an audience to distraction. To a much greater de-
gree than in white gospel music, where singers tended to sing with physical
restraint, black gospel music stressed theatrics, and its singers pulled out all
the stops to evoke the greatest audience response. Ascending into falsetto,
growling a note, repeating a word over and over, or "worrying" it endlessly by
bending it or prolonging it, sometimes unleashing an unearthly, almost pri-
mordial, scream, and accompanying their singing with some of the fanciest
footwork seen outside of a dance hall, gospel singers pioneered in the use of
methods that became commonplace decades later in the performances of such
rhythm and blues and soul singers as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino,
Aretha Franklin, and James Brown.
If one individual can be singled out as the father of black gospel music in
the United States, it is Thomas A. Dorsey, one of the great names in both
southern and u.S. music history. Dorsey was born in Villa Rica, Georgia, in
1899, the son of a Baptist minister. Like many young men of his time, Dorsey
was attracted to the sounds of blues and jazz. He worked for a while with Ma
Rainey, and as a pianist made records under the name of "Georgia Tom" and,
along with Clarence "Pinetop" Smith, the pioneer of boogie-woogie piano, as
part of the Hokum Boys. Even during his most secular phase, when he was
recording such risque songs as "It's Tight like That," Dorsey never strayed very
far from the faith of his childhood. The compulsion to do the work of the
Lord bore fruit in 1929 in Dorsey's decision to perform only religious music.
He had moved to Chicago about 1916 where he and Sallie Martin founded
the Gospel Singers Convention. This association became a source and train-
ing ground for quartets and choirs that fanned out into the black communi-
ties of the nation. Dorsey's chief inspiration as a composer came from the
works of Charles Tindley, an African Methodist Episcopal minister in Phila-
delphia in the early years of the twentieth century. Tindley may have been
unknown to most southerners, but his songs circulated widely among them
and became deeply loved. Such songs as "We'll Understand It Better By and
By," "Stand by Me," "Take Your Burden to the Lord (Leave It There)," and
''I'll Overcome Some Day," the basis for the great civil rights protest song "We
Shall Overcome," were cherished by white and black southerners alike.
Dorsey was the successor, if not the protege, ofTindley, and his songs,
having the advantages of modern marketing and distribution, were even more
broadly circulated. His most famous song, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand,"
written in 1932, grew out of deep personal loss, the death of his wife and
infant son, but it became the possession of countless people in the United
States. The most compelling interpretations of "Precious Lord" were those of
such black singers as Mahalia Jackson, with whom Dorsey worked and toured
for years, but the song was also recorded and performed by such white singers
as Clyde Julian "Red" Foley, Ernie Ford, Elvis Presley, and others. Another of
Dorsey's more famous songs, "Peace in the Valley," gained enormous com-
mercial success through the recording of Kentucky-born Foley, a very popular
country singer in the years following World War II. Dorsey's career had enor-
mous influence on the total realm of gospel music, black and white, in the
United States. His songs became known to an exceedingly wide spectrum of
people in the U.S.; he was a longtime member of the white-dominated Na-
tional Gospel Singers Convention; and his compositions appeared frequently
in southern gospel songbooks.
White gospel music in the 1930s continued to be dominated by quar-
tets. Although the publishing houses no longer monopolized the control of

such quartets, the Stamps-Baxter Company still exerted a leading and innova-
tive role in gospel music. Several quartets were on the road bearing the name
of Stamps in their performing titles, a practice that enhanced both the
company's business and the reputations of the quartets. v.O. Stamps reaped
great publicity for his company and his singers when the Stamps "parent"
quartet sang at the Texas Centennial celebration in 1936. From that appear-
ance, the quartet earned a regular spot on SO,OOO-watt KRLD in Dallas, which
introduced them to an even larger audience. Members of quartets still under-
stood and explained their work as a religious mission, and their singers gener-
ally carne out of the gospel singing schools. But show business persistently
intruded into the styles of the singers alongside evangelistic impulses, and
newer songs replaced the older hymns. Quartets competed with each other to
find the lowest bass singers and the highest tenors. A few quartets, such as the
Texas-based Chuck Wagon Gang, D.P. Carter and his children, Anna, Rose,
and Jim, sang to guitar accompaniment. Most other gospel groups used piano
accompaniment, and many quartets were in fact known by the skill and show-
manship of their pianists. Such pianists as Dwight Brock and Marion Snider
generally faced their audiences as they played, and with great flourishes they
clowned and hammed their way through many but the most serious songs,
which, of course, took great skill to accomplish while maintaining the rhythm
for a high-powered quartet. In a profession that took itself and its mission very
seriously, the gospel pianists often provided the only comic relief. Few people
complained about the fact that many quartets were mixing great amounts of
entertainment, pure and simple, with the earnest purposes of the gospel
message.
As professional as their performances might be, gospel quartets were still
not sufficiently commercial during the Depression years to achieve extensive
economic rewards for their talents. By their very nature they were isolated
from most of the performing outlets that were open to blues or country musi-
cians. They were still generally confined to concerts in schoolhouses or audi-
toriums or to church-related functions where receipts were small and often
based on donations. The working-class evangelical churches of the South, par-
ticularly those of a Pentecostal persuasion, provided the most receptive arenas
for the gospel quartets. Energized by their commitment to "make a joyful
noise unto the Lord" and showing a remarkably democratic receptivity to
most musical instruments and even to secular-derived styles, the Pentecostal
churches furnished enthusiastic audiences for the touring quartets and were
the sources of many of the finest quartet singers. Whatever their denomina-
tional affiliations, however, the churches had little money to contribute to the
singers. A quartet could expect warm hospitality, a sumptuous meal at the

home of some good church member, and whatever sum the collection or "love
offering" brought in. Anything extra came from the diligent hawking of
songbooks, records, and photographs. In response to the preferences of their
traditionalist listeners, most quartets made a point of singing many of the old
familiar hymns, but within their repertories the newly composed songs always
outnumbered the old. Many of these new songs came from the most popular
songwriter in the white gospel field, and one of the most beloved musicians in
the rural South, Albert E. Brumley.
Born on a tenant farm near Spiro, Oklahoma, in 1905, Brumley began
writing songs soon after he attended a singing school near his home commu-
nity in 1922. He worked as a teacher, singer, and writer for E.M. Bartlett's
Hartford Music Company in Hartford, Arkansas, one of the leading shape-
note publishing houses in the South, and a company that the Brumley family
came to own. His first successful composition, one of the most popular gospel
songs of all time, was ''I'll Fly Away' (1931), featuring a spirited melody and
structure reminiscent of the nineteenth-century camp meeting songs. Brumley
songs thereafter entered the repertories of all the gospel quartets, moved into
most of the country churches via the shape-note hymnals, appeared frequently
on country recordings, and from there came into the permanent possession of
the southern folk. Brumley's compositions, memorable because of their sim-
plicity and melodic beauty, were quintessentially southern in tone and theme.
They generally fell into two categories: conventional gospel songs, such as "I'll
Meet You in the Morning" and "If We Never Meet Again," which stressed the
heavenly joys awaiting the faithful Christian, and nostalgic rural songs, such
as "Dreaming of a Little Cabin" and "Cabin in the Valley of the Pines," which
reminisced about childhood, mother and father, and the old country home.
Brumleis religious songs were appealing in large part because they were evan-
gelical but nondenominational. They held no expressions of theology or pol-
ity that might alienate performers or listeners, but employed themes and
imagery that were the mainstays of traditional southern Protestantism. They
posited a conception of a merciful, benevolent God who waited like a shep-
herd to gather in wandering children amidst scenes of pastoral bliss. Brumley's
nostalgic songs, on the other hand, breathed with a consciousness of life's
evanescence, affectionately depicting an abandoned and decaying rural world
held together only by the steadfast love of mother and father. In his religious
songs, the unfulfilled wishes of this world are projected as being realized in the
heavenly world to come.
While this otherworldly message was consoling to many southerners during

the Depression years, others were less content to wait for economic security
and human justice beyond the grave; they sought music that would either
voice their discontent or provide escape from the problems of this world.
Hard times inspired protest, and protest often made its way into the
messages of both blues and country songs, secular and religious, as in Big Bill
Broonzy's "Black, Brown, and White," Slim Smith's "Breadline Blues," and
David McCarn's "Cotton Mill Colic." Professional blues, country, and gospel
singers often commented on the social and political events of the day, but the
most sustained expression of protest, as opposed to commentary alone, came
from humble farmers and workers who poured out their anguish in music.
The textile strikes in the Southern Piedmont in 1929, the bloody conflict in
the eastern Kentucky coal fields in 1931, the organizational efforts made in
the Deep South by the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU) from 1934
to 1936, and the southwestern dust storms of the late 1930s all produced their
balladeers. As southern labor "stirred,"5 organizers and sympathizers came in
from the North to lend their support to what essentially had been spontane-
ous uprisings. Communist-dominated unions, such as the National Textile
Workers' Union and the National Miners Union, added an explosive ingredi-
ent to the situation while also introducing a revolutionary rhetoric that had
not been heard in the South since the Populist revolt of the 1890s and scarcely
ever among the southern hill-country and mountain folk. According to folk-
lorist Archie Green, "Piedmont mill villages and Cumberland mine camps
became meeting grounds for the ideologies of Andrew Jackson and Karl Marx,
Abraham Lincoln and Mikhail Bakunin," as conservative southern workers
joined in temporary though unlikely alliances with radical northern organiz-
ers. One result was the appearance of a body of topical songs that "fused time-
worn melodies with strange, revolutionary lyrics."6
Though the textile, coal, and sharecropper strikes ended as tragic exer-
cises in futility, they had an unintended effect on the music of the United
States. Northern organizers leaving the South took back home with them a
large body of songs that helped fuel the incipient urban folk music movement
of the '30s. The lifespans of most of these songs were short, but a few of them,
such as Florence Reece's rousing "Which Side Are You On?" inspired by police
repression in Harlan County, Kentucky, have endured as major documents of
the quest for social justice in the U.S. Some of the southern folk balladeers
actually became better known than their songs at least among the liberal intel-
lectual community in the North. The murder in 1929 of Ella May Wiggins,
the balladeer of the Gastonia textile workers, made her a martyr to radicals in
the U.S. and beyond, and the names of Aunt Molly Jackson and her half-sister
Sara Ogan and half-brother Jim Garland, from the Kentucky coal fields, and
John Handcox, the black preacher and songwriter for the STFU, were soon
known and revered among liberals and radicals far afield from the songwriters'
southern homes.
One name eventually came to dominate among protest-song writers,
however, that ofWoodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie, born in 1912 in Okemah,
Oklahoma. The shaping of Guthrie's social consciousness began in the early
1930s during his residence in Pampa, Texas, and in his rambles through the
oil towns of the Southwest. His reputation as the poet of the Okie migrants
and as the Dust Bowl balladeer, however, did not begin to develop until the
late 1930s, after he had lived among the Okies in California for several years
working as a hillbilly singer on KFVD in Los Angeles. He moved to New York
in 1940 in the company of actor Will Geer and became part of that city's
labor-radical movement. Guthrie's legitimate working-class credentials, his
indomitable courage and good humor, and his facility as a songwriter-"Talk-
ing Dust Bowl Blues," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You," "Philadelphia
Lawyer," "Oklahoma Hills," "This Land Is Your Land"-made him the inspi-
ration for several generations of socially conscious singers who were activists,
reformers, and/or advocates of radical political and economic change. Guthrie
drew from the music of people among whom he traveled-Hispanics, hillbil-
lies, African Americans-and adapted the most traditional melodies and mo-
tifs to a call for transformation of the United States. Inspired by the suffering
wrought by the Great Depression, he bent his finely tuned ear to the musical
and emotional rhythms of the people and turned them into songs with un-
canny blends of humor, pathos, fury, hope, and determination. Guthrie's open-
ness and commitment to democratic ideals gave him the freedom to pull from
and create music without respect to ethnic or economic distinctions, music
that sounded hillbilly but drew on the diverse song traditions of black
southerners and Mexican immigrants and migrants, as well as white folk from
areas as diverse as the plains of Texas and Oklahoma, southern California, and
Appalachia. What practically all of his music had in common was a commit-
ment to social justice, a deep suspicion of the rich and powerful, and just as
deep a faith in the good sense and goodwill of the plain folk of the United
States.
Beginning in the 1930s with Ella May Wiggins, Aunt Molly Jackson,
and Woody Guthrie, the protest music tradition demonstrated its enduring
strength throughout the rest of the twentieth century through two vital groups
of musicians: urban-born, principally northern singers such as Pete Seeger,
Phil Ochs, Si Kahn, John McCutcheon, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan, who fu-
eled the urban folk revival of the 1960s and later, and rural, southern-born
singers such as Nimrod Workman, Hedy West, Billy Edd Wheeler, James Talley,
Anne Romaine, Hazel Dickens, and Steve Earle, whose protest material arose
within the context of country music. Dickens came closest to typifying and
perpetuating the tradition of Aunt Molly Jackson; she wrote some of the songs
and did most of the compelling singing for the sound track of the award-
winning documentary film, Harlan County, USA. The living tradition of pro-
test song demonstrated one of the most telling ways that southern music has
affected both the consciousness and the popular culture of the United States
at large.
Those effects were seen in other ways as well. While the songs of Alben
Brumley evoked images of a vanishing rural South and held out the promise
of a blissful home in the sky, protest singers called for the establishment of
economic and social justice in this world. Most people across the country,
though, North and South, generally wanted neither heavenly solace nor radi-
cal politics in their music; hence the popularity of the thoroughly escapist
swing music of the '30s. The big pop bands had large followings in the South,
and the region produced some leading swing musicians, such as Tex Beneke,
Jack and Norma Teagarden, and Harry James, but southwestern rural musi-
cians made significant innovations to the swing style in ways quite apart from
the urbane forms produced by Paul Whiteman, the Dorsey brothers, and Glenn
Miller. Musicians in the Southwest fashioned a form of music that became
known as western swing, which effectively combined rural and urban motifs
by using instruments ordinarily associated with rural folk music to create dance
music with a swing beat. The westernmost portion of the South-Texas, Loui-
siana, Oklahoma-was peculiarly situated ro produce grassroots music forms
of a hybrid nature because of its ethnic and racial diversity, the influence of
nearby New Orleans, the emergence of the oil boom, and the sway of the
cowboy culture. The region was heavily rural until World War II, but the
presence of alternative cultures and competing economic systems contributed
to the breaking down of traditional patterns earlier than in the southeastern
states. Texas, for example, has contributed the largest number of musicians to
the country music profession and has always had a vigorous tradition of old-
time fiddling derived from the migrants who came there from the older south-
ern states. Nevertheless, rural Anglo musicians learned from the blacks, Cajuns,
Mexicans, and Central Europeans with whom they came in contact in the
sprawling Southwest and drank, sometimes deeply, of the cowboy myth. Texas
fiddlers knew and loved the old-time hoedowns, but they tended to play them
with greater melodic variation than elsewhere, and they also included in their
repenories waltzes, schottisches, polkas, ragtime, and jazz tunes. This musical
eclecticism contributed greatly to the formation of western swing.
Although its roots and its principal influences lay in country music,
western swing, a term that was not really used until after World War II, was
heavily indebted to pop, blues, and jazz, as well as the folk music traditions of
white southerners. It evolved out of the fiddle-and-guitar bands of the South-
west, but its most crucial development came with the creation in 1931 of the
Light Crust Doughboys, a radio band sponsored by the Burrus Mill and Ele-
vator Company in Fort Worth. Two of the original members of the group,
singer Milton Brown and fiddler Bob Wills, who had been performing and
gradually building up a following in the Fort Worth area separately and to-
gether, joined forces and made the Doughboys wildly popular. Through per-
sonal appearances and radio programs, Brown and Wills became familiar to
music fans throughout Texas and Oklahoma, a factor of great value to them
after they both left the Doughboys and organized their own influential bands.
They were not the only beneficiaries of the popularity of the Light Crust
Doughboys. A large number of musicians in the Fort Worth area moved in
and out of various bands, most notably a longstanding Fort Worth group
called the Hi-Flyers, and the pathbreaking work of Brown and Wills greatly
stimulated the market for their services and made Fort Worth the creative
center for a new musical hybrid. Someone else who profited from the success
of the music, though he could barely stand it, was the Doughboys' sometime
announcer, Burrus Mill's general manager, W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, who
parlayed the fame he gained from the Doughboys into becoming governor of
Texas and a member of the United States Senate.
After he left the Doughboys in 1932, Milton Brown formed the Musi-
cal Brownies, the most popular band in the Southwest. With Fort Worth as
their headquarters, the Musical Brownies toured extensively in Texas, per-
forming their hot dance rhythms for wildly enthusiastic audiences. The Brown-
ies were essentially a fiddle band and played any kind of song that their
dance-minded listeners wanted to hear. Although the fiddles usually took the
lead, on everything from "St. Louis Blues" to "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "EI
Rancho Grande," they were supported by a piano and steel guitar, both played
in the fashion of jazz instruments. Bob Dunn, the steel guitarist, was one of
the truly pioneering musicians of country music history. His technique of
guitar improvisation, marked by riffs that sounded like the bursts of a trum-
pet, was unique in country music, and in 1934 he became the first known
country musician to electrify an instrument, an innovation soon copied by
other steel guitarists such as Ted Daffan and Leon McAuliffe. Brown's death in
April 1936, as the result of an automobile accident, cut short a promising
career and stimulated unceasing debate among western swing fans about his
and Bob Wills's relative prominence and importance to the music's develop-
ment. Brown's biographer, Cary Ginell, pays tribute to Wills principally for
"popularizing the genre created by Milton Brown."?
Born in Limestone County, Texas, in 1905 and reared in West Texas
near the Hall County community of Turkey, Wills was descended from old-
time fiddlers on both sides of his family. He remained essentially a hoedown
or "breakdown" fiddler ro the end of his life, but Wills was an eclectic music
lover with a special affinity for the blues, and as a boy had been a fan of singers
as diverse as Bessie Smith, Jimmie Rodgers, and Emmett Miller. The careers of
Milton Brown and Bob Wills demonstrate the strong impact that phono-
graph recordings had on musicians who emerged professionally in the 1930s.
The performances of Brown and Wills, as well as those of other musicians,
were often direct copies, stage patter and all, of previous recordings, although
Wills's remarks often came from medicine show routines, including blackface,
he had learned and performed as a young man in his pre-Light Crust Doughboy
days. After Wills left the Doughboys, he formed a band called the Playboys,
played for a short time in Waco, and then moved, first to Oklahoma City, and
then in 1934 to Tulsa, where he renamed the band the Texas Playboys and
remained until 1942. Wills's years in Tulsa defined his particular approach to
western swing, produced most of his best-known songs, and made him na-
tionally famous. 8 Wills popularized his music through daily broadcasts over
powerful KVOO, dances at Cain's Academy, a Tulsa ballroom that served as
his headquarters, personal appearances throughout ,the South-Midwest, and,
of course, phonograph recordings. No band was more revered throughout the
Southwest than the Texas Playboys, and its influence on the whole field of
country music is incalculable. This success stemmed not from Wills's abilities
as a musician, which were famously limited. Though Cary Ginell inaccurately
asserts that Wills was "incapable of ... playing in meter,"9 it is certainly true
that he defied musical convention. Most of his musicians believed that he
broke meter when he played, for instance, because he felt constrained by any
limitations. He had great appreciation for blues artists who routinely broke
meter, and he cared more for creating musical excitement for listeners than for
observing formalities. He could not play the jazz improvisations he loved so
much, though he could play the melodies of many popular tunes and was able
to play some soulful, and meter-breaking, blues solos. 10
Beginning as a fiddle band, the Texas Playboys expanded in personnel as
Wills diversified the instrumentation, adding saxophones, trumpets, clarinets,
piano, steel guitar, and drums to the standard guitar, banjo, and upright bass
rhythm accompaniment that he used to back up the fiddles he and at least one
other member of his band played. The Playboys contributed little to the evo-
lution of jazz, and there is little evidence that the jazz world ever recognized
the band's merits. Some jazz luminaries such as Artie Shaw were positively
loathsome in their disregard for Wills and his band. Few bandleaders of any
description, however, could have avoided being envious of the crowds the
Playboys drew. They played country fiddle tunes, "jumped-up" blues, and the
popular swing music of the Depression era and early years of World War II,
anything Wills wanted them to playas long as people could dance to it, with-
out any fear of inconsistency or incompatibility. In style, size, and repertory
the Texas Playboys often resembled the swing bands, but their central use of
fiddles and the steel guitar planted them squarely in the country music tradi-
tion, and it is there that Wills and his musicians made their most lasting
impact. Tommy Duncan, chief vocalist of the Playboys for many years, in-
spired a host of country singers. Smoky Dacus, the Playboys' first drummer,
is commonly believed to have been the first person to play such an instrument
in country music. Leon McAuliffe built on Bob Dunn's foundation and
played a major role in changing the steel guitar from a pop instrument to
one of the dominant sounds in country music. Rhythm guitarist Eldon
Shamblin developed a sliding chord/bass note combination technique by
changing chords on practically every beat and supplying his own bass line.
He not only helped smooth out the Playboys' music but also dazzled genera-
tions of guitarists in every field of vernacular music. The influence of such
Playboy fiddlers as Jesse Ashlock, Louis Tierney, Johnny Gimble, and Wills
himself, was strongly felt in country music, and a large number of songs-
ranging from "San Antonio Rose" and "Take Me Back to Tulsa" to "Maiden's
Prayer" and "Faded Love"-became standards known to virtually all coun-
try singers and, in fact, many artists in the mainstream of popular music in
the U.S. and beyond.
Texas bands as a whole, including those that were only loosely related to
swing music, began to exert a powerful influence on country music toward
the end of the 1930s, although the chief influence of Texas music did not
come until after World War II. The music of the western swing bands was
heard far and wide on recordings, and several bands circulated their music
through personal appearances. Beginning in 1935, Adolph Hofner fronted a
band out of San Antonio that remained regionally popular for decades and
combined German dance music, especially polkas and waltzes, with western
swing. Headquartered in Beaumont, Cliff Bruner, the great fiddler who had
once played with the Musical Brownies, worked the southwestern area of Loui-
siana extensively with his band, the Wanderers. Bruner is thus largely respon-
sible for the spread of the swing style among Cajun musicians. Through
attending Bruner dances, and hearing swing music broadcast from Texas radio
stations, young Cajuns were prompted to diversify their styles and repertories.
By the end of the '30s, Leo Soileau, who began his recording career in 1928 as
a Cajun fiddler, was leading a band called the Four Aces that shifted easily
ftom Cajun to swing. The Rayne-Bo Ramblers and the Hackberry Ramblers
were other Louisiana groups that combined Cajun and country music. Founded
in 1933 by fiddler Luderin Darbone, the Hackberry Ramblers kept their group
intact probably longer than any other string band in the U.S. Like many other
Cajun bands that came after them, the Ramblers used both French and En-
glish lyrics and employed instruments that permitted them to shift easily from
one style to another: fiddle and accordion, steel and standard guitars, plus bass
and drums.
Although Cliff Bruner's band influenced other musicians and showed
the strong influence of western swing, particularly in Bruner's own jazzlike
fiddling, it was significantly different from the Bob Wills prototype. For one
thing it was smaller. Costs of maintaining a large band were high, and now
that the growing use of electrical instruments permitted a small band to be
heard even in the noisiest of places, most Texas bands tended to consist of four
or five musicians. Noisy dance halls exerted a powerful force in molding the
type of country music that emerged from Texas and spread to other places far
and wide.
Particularly after the repeal of Prohibition, hundreds of musicians found
employment in bars, taverns, and dance halls where they created a subgenre of
music that came to be known as honky-tonk. Honky-tonk musicians estab-
lished a beat strong enough for dancing, but their music was essentially oriented
around lyrics and aimed at working-class listeners. While their songs typically
dealt with their listeners' values, preoccupations, and fears, including the prob-
lems of drink, illicit love, and divorce, many songs dealt specifically with the
milieu in which the performers worked, the honky-tonk itself. AI Dexter, from
Troup, Texas, recorded in 1936 one of the first hillbilly songs to carry the
word in its title, "Honky Tonk Blues," and during World War II he had a
smash hit, "Pistol Packin' Mama," which recalled the turbulent atmosphere of
honky-tonk life during the East Texas oil boom of the '30s. He and other
Texas cohorts, such as Ted Daffan, Floyd Tillman, Moon Mullican, and, pre-
eminently, Ernest Tubb, wrote or recorded songs that increasingly made their
way into the larger world of country music. Furthermore, the music they
created soon became essentially the sound of national country music, as the
styles of the Southwest fused with those of the Southeast in the 1940s.
As important as style fusion was in the obliteration of regional differ-
ences within country music, a common dress or uniform often seemed to be
the most apparent unifying factor. Up until the late 1950s, virtually every
country singer from the West Virginia hills to the Texas Plains dressed in some
semblance of cowboy costume and called themselves something such as "Tex,"

"Slim," "Hank," "the Lone Cowboy," or "the Girls of the Golden West." The
cowboy image would have been appealing to country singers even without
Hollywood, and the man on horseback was certainly a much more romantic
figure to the people of the United States than was the backward hillbilly. But
the silver screen in the 1930s made a most powerful contribution to the myth
of the cowboy and its identification with country music. In 1934 Gene Autry,
of Tioga, Texas, sang in a Ken Maynard film and ushered in the era of the
singing cowboy. In the following ten years Autry did more to introduce coun-
try music to a national audience than did any other country singer. In so
doing, he popularized the guitar among American youth and contributed
mightily to the equating in the public mind of the image of the cowboy with
the country singer. The popularity of the singing cowboy was not lost on
Hollywood moguls, and Autry was soon followed by other cowboy singers,
including Herb Jeffries, a black Hollywood singing cowboy. The fan of Satur-
day afternoon cowboy movies might see Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, Rex Allen,
Jimmie Wakely, Johnny Bond, Eddie Dean, the Sons of the Pioneers, or the
Riders of the Purple Sage, all of whom began as country singers and who
maintained singing careers along with their professions as actors. Other coun-
try singers, such as Ernest Tubb, Jimmie Davis, and Bob Wills, made occa-
sional appearances in cowboy movies, and a few people who became well-known
country songwriters, such as Fred Rose and Cindy Walker, contributed songs
to the screen cowboys. The Hollywood singing cowboy largely disappeared
from U.S. popular culture after World War II, but he left his mark upon
country music. With the exception of an occasional number such as "EI Paso,"
cowboy songs declined in the country repertory, but the cowboy mystique
endured in the wearing of cowboy costumes and the sporting of cowboy moni-
kers, and enjoyed a resurgence in the last quarter of the twentieth century
through the work of Riders in the Sky, Sons of the San Joaquin, Red Steagall,
Michael Martin Murphey, and Don Edwards, who also helped inspire and
often contributed to a boom in popularity of cowboy poetry. Along with the
emergence in the 1930s of other "western" styles such as honky-tonk and
western swing, the music of the Hollywood singing cowboys also contributed
to the shaping of the once-popular term "country and western." Their legacy
evolved into two general streams of behavior and understanding, one that
drew on the real or supposed symbolism of cowboy culture to celebrate such
virtues as steadfastness and self-reliance and one that lauded rebellious, un-
tamed, even countercultural aspects of the cowboy lifestyle. Both manifesta-
tions of the continuing appeal of cowboy culture tapped into modern-day
concerns and fantasies; both had their adherents, and their precedents, in the
South; and both generated considerable revenue for the entertainers who popu-
larized them.
As the United States entered World War II, the grassroots music forms
of the South demonstrated their regional origins and identification. In various
ways, however, the music of the South was already being exported to other
regions of the United States and was moving into the consciousness of the
nation generally. Population migrations had always played powerful roles in
the spread of southern music. Blues, jazz, and black gospel music had traveled
north and west with African-American migrations, and although the migra-
tion of southern whites was not as extensive as that of blacks or caused exclu-
sively by the hard times of the Depression, the Okie exodus to California in
the late 1930s did much to transplant hillbilly music to that state's sunny
climes, becoming what James Gregory calls the "language of a subculture." I I
As southerners left the marginal economy of their region to seek employment
in other cities, flocking to the auto plants of Detroit, the rubber plants of
Akron and Dayton, Ohio, the packinghouses and oil refineries of Chicago, or
to industrial work in cities closer to the South such as Cincinnati or St. Louis,
they often rook their musical preferences with them and permanently im-
planted them in new southern enclaves around the United States.
Even without migration, southern-derived musical forms would have
circulated throughout much of the nation via the media. By 1941, radio had
made much of the nation aware of the folk-derived music of the South through
the broadcasts of the Mexican border stations, such 50,000-watt domestic
stations as WBAP in Fort Worth and WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia,
and the Grand Ole Opry on NBC each Saturday night. The movie industry
had given employment to many country singers while also providing them
with an audience that might not otherwise have given them a hearing. Fur-
thermore, of course, phonograph recordings made by southern-born enter-
tainers might conceivably wind up in any home in the U.S. The extent of
circulation or the sales figures of recordings issued before World War II is hard
to gauge accurately, but hillbilly and blues records had been nationally adver-
tised, as in Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs, since the 1920s.
Popularity or "Hit Parade" charts were not nearly so common in the 1930s as
they later became, but Billboard had begun to run its charts by the end of the
decade. Even before the war brought enormous changes to entertainment in
the United States and exerted its homogenizing effects on the country's musi-
cal tastes, records by such southern-born entertainers as Louis Jordan, Nat
"King" Cole, Bob Wills, and Jimmie Davis were already appearing on juke-
boxes in areas outside the South. Furthermore, songs from such sources were
occasionally being "covered" by pop singers. For instance, Bing Crosby, who
dipped frequently into the country music songbag, had a huge hit recording
of "San Antonio Rose." The music of the grassroots South was gradually mak-
ing itself heard in the farthest reaches of the nation, in large part because of
changes in U.S. society and in the music business during the Great Depres-
sion. The explosion of interest in the music of the South and its metamorpho-
sis into mainstream popular music were yet to come, but they were indeed on
the way.
Chapter 6
THE NATIONALIZATION
OF SOUTHERN MUSIC
World War II wrought revolutionary changes in the social structure of both

the South and the nation at large. While promoting major transformations in
the habits, employment, and residence of rural southerners, the war also effec-
tively nationalized their music. The war accelerated changes that had long
been under way among blacks, and to a lesser extent among whites. Wartime
demands promoted a major shift in the South from agriculture to industry,
thereby creating alternative opportunities for rural and small-town people,
opening up new sources of wealth, and accelerating the move from the coun-
try to the city. The establishment of military bases and defense plants in the
South during the war, and the burgeoning of oil, petrochemical, and aero-
space centers in the 1950s, brought thousands of outsiders to the South who
did not share the cultural affinities of native southerners. People who had
spent their entire lives in the South found these new people and the new
experiences unfolding in their midst more than a little bewildering.
As was true everywhere during the ' 40s, southern families confronted
social pressures that had never seemed quite so overwhelming in a rural envi-
ronment. Traditional family solidity was weakened; women were faced with
greater pressure to bring in outside income; and children found alternative
role models among new acquaintances in towns and cities and among those
provided by the media, whose writers and performers knew or cared little
about the pressures of change in the South. The new life in the city, especially
in an industrial atmosphere, brought both frustration and liberation, and
southerners made adjustments with varying degrees of success. Generational,
gender, and race relations affected the ways most migrants adapted to life in
the cities and in industrial cultures, with profound social consequences on
family, regional, and even national levels. These social changes and socioeco-
nomic transformations contributed to events as momentous as the civil rights
revolution of the late 1950s and early '60s, but they also changed aspects of
The Nationalization of Southern Music 91
life that seemed at first glance not to be so momentous, such as the ways
southern youth strove for cultural identity. Social change had always come
slowly in the South, and the effects exerted on the youth did not become
readily apparent until at least a decade after the war. Among the results were
the explosion known as rock ' Ii roll and the consequent shattering of older
concepts of popular music in the United States.
While important demographic changes took place within the South, the
region asserted itself just as dramatically in the nation at large through popu-
lation migrations. The movement of Mrican Americans from the South to the
North and West, which had been significant since 1914, surged to even greater
heights during World War II. Black people generally fled the South and the
economic and personal oppression they often suffered there, but large num-
bers of white southerners left the region, too. White migration, much of it
from the Upper South, was generally motivated by the desire for improved
economic opportunities. By failing to provide economic security for rural poor
whites, the South essentially exiled many of its most loyal sons and daughters.
Lured by wartime prosperity and new defense jobs, thousands of rural and
small-town southerners moved to Detroit, Washington, Baltimore, Philadel-
phia, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles, as well as to the big cities of the South. In
these cities their children ultimately lost most of their rural ways and much of
their southern identity. But more immediately, much of the rural South was
exported to other regions as the migrants took their cultural preferences with
them, continuing and accelerating trends that had begun with the migrations
of the Great Depression and before. Storefront fundamentalist churches, "south-
ern" or "redneck" bars, "soul food" or "Dixie" restaurants, and southern ac-
cents multiplied in those cities where the migrants congregated, and jukeboxes
began featuring greater numbers of songs such as "San Antonio Rose," "Pistol
Packin' Mama," "You Are My Sunshine," and "Born to Lose." The migrants
absorbed much from their new environments, but they also implanted much
of their own culture. Not only did country music attract a strong following in
Detroit, Chicago, Southern California, Pennsylvania, and southern Ohio, but
the music that became especially popular outside the South, probably reflecting
the cultural conservatism of the migrants, tended to be music with a more
traditional orientation, rather than the pop country styles that gradually
emerged in the 1940s.
While southern civilians took their musical preferences allover the United
States, their sons and daughters in the military took them allover the world.
Some service personnel merely carried their affinity for music with them. Others
performed as blues or country musicians in special service units. Northerners
and sourherners heard and unwittingly absorbed each other's musical prefer-
ences, from the selections they made on jukeboxes and from picking and sing-
ing sessions in barracks, on troop transports, and in battlefield rest areas and
other places where they found themselves thrown together in the kinds of
imposed unions created by war. People in military service were starved for
anything reminiscent of home and delighted at the appearance of any kind of
musical performer, whether jazz, blues, pop, or country. Many people were
therefore exposed to various kinds of music to which they had never before
deigned to listen. Some people no doubt recoiled from the experience of lis-
tening to country music with the feeling that it was nothing more than one
long, atrocious, nasal lament, but others developed a liking for it, as did Julian
Aberbach, who came home from military service and founded Hill and Range
Publishers, one of the most important publishing houses for country music.
The spread of such music through Europe caught the ear of Chris Strachwitz,
who emigrated to the United States from Austria at the age of twelve. He fell
in love with grassroots music of the U.S., became a noted record collector,
founded Arhoolie Records and Down Home Music, and became one of the
most influential popularizers ofTejano, Cajun and hillbilly music in the country
and beyond. 1 Musical preferences among people in the service often reflected
their opposing cultutal backgrounds, and disputes over radio or jukebox se-
lections, which sometimes descended into fights, often reflected North-South
antagonisms. Military units were not racially integrated until the Truman ad-
ministration, but after that time barracks and service clubs periodically rever-
berated with violent clashes between black and white servicemen concerning
tastes in music.
Changes in the music industry during the war promoted the growth of
southern-derived music forms. The number of jukeboxes, then a novelty to
many northerners as well as southerners, increased as music entrepreneurs
moved to satisfy the needs of people in the service and defense workers for a
cheap form of entertainment. Jukeboxes may have encouraged the greater use
of electric instruments as musicians noticed how the machines could cut
through the din of crowded cafes, bars, and other establishments. Jukeboxes
definitely expanded the market for the recording industry. In the 1930s, how-
ever, record executives in the major companies had discouraged radio stations
from playing records on the air because they believed the practice cut into
their sales. As Cary Ginell points out, for instance, 'i\ll of the Musical Brown-
ies' releases for Bluebird and Decca included the phrase 'not licensed for radio
broadcast' imprinted on their labels."2 The jukeboxes of the '40s stimulated
sales of records to people who heard songs on the coin-operated machines and
then wanted to own their favorite records so they could play them repeatedly
for free.
Two conflicts within the music industry also positively affected the air-
ing of grassroots music. The first of these involved the struggle between two
music-licensing organizations, 'the American Society of Composers, Authors,
and Publishers (AS CAP) and Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI). ASCAP
was founded in 1914 by Victor Herbert and others to protect the perfor-
mance rights of U.S. composers. It remained a tightly knit group of writers of
sophisticated popular music, reputedly biased against folk-derived forms. BMI
lent active support to all kinds of grassroots music, having been founded in
1939 by broadcasters during their conflict with ASCAP over the use ofASCAP-
'licensed material on radio. After the expiration of a five-year contract with
ASCAP, broadcasters refused to negotiate an agreement calling for a greatly
increased licensing fee and on January 1, 1941, announced a ban on all mate-
rial controlled by ASCAP. As a new licensing organization, BMI suffered be-
cause it had few songs in its catalog and because it had to depend on new and
inexperienced songwriters. This shortage created an opportunity for southern
grassroots and other writers of vernacular music. Gradually, publishing firms
began to join the organization, some of whom, such as M.M. Cole and South-
ern Music, had extensive catalogs of country and race material. In 1942 the
Nashville-based Acuff-Rose company also joined BMI, an action followed by
most other new companies. By the time ASCAP and the radio networks had
resolved their differences in October 1941, BMI had become securely estab-
lished and its stable of grassroots-oriented publishers and writers had gained
similar recognition.
Right on the heels of the ASCAP-BMI struggle came the American Fed-
eration of Musicians' recording ban of August 1, 1942, occasioned by the fear
that jukeboxes and radio stations that used phonograph records were putting
musicians out of work. The refusal by the recording companies to establish a
fund for unemployed musicians led to the strike. The major record compa-
nies, such as Decca, Victor, and Columbia, tried to hold out against the strike,
but they began capitulating in September 1943. Meanwhile, the small and
independent labels, many of which specialized in country, Latin, or rhythm
and blues music, signed contracts with the musicians' union almost immedi-
ately. As a result, such music gained a foothold in popular culture in the United
States that it otherwise might not have enjoyed.
Despite such accidental advantages gained during World War II by south-
ern folk-derived musical forms, they had long been developing on their own,
without the encouragement enjoyed by mainstream popular music. Millions
of people yearned to hear southern music, and the small record labels moved
to meet the demand. Such labels proliferated during the war and on through
the early 1950s, and most of them specialized in country, rhythm and blues,
gospel, Tejano, Czech, Cajun, and other grassroots music of interest to local
fans. Many performers who first attained local popularity in cities such as
Houston, Atlanta, or Memphis later signed contracts with major companies
and gained national popularity. Most of the labels eventually disappeared or
were bought up by the big companies, but a few of them endured to become
major companies. Most important, many of the songs that first gained local or
regional popularity during this period gradually entered the national conscious-
ness and were subsequently recorded, or "covered," by entertainers on major
labels. The route these songs took usually ran through the pocketbooks of
young people from middle-class homes who were receptive to music their
parents generally ignored.
In the period after 1941 hillbilly music left its regional base in the South,
intruded into the national scene, and gained an acceptance that had never
before seemed possible. By the end of the 1950s the term "hillbilly" was being
universally replaced by "country" or "country and western." At the beginning
of the era of national expansion, when the rural origins of country music still
clung tightly to it, the singer who dominated the music was a mountain boy
from East Tennessee named Roy Acuff. After about three years of performing
in his hometown of Knoxville, Acuff joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938. He
rose to immense popularity and commercial success largely on the strength of
two songs, "The Wabash Cannon Ball" and "The Great Speckled Bird," both
of which he performed each Saturday night for decades on the Grand Ole
Opry. Acuff's singing style differed radically from those of the western swing
performers and other country crooners, such as Eddy Arnold, who were be-
coming prominent in country music. His earnest, almost wailing, style sug-
gested the mountain gospel churches, and his songs tended to be either old-time
ballads or songs with an old-time flavor. And his popularity was not confined
to the Southeast or the Deep South. He drew large crowds wherever he trav-
eled. For instance, when he performed at the Venice Pier in Los Angeles, local
promoters feared that the immense crowd who came to hear him, no doubt
including many former southerners, would cause the pier to collapse. Acuff's
rise to fame, which helped him become, in 1963, the first living performer to
be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, paralleled that of the Grand
Ole Opry and, in fact, contributed significantly to the show's new promi-
nence. The broadcast ran from 7:30 to midnight each Saturday night and
because of its presence on 50,000-watt, clear-channel WSM-Nashville, the
Grand Ole Opry already had a South-wide audience before it blossomed na-
tionallyafter 1939 on the thirty-minute NBC segment. Acuffhosted the show
while he was at the peak of his popularity, but after the war the program was
hosted by Red Foley, a smooth singer and genial master of ceremonies, who
was supported by numerous guest artists and two well,..known comedians,

Rod Brasfield and Minnie Pearl (Sarah Ophelia Colley). Acuff continued to
be indispensable to the Opry's image and appeared on the show virtually to
his dying day.
Roy Acuff was only the first of several "stars" who came to the Opry
during and just before the war years. Bill Monroe came in 1939, Ernest Tubb
in 1943, and Lloyd "Cowboy" Copas and Eddy Arnold in 1944. Each of these
entertainers built important and influential careers in country music, but Eddy
Arnold, the first great country crooner, won the most widespread acclaim.
Born the son of a sharecropper in Chester County, Tennessee, Arnold came to
the Opry as a member of PeeWee Kings Golden West Cowboys. But by 1945
he had embarked on a solo singing career and between 1946 and 1949 be-
came the dominant country entertainer and one of RCA Victor's brightest
stars. Though Arnold moved back and forth between the country and pop
music fields at various points in his career, in the immediate postwar years he
made major contributions to the building of Nashville as a major music cen-
ter and of country music as an international industry.
Ernest Tubb's affiliation with the Grand Ole Opry in 1943 was the be-
ginning of an association that lasted until his death in 1984. Born in Crisp,
Texas, in 1914, Tubb made his first, largely unnoticed, records for Victor in
1936, singing and yodeling in the manner of his idol, Jimmie Rodgers. Tubb
sang for about six years on Texas radio stations, ranging from San Antonio to
San Angelo to Fort Worth, and in dance halls allover the state, developing a
highly distinctive style of his own. When his first big record, "Walking the
Floor over You," was introduced on Decca in 1941, he was living in Fort
Worth and singing on KGKO and also touring much of the state in a sound
truck as the Gold Chain Troubadour, sponsored by Gold Chain Flour. On the
strength of "Walking the Floor," "Blue Eyed Elaine," and other songs, he was
signed to a Grand Ole Opry contract in late 1942 and joined the show in
January 1943. Tubb was the first major performer to take the honky-tonk
style to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. His joining of the show was more
than symbolic of the fusion of southwestern and southeastern styles during
the war. He was an immensely popular performer, and a large number of
country entertainers became singers because of his example or shaped their
styles partially in imitation of his. The country music that predominated in
the years afrer 1946 and at least up to 1955 was a composite of styles that drew
their strength largely from Texas musicians such as Ernest Tubb.
No performer represented better the multiplicity of motives and emo-
tions, influences and results, the commingling of styles that characterized coun-
try music's first boom period afrer World War II than Hank Williams. The
greatest country superstar of the postwar years, Williams was a young singer
who acknowledged his two chief influences to be a mountain singer of senti-
mental and religious songs (Roy Acuff) and a honky-tonk singer from Texas
(Ernest Tubb). Hiram King Williams was born on September 8, 1923, near
Georgiana, Alabama. Like most rural southerners who grew up during the
war years, Williams was torn between the traditional music he had always
heard at home and in church and the newer dynamic, electrified sounds that
were beginning to predominate in country music. He was already singing in
the honky-tonks of South Alabama by the time he was fourteen. He sang in an
earnest, emotional style suggestive of Roy Acuff, but drew his instrumentation
from the honky-tonk bands and called himself the Drifting Cowboy. His rep-
ertory ranged broadly, including gospel songs, blues tunes, beer-drinking songs,
sentimental numbers, and plenty oflonesome love songs. He was a member of
the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport when his recording of "Lovesick Blues,"
an old lin Pan Alley pop blues tune, became the top country song of 1949. By
1950 he had moved up to the Grand Ole Opry and become the most talked-
about performer in country music. The music had reached its highest peak of
commercial success to date, and Hank Williams was its acknowledged leader.
In these booming years of country music popularity, songs with country
identification increasingly began to be picked up by pop singers. The pop
music industry began to be cognizant of the small labels and the "ethnic"
styles they recorded. For a few years the mainstream pop singers profited from
covering country and rhythm and blues tunes, as with Patti Page's "Tennessee
Waltz," Rosemary Clooney's "Half as Much," and Georgia Gibbs's "Dance
With Me, Henry." Before long, however, mainstream pop singers found them-
selves pushed aside by the very artists whose material they had taken, new
"pop" singers such as Chuck Berry and Fats Domino. Hank Williams never
made the popular charts himself, but his songs crossed into pop territory with
great frequency. The legendary Williams, in fact, did most to break the fragile
barriers between country and pop music, and his songs were covered by sev-
eral pop entertainers, such as Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, and Guy Mitchell.
He died of a heart attack on January 1, 1953, and by the time of his death, his
life had become much like the tragic songs he often sang. He had been fired
from the Grand Ole Opry because of chronic drunkenness and emotional
instability and had once again become an unsteady member of the Louisiana
Hayride. Marital troubles added to the personal turmoil that shortened his
troubled life, which itself came to have powerful significance for country music
figures and for artists in other fields who were influenced by them. But part of
his influence that also should be remembered is how he helped bring about
the decline of mainstream pop music. By the late 1950s r&b, rockabilly, and
rock '0' roll singers had begun to dominate. There was little room for Patti
Page and Rosemary Clooney. Country musicians such as Hank Williams did
much to bring about these changes.
Country music's emergence as a lucrative industry attracted to it a larger
number of entertainers and a consequent realization among industry leaders
that the music's scope and image needed broadening. This broadened per-
spective, augmented by the liberating social trends of the war, produced a
more tolerant attitude toward female performers. Some women entertainers,
such as Lulu Belle Wiseman, Maybelle Carter, Patsy Montana, Texas Ruby
Owens, Molly O'Day, and Rose Maddox, had won a large degree of earlier
recognition, but usually they had been associated with family groups and only
rarely had achieved any kind of individual identity. The first genuine female
superstar of country music appeared in 1952 when Kitty Wells, born Muriel
Deason in Nashville, Tennessee, recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky
Tonk Angels," the "woman's answer" to Hank Thompson's earlier hit, "The
Wild Side of Life." Throughout the 1950s Kitty Wells was the acknowledged
"Queen of Country Music." In fact, her live appearances during that decade
consistently outdrew those of most male performers. Despite her remarkable
success and status, she remained a modest and unassuming person and never
gave the slightest suggestion of being dissatisfied with traditional gender roles.
Her husband, Johnny Wright, remained her spokesman and manager. Although
she helped open doors for other women singers such as Patsy Cline, Loretta
Lynn, and Dolly Parton, Wells's private life and values generally conformed to
the stereotypical image of the southern housewife.
Until the mid-1950s, country music continued to win commercial suc-
cess, and its styles remained identifiably rural and southern. Few people could
have foreseen that country music, along with the whole field of mainstream
pop music as it had been known for three decades, was about to go into a
virtual state of collapse. The nation was on the threshold of the rock ' n' roll
revolution.
In the years following World War II, young people in the United States
gained an influence and buying power that previous generations had not pos-
sessed. The values and sensibilities of teenagers and young adults in urban
areas were shaped increasingly by television and other mass media. And with
largely unprecedented personal freedom because of the loosening of parental
restraints during the war, young people allover the U.S. became acutely con-
scious of their specialness in what was becoming a youth-oriented culture.
They consequently sought symbols, models, and entertainment forms that
most closely mirrored their own lives and aspirations. The entertainment in-
dustry was ready for them. Its leaders recognized the immense potential of the
youth market and took steps to shape and satisfy the desires of young people
with their own spending money. To take advantage of this affiuence, the en-
tertainment industry began to make some adjustments.
As young people in the U.S. groped for self-understanding, they found
little with which to identify in mainstream pop culture. Much of the older
popular music was too sophisticated, bland, or repressed to satisfy their cravings,
and they sought novel or exciting alternatives in the various kinds of ethnic or
grassroots material found on small record labels. By 1952 or 1953 they were
listening to rhythm and blues material that their parents scarcely knew ex-
isted, and some young, white would-be musicians were already experimenting
with these songs. In the meantime, many young people also found cultural
heroes among such actors and troubled souls as Marlon Brando and James
Dean, whose anti-authoritarian manners and disaffected expressions and ges-
tures seemed confusing and inarticulate to parents but spoke volumes to their
teenaged children. The dress, hairstyles, and demeanor of Brando, Dean, and
other young actors, combined with the alienated vision of the Beat poets and
the rocking rhythms of grassroots music, provided many of the volatile ingre-
dients of rock 'n' roll. One of the major sources of the rock 'Q' roll revolution
was the readiness of people for whom music was an essential part of their lives
to combine the music of blacks and whites in ways that assaulted the old order
socially, culturally, politically, and economically.
Rhythm and blues was a powerful contributor to the breaking down of
racial barriers in the United States. For years, r&b radio shows out of Nash-
ville, Memphis, and New Orleans had been blanketing the country and help-
ing shape the musical tastes of its young people, white as well as black. Even
though a number of black performers, including the Ink Spots, the Mills Broth-
ers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Lonnie Johnson, had followings among white
people and catered, in part, to that audience, the rhythm and blues that pre-
dominated during the 1940s and early 1950s was a composite of styles aimed
largely at black audiences. Very little of the older style of country blues re-
mained after World War II. Even such singers as Lightning Hopkins, Muddy
Waters, and John Lee Hooker, who adhered to the older ways of singing,
generally adopted electrified instruments. The great African-American migra-
tion to the cities and the desire to move away from landscapes and experiences
that reminded them of earlier degradation led southern-born blacks with rural
roots and urban, northern-born blacks to seek musical forms that corresponded
to their own values and aspirations. The electrical amplification of instru-
ments certainly divested their music of many of its rural connotations. Not
only was the guitar widely electrified, it came increasingly to be played in the
single-string flatpick style pioneered by T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian,
with little of the finger-picking style so common in the 1920s. Rhythm and
blues bands, despite their emphasis on vocals, were basically dance-oriented,
so they partly filled the vacuum left by the decline of the big bands after World
War II. But as dance bands, and as groups that played in noisy environs, their
sound had to get louder; hence the electrification and the addition of basses
and drums. When Fender electric basses became available, they helped estab-
lish stronger r&b rhythm sections than had been possible with acoustic up-
right basses. Fender also introduced several lines of standard guitars that became
the rage in vernacular music, especially the famous Telecaster and Stratocaster.
Most r&b performers gravitated to cities. Some, such as T-Bone Walker, went
to the West Coast, but more went to Chicago or Memphis. Their music ap-
peared on a multiplicity of small record labels, virtually all of them white-
owned: Specialty, Peacock, Duke, Aladdin, Aristocrat, Chess, Vee Jay, King,
Apollo, Deluxe, and Savoy.
Many of the black performers who were household names in many parts
of the Mrican-Arnerican community went their entire performing careers
known to only a handful of white listeners who might have stumbled upon
their records or heard them perform on black radio shows. Blues and rhythm
and blues artists played for the black masses, whether they lived in the ghettos
of Chicago, Detroit, or Los Angeles, or in the cities or small towns of the
South. According to Charles Keil, blues singers became "culture heroes" in
black communities and important masculine models for black youth. Keil
suggests that the hustler and the entertainer were seen as men who were clever
and talented enough to be financially well off without holding traditional
employment, though they compromised their identity by taking subservient
places in. the white-run economy.3 Although the bluesmen assumed heroic
proportions to their listeners and accordingly dressed and groomed them-
selves in the flashiest of styles, their success derived from the fact that no
cultural gap separated them from their audience. While they achieved status
and its accoutrements unknown, and largely unknowable, to their fans, Mri-
can-American performers for the most part did not try to separate or distin-
guish themselves from their supporters. Like most white country singers, the
blues and r&b artists shared the cultural values of their listeners even while
achieving a glamor and aura of power that plain folk could generally admire
only from afar.
Several of the blues singers of the postwar period were men whose styles
and careers dated from the 1930s. Aaron "T-Bone" Walker was born in Lin-
den, Texas, in 1910 and exhibited a strong acquaintance with the country
blues tradition of that state. Because it seems almost obligatory for Texas
bluesmen to claim an association with Blind Lemon Jefferson, one might re-
spond skeptically to Walker's own claim to such a connection, but it seems

likely that he sometimes heard Jefferson during his time in Dallas. What can-
not be questioned is Walker's importance as a bridge between the older tradi-
tions and the new. In 1935 he became one of the first artists to play an electric
guitar; he was a pioneer in the employment of a single-string technique; and
he was one of the first to take the blues to the West Coast, playing in Central
Avenue clubs in Los Angeles in 1936 and 1937. After World War II, he be-
came a fixture on the West Coast blues scene, noted for his acrobatic stage
behavior, and recorded for several labels. In 1947 he recorded his biggest hit,
"Stormy Monday."
Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett) and Muddy Waters (McKinley Mor-
ganfield) were also older bluesmen who successfully adjusted to the newer
urban and electrified style. Both were born in the Mississippi Delta, in 1910
and 1915 respectively. Although folklorist Alan Lomax recorded Muddy Wa-
ters while on a trip to Mississippi searching for Robert Johnson, neither Wa-
ters nor Wolf gained significant recognition until they moved to Chicago after
World War II and were discovered by white blues aficionados. As his name
suggests, Howlin' Wolf groaned and shouted in a manner reminiscent of the
Mississippi field hollers, while Muddy Waters played the French harp and
bottleneck slide guitar. Of all the old-time bluesmen who remained active
during the 1940s and '50s, Waters seems to have made the best adjustment to
rhythm and blues and to have had the greatest international impact. He was
sufficiently rural in the early 1940s to record for Alan Lomax and the Library
of Congress, but by the end of the decade he was an active and leading mem-
ber of the aggressive Chicago rhythm and blues scene. He did not have a large
white following at the time, but his influence asserted itself in a strange and
unexpected way. One of his recorded songs from the latter period, "Rollin'
Stone," inspired the name of the famous British rock group. The popularity
that such bluesmen as Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters enjoyed among some
of the performing groups in Britain was a factor in their discovery in this
country. When the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Beatles came to the
United States, they brought with them an appreciation for the southern blues
that they passed on to their American fans.
Among the generation of blues singers who came of age during World
War II, the name of Riley B. (B. B.} King is preeminent. Born in 1925 on a
Delta plantation near Indianola, Mississippi, King moved to Memphis shortly
after the war and began playing on street corners and in dance halls. He soon
obtained a job on WDIA, a 50,000-watt station, where he sang and worked
as a disc jockey. It was here that he became known as the Beale Street Blues
Boy, abbreviated B.B., and began building his reputation as a great blues singer.
King refused to capitulate to rock 'n' roll during the 1950s and stuck to his
Delta-born style through successive changes in music fashions. While he did
not share in the adulation that black rock' n' rollers received from white youth,
King won the passionate devotion of an African-American audience and in-
spired many people such as Bobby Blue Bland to enter the music profession.
With a schedule that included a staggering number of one-night stands, ex-
tending allover the South and to the West Coast and back again, King trav-
eled with his guitar, nicknamed Lucille, and built an enviable rapport with his
listeners. Charles Keil, writing in 1966, asserted that King was "the only straight
blues singer in America with a large, adult, nationwide, and almost entirely
Negro audience."4 Since those words were written, B.B. King has become
known to a much wider circle of people in the United States, largely because
of the publicity given him and his songs by his British rock admirers.
Although most black singers such as B.B. King were almost totally un-
known in this country outside of the black community, a few contributed
songs that gradually began to enter the white consciousness in the late 1940s
and early '50s. These singers, whittling away at the edges of mainstream pop
music, prepared the way for the coming of rock 'n' roll. Louis Jordan, from
Brinkley, Arkansas, was the first black r&b singer to produce songs that were
popular with both black and white Americans. Jordan had been a jazz musi-
cian in the '30s, but his postwar recording success came with the production
of comic and novelty songs such as "Choo, Choo Ch' Boogie," "Caldonia,"
"Open the Door, Richard," and "Beans and Cornbread." Jordan's songs seem
to have been popular with all age groups, but the r&b singers who came after
him were more particularly attuned to youth. When white young people be-
gan to discover black music, they found in it a freedom, expressiveness, and
sensuality that they did not hear in other forms of music, and they liked what
they heard. Between 1952 and 1955 a succession of rhythm and blues songs
were recorded on the little 45-rpm discs that since their introduction in 1948
had been supplanting the old 78s. These songs competed for the favor of
American youth and included Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight" (1947);
Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and the Clovers' "One Mint Julep" (1952);
Clyde McPhatter's "Money Honey" and Ruth Brown's "Mama, He Treats Your
Daughter Mean" (1953); Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"; Lavern Baker's
"Tweedle Dee"; and Hank Ballard's ''Annie Had a Baby" and "Work with Me,
Annie" (1954); and Fats Domino's '%n't That a Shame" (1955).
Antoine "Fats" Domino and Professor Longhair, from New Orleans,
Little Richard (Penniman), from Macon, Georgia, and Chuck Berry, from St.
Louis, provided the transition from black rhythm and blues to rock ' n' roll.
Not only were their songs often covered or copied by white singers, but these
black rock 'n' rollers also competed favorably with the white singers and often
appeared alongside them on the charts. With his exuberant vocal style and
chorded, boogie-woogie piano playing, Domino had done much to create the
distinctive "New Orleans dance blues" sound. Domino's recordings were made
in the studios of Cosimo Matassa; in fact, virtually every r&b record made in
New Orleans from the mid-1940s until the late '60s was produced in studios
owned by Matassa. 5 Although not as well known as Fats Domino, another
New Orleans pianist, Henry Roeland Byrd, helped establish rhythm and blues
as a stylistic force, rather than simply as a catch-all expression for African-
American vernacular music. Better known as Professor Longhair, Byrd devel-
oped and popularized a piano style featuring a furiously rolling bass pattern
and exuberantly syncopated left hand. He also helped establish New Orleans
as a city with more going on in it musically than just jazz, especially with his
contributions to what is known as "New Orleans funk," practiced notably by
the Neville Brothers. Professor Longhair was never widely known outside of
the Crescent City during his lifetime, which ended in 1980, but his influence
lived on in the careers of the Nevilles, Allen Toussaint, Marcia Ball, and others
such as promoter Quint Davis who made sure that their fans knew about
"Fess." Fats Domino became so much a part of mainstream rock 'n' roll that
he often turned the tables on white musicians and made successful adapta-
tions of their songs. In 1956, for example, he recorded a very popular version
of a song introduced by cowboy singer Gene Autry, "Blueberry Hill." Chuck
Berry did more to create a separate rock' n' roll guitar style than probably any
other artist, wrote songs based on the interests of middle-class kids, and re-
ceived criticism from other black performers for being too "country." Little
Richard helped reinforce the role of the piano as a rock 'n' roll instrument,
infused his music with the vibrancy of gospel, and suffered perhaps the ulti-
mate insult a black rock' n' roll artist could experience, having his songs cov-
ered by syrupy crooner Pat Boone.
Rock' n' roll was not exclusively southern in origin or manifestation, but
it first exploded on the national scene with a southern accent, and most of its
early southern practitioners were young men who drew upon country, gospel,
and rhythm and blues roots. Sam Phillips, the owner of the Memphis Record-
ing Service and the Sun Record Company, had long recognized the commer-
cial potential that lay in the fusion of southern black and white grass-roots
forms. He had often said that if he could find a white man who could sing in
a convincing black style, he would make a million dollars. Music history is
replete with references to the fact that Elvis Presley was that man, though
Phillips seems not to have recognized him immediately, ignoring Presley's first
recording tests. Furthermore, Presley seems to have stumbled upon the idea of
recording a rhythm and blues tune only after his attempts with other types of
music had resulted in mediocre imitations of the pop crooners and country
singers of the day.
Presley was born on January 8, 1935, to very poor and religious parents
in East Tupelo, Mississippi. His initial exposure to music came at the First
Assembly of God Church, but he also listened to country music and gospel
quartets on the radio. Although he surely must have heard rhythm and blues
earlier, his most direct contact with it came after he and his family moved to
Memphis in 1948. By the time he made his first records for Sun in 1954,
Presley had absorbed both songs and styles from most of the grassroots tradi-
tions of the South, but he seemed to have no exclusive commitment to any of
them. In fact, when he made his first test records, he was singing some of the
bland pop hits of the day. On July 6, 1954, he and two local musicians, guitar-
ist Scotty Moore and string bass player Bill Black, were jamming in the Sun
Studios when, almost absentmindedly, they began "messing around" with a
song that excited them and also sparked Phillips's first real interest in their
music. This was an old blues tune, learned from Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup,
called "That's All Right, Mama." When their first record was released, "That's
All Right" was backed with "Blue Moon of Kentucky," a country tune written
by Bill Monroe. This choice, too, was the result of somewhat aimless jamming.
Never was a revolution launched in such a playful and unplanned manner.
"That's All Right, Mama" became a big hit in Memphis soon after it was
featured by white disc jockey Dewey Phillips6 on his rhythm and blues show,
"Red, Hot, and Blue." Presley and his music were such hybrid phenomena
that no one could categorize them. Soon after the record appeared, Presley
made guest appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana Hayride
and then joined the Hayride's regular cast. Old-time country fans were wary,
if not appalled, by the young singer some people called the "Hillbilly Cat" and
his frenzied, sensual style, but Presley achieved two results that had not oc-
curred among "country" singers before: he mesmerized youthful audiences
that had not previously been attracted to country music, and he aroused emo-
tions within them that heretofore had been latent. Presley tapped an enor-
mous reservoir of repressed emotion among young people in the United States,
North and South, and the "rebels without a cause" of the 1950s began to find
a sense of common identity in a music that reflected their values and fears.
They also benefited from something Peter Guralnick observes, that in Mem-
phis, by pure chance, three white men who were musically colorblind-Presley,
Phillips, and Phillips-came together and decided to record and play on the
radio a new kind of music that drew inspiration from both black and white
sources. Coming at the start of the civil rights movement, the rise of Presley's
music and the blurring of color lines that it represented gave it special power
and meaning in the South, especially, and in the United States as a whole.?
As an entertainer, Presley had lost his exclusive regional identification by
1956. Under the astute, if manipulative, management of Colonel Tom Parker,
a former carnival man and booking agent, he signed a recording contract with
RCA Victor and went on to experience a national success and international
recognition unsurpassed by any figure in popular culture. In the twenty years
that preceded his death in 1977, Presley's popularity never really declined from
the peak reached in the late 1950s. His records did not always dominate the
charts, but he successfully adapted to the various changes that came to pop
music during those decades, and he maintained an astounding commercial
viability through numerous movies, Las Vegas appearances, and television spe-
cials. He never lost his original audience, and he picked up a new one among
younger people who had never seen him in person. He became so much the
property of the people of the U.S., and the mythologized projection of the
dreams of so many of them, that he retreated into the isolation of his Mem-
phis mansion and a small circle of friends, bodyguards, and relatives who
gathered around him at Graceland.
Even though Elvis became part of the international realm of show busi-
ness, neither he nor the other young southern singers who followed in his
wake could ever escape, even had they desired, the marks of their southern-
bred culture. Generally described as "rockabillies" because they supposedly
embodied both rock 'n' roll and hillbilly characteristics, such singers as Carl
Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, and Conway Twitty
carried the dialects and inflections of the Deep South in their speech and
singing styles. Their music was also deeply indebted to the varied folk styles of
their native region, reflecting a powerful fusion of gospel music, both white
and black, country, and rhythm and blues. Growing up in the South, they
scarcely could have avoided hearing such music on radio, recordings, or juke-
boxes, but they usually had an even more personal form of indebtedness. Charlie
Rich, for example, grew up in a family of gospel singers, but he also learned
the blues style from an old black singer who lived near his home in Arkansas.
Carl Perkins, whose recording of "Blue Suede Shoes" was one of the big hits of
1956, had been born into a tenant farm family on a plantation near Lake City,
Tennessee. Perkins was a faithful listener to the Grand Ole Opry and was
particularly fond of Bill Monroe, but he credited his guitar style to a black
musician who lived on the plantation.
Jerry Lee Lewis, in many ways the most interesting of the so-called rock-
abillies, often acted as if he had stepped out of the pages of Wilbur ]. Cash's
Mind of the South, the prototypical ambivalent southerner embodying both
hedonistic and puritanical traits. Lewis was born in Ferriday, Louisiana, the
son of devout Assembly of God parents. He briefly contemplated going into
the ministry and enrolled for a time in a Bible school in Waxahachie, Texas.
Religious music was very much a part of his life, but "sinful" music exerted
a more powerful sway. In Ferriday, he spent a considerable portion of his
free time, as did his musical cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmie Lee Swaggart,
at Haney's Big House, a black dub that specialized in rhythm and blues
musiC.
While Lewis's piano style, with its flourishes and rolling chords, is remi-
niscent of white gospel music, it probably owes a good deal to sounds heard at
Haney's. The three cousins, all pianists using much the same style, built promi-
nent careers as professional musicians. Lewis mixed country with rock 'n' roll;
Gilley made his name in mainstream country music; and Swaggart skillfully
incorporated his musicianship into his appearances as a Pentecostal evange-
list, which were seriously curtailed after a sex scandal in the 1980s.
Lewis vaulted into the national music limelight in 1957 with his hit
recording of "Whole Lot of Shaking Going On" and with subsequent tele-
vised appearances on Steve Allen's "Tonight" show, where he bowled over the
audience while almost wrecking the piano. He soon became embroiled in
controversy when it became known that the twenty-three-year-old had mar-
ried his thirteen-year-old cousin. He survived the firestorm of bad publicity
and eventually moved into the field of country music, but he never lost the
energy, dynamic flair, and swaggering confidence that characterized his early
rockabilly days. Neither did he abandon the lifestyle that veered from the
sanctified to the sinful. At various points in this career, he announced a re-
commitment to Christ and declared that he had changed his ways, vowing,
for instance, not to perform where liquor was sold. Some people who heard
his announcements celebrated his conversion, and others expressed regret at
the loss of the good times he provided them. Others stayed skeptical, predict-
ing that his change of heart would not last, and were proven right, as Lewis
returned time and again to pounding pianos in honky-tonks and, often, scan-
dalizing the public with new indiscretions.
Artists in the rockabilly style became culture heroes to young people in
the U.S., and they contributed at least unconsciously to th~ youth revolution
of the 1960s. In addition, their music was as popular in Britain as it was at
home. Charles "Buddy" Holly, the Texas singer and songwriter who died in an
Iowa plane crash in 1959, and the Everly Brothers (Phil and Don) from Ken-
tucky, were direct influences on the music and harmony of the Beatles, as well
as other groups that made up the "British invasion" in the '60s. The Beatles
were often said to have named themselves as a tribute to Holly's group, the
Crickets. But if the artists who performed rockabilly music themselves were
rebels, their rebellion was in no way overtly political, nor was it fomented
against the traditions of the South. Presley, Lewis, and their cohorts were a
whole world and a culture away from the iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian hard
rock musicians of the 1960s. When as a Memphis teenager Elvis Presley decked
himself out in bright, flamboyant clothing and worked his hair into a ducktail,
he was in no sense flouting society's rules but was affirming his identity in a
milieu that generally ignored the children of the working-class poor. Likewise
his and other rockabilly performers' employment of a sensual performing style
was as much an expression of stereotypical masculine imagery deeply imbed-
ded in southern working-class culture as it was a violation of conventional
middle-class standards. Presley never intended to antagonize any facet of that
southern working-class world from which he came. However, his theatricality,
his employment of the emotionalism he had picked up in church, a setting
where it was sanctioned and socioculturally "safe," had other implications when
carried to the general public. Even preachers of his own denomination de-
nounced his antics, much to Presley's surprise and disappointment. Hell-rais-
ers the rockabillies could be; but radicals they were not. Although he sang
with a heavy black-influenced style and helped break down barriers between
black and white musical culture, Presley never publicly questioned the racial
values of his region. His manners, with a profusion of "sirs" and "ma'ams,"
epitomized southern courtesy. He willingly, and famously, served in the mili-
tary and, alarmed by what he considered to be scandalous conduct on the part
of many hard rock musicians in the '60s, reportedly offered his services to the
FBI as an informer and his allegiance to President Richard Nixon in a well-
publicized meeting that both hoped to use to their advantage. Stories about
alleged drug use that circulated after his death did not negate his overtures
toward conservative law-enforcement officials, but they did place him in the
context of ambivalent southern behavior patterns, much like those of Jerry
Lee Lewis. 8
Yet Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, and their fellow southern rock 'n' roll
performers contributed to a social revolution that exerted a profound influ-
ence on the popular music and youth of the world. Looking back on the
music of the period and comparing it to the rock and pop music that fol-
lowed, the rock 'n' roll of the 1950s seems to represent an innocent and naive
phase of u.S. cultural history. The nation's youth merely groped in the 1950s
for answers that youth in the 1960s asserted with fury and finality. Regardless
of the intent behind the music of the 1950s, and regardless of the social con-
sequences spawned by its emergence, southern rock 'n' roll musicians effec-
tively implanted much of the culture of the working-class South in the nation
at large. Their visibility as concert performers and their prominence on the

national record popularity charts were the obvious symbols of their impact,
something that was also felt in countless less obvious ways. They had taken
their music further into the realm of national popular culture than any south-
ern grassroots performers before them.
Chapter 7
THE 19605 AND 19705

ROCK,GOSPEL,SOUL
Native rock 'n' roll's impact on popular music, particularly its domination by
southerners, had already begun to diminish by 1960. As Robert Palmer put it
in Rock 6- RolL· An Unruly History, the genre suffered a remarkable rate of
"attrition" through the untimely deaths of Buddy Holly and mates in 1959,
Elvis Presley's departure first for the Army and then pop stardom, Little
Richard's defection to gospel music, and Jerry Lee Lewis's and Chuck Berry's
involvement in raging sex-related scandals. Rock 'n' roll became standardized
and sanitized by the national market-oriented labels and distributors who
thought some of its manifestations were too earthy for middle-class record
buyers and offered them, instead, "manufactured 'teen idols'" who would not
threaten the sensibilities of nervous parents and community leaders.' But the
year 1964 saw an even more dramatic turning point in American music with
the arrival in the United States of the Bearles, an event that marked the begin-
ning of a much-remarked "invasion" of the United States by British rock 'n'
rollers. In a sense, the coming of the British groups meant that rock '0 roll
had come full circle from the recordings of grassroots American entertainers,
to Europe, and then back again. The British groups, especially the Beatles, the
Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Yardbirds, Cream, and Led Zeppelin, tended
to have a deep appreciation for the music of their blues and rockabilly prede-
cessors. The Brits were shocked at the ignorance of people in the U.S. about
their own musical heritage and built the familiar blues-based, three-chord
format into many of their songs. But this new breed of musicians, especially
those from Britain, were more than copyists. They had no interest in simply
recreating the sounds of musical forebears from the southern United States.
The Beatles did their last cover of an old rock 'n' roll tune in 1965, as Craig
Morrison says, after which "rock had dropped the roll."2 These were revolu-
tionaries, musicians who greatly altered the American music scene and, in-
deed, that of most of the western world and much of the rest. Through their
The 1960s and 1970s 109
influence electronics returned to popular music with a vengeance, coming at

the apex of the acoustic-dominated urban folk revival in the United States and
helping send the folk-music movement into eclipse. They also helped trans-
form rock' n' roll from largely being a form of dance music to one witnessed at
concert venues. While their older brothers and sisters had stories of dancing to
rock' n' roll bands at road houses, young people from the mid-I960s on often
spoke of having "seen" bands at various concert halls and sports arenas. With
their long hair and "mod" dress, the British rockers fomented a revolution; as
well, in style and manners among youth in the United States that never really
dissipated. The British musicians, their psychedelic counterparts from San
Francisco, and other emulators and innovators from the U.S. introduced the
strongest urban tone yet heard in American rock 'n' roll. Their high-powered
electric instrumentation, their stage costuming, the sex-and-drugs orientation
of much of their material, and their brash performing styles suggested very
little of the earlier rural-tinged music of the southern rockabillies. In short,
rock 'n' roll was transformed into rock music-hard rock, acid rock, and,
later, heavy metal-and most of the innocence and naivete of the earlier form
disappeared.
Not only was rock much less derivative of the past than early rock 'n' roll
had been, it also seemed much more attuned to contemporary youth, as a
product of their urban experiences and their participation in a national musi-
cal culture made possible by the electronic mass media. Thus, the rock music
of the mid-I960s was as powerful a de-regionalizing force as had yet appeared
in U.S. popular culture. Young southerners who were drawn to it, either as
performers or listeners, became part of a culture that knew no regional bounds.
Rock music in the 1960s made its appeal neither to class, to race, or to region;
it was an art form that spoke exclusively to youth, anywhere. The rockabillies
of the 1950s often recorded in the South, and even as they were blurring the
lines between black and white music, their southernness was very apparent.
The rock singers of the 1960s, on the other hand, usually recorded in New
York or Los Angeles, and whether they came from Mobile, Des Moines, or
Boise, they reflected a non-conformist, anti-establishment youth culture, mostly
alien to the South, whose traits became virtually worldwide: long hair, uncon-
ventional dress, illicit drug use, sexual freedom, and hostility toward or disin-
terest in politics or civic and religious authority figures. Rock music's emergence
during the turbulent 1960s, when practically all of the nation's institutions
were being challenged, further explains the reluctance of some southern rock
singers to identifY with the South. Ambitious southern rock musicians moved
to where the action was, to New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco, though
they could scarcely avoid being embarrassed about the politics, religion, and
racism of their home region. The international spotlight that the civil rights
movement, especially, helped shine on the South illuminated many unfavor-
able characteristics of the region, some of which inspired criticisms from rock
musicians such as Neil Young, whose bitter denunciations of the South in
"Southern Man" and "Alabama" and of government brutality toward Vietnam
War protestors in "Ohio," a war largely supponed by mainstream southerners,
constituted some of the political sentiments many young people felt at the
time. Their affinity for rock music may have been sharpened, in fact, by a
rebellion against the values of the white majority of the South. Whatever the
cause, in the 1960s when all musical roads seemed to lead toward New York or
the West Coast, even if a few groups such as the Byrds and Creedence Clearwater
Revival drew on southern or country themes and motifs, few had much incen-
tive to create something that might be called southern rock.
Nevertheless, although they might often recoil against an identification
with the South, some southern-born rock musicians could not avoid absorbing
many of the region's musical traits. The Winter Brothers, Johnny and Edgar,
from Beaumont, Texas, were devotees of the blues, but they toiled in obscurity
until they left Texas and relocated in New York. Doug Sahm, from San Anto-
nio, drew upon at least three musical sources: blues, Tex-Mex, and country.
He had been a child steel guitarist in local country bands, but later spent
much of his time playing with Chicano and black groups. Shortly after the
British invasion became such a powerful part of the American musical scene,
Sahm's producer, Huey Meaux, advised him to grow his hair long, find four
other musicians, and prepare to emulate the Beatles's methods. The result was
the Sir Douglas Quintet, probably the first American rock band to show the
direct effects of the British invasion. The quintet made one successful record,
"She's About a Mover," and broke up after a marijuana bust in Houston.
Sahm left to become part of the San Francisco scene but later returned to
Texas, built a new career in Austin, and became a mainstay in the Texas Torna-
does, the popular Tex-Mex group.
Apart from Louisiana-born Johnny Rivers, who made the transition from
rockabilly to rock 'n' roll and enjoyed solid popularity while maintaining fairly
pronounced southern characteristics, the most successful southern rocker during
the 1960s was Janis Joplin. Her career shows the multiplicity of influences
that helped to shape the rock genre, but it also demonstrates how unreceptive
the South was, at least initially, to its daughters and sons who would not con-
form to the prescribed culture of their region. Born to a middle-class family in
Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin was a bright and sensitive child whose liberal atti-
tudes and interests in music, art, and literature set her apart from most of the
city's youth. Though hardly the ugly-duckling she later recalled herself to have
The 1960s and 1970s 111
been, her slightly plump physical appearance and awkward self-consciousness

meant she would never live up to the teen starlet image young middle-class
women were expected to emulate in the early 1960s.3 She sought escape in
music and the company of young people who shared her sympathies.
When Joplin enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin in 1962, the
city had not yet become an imp~rtant music center, but it had an active urban
folk scene, which she entered immediately. Joplin, however, avoided the po-
lite, Kingston Trio variety of folk music and immersed herself in the earthier
forms of blues, gospel, bluegrass, and country, singing often in a hillbilly bar
in north Austin called Threadgill's. Although her clear preference was for the
blues, and her idol was Bessie Smith, Joplin had no exclusive style during her
Austin days and generally sang a particular song in the style of the person from
whom she had learned it. She and her friends became known in Austin as
much for their unconventional dress and lifestyles as for their music. Although
the term was not yet current in Austin, Joplin anticipated the hippie subcul-
ture, and when she heard that San Francisco might be responsive both to her
music and her lifestyle, she left for that city in 1963. Joplin found an accep-
tance in the rock music world that she had never gained at home in Texas, and
after her discovery at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, her career skyrock-
eted. With a vocal style partly shaped by her fascination with Otis Redding,
and with an aggressive energy that punctuated her stage presence, Joplin was
soon touted as the best white blues singer in America and one of its most
powerful female performers. Sadly, she self-destructed almost as quickly as she
had flourished.
By the time Janis Joplin died on October 4, 1970, the victim of an
accidental overdose of heroin, much of the mood of rebellion and angry pro-
test that had characterized the previous decade had begun to dissipate. As the
achievements of the civil rights movement and federal legislation brought
measurable improvement in the lives of southern Mrican Americans, and as
the nation tired of social and political upheaval and began moving to the right
politically, race relations improved in the South but seemed to worsen in the
country as a whole. The glare of national publicity moved significantly away
from the ills of the South to those of the northern ghettos. Northern cities
whose newspapers had sent courageous reporters into the South in the 1950s
and '60s to cover the civil rights movement as if covering a war found them-
selves dealing with their own crises in school desegregation and equal employ-
ment and housing opportunities. In the South, meanwhile, the election of a
new group of progressive governors such as Reubin Askew in Florida, Dale
Bumpers in Arkansas, and Jimmy Carter in Georgia inspired a fresh wave of
"New South" rhetoric. Carter's election to the presidency in 1976, with its
promise of sectional healing and a reunited nation, intensified the feeling of

many observers that a progressive South might lead the nation to racial justice
and human understanding. With the lessening of the age-old evils of southern
society, along with some of the guilt that had accompanied them, young
southerners were freed to a great extent to reaffirm or rediscover the good that
lay in their culture. Naturally, the conceptions of what was good in the South,
or what was indeed "southern," varied considerably. The promotion, some-
times simply music-industry hype, surrounding "southern rock music" in the
1970s was largely a reassertion of the mythic South, but in the context of a
heightened New South ideology.
Recording and promotion of southern rock musicians had not been en-
tirely absent in the South in the 1960s, as witnessed by Huey Meaux's opera-
tions in Houston and by Bill Lowery's success in Atlanta with the recording of
Joe South, Tony Joe White, Jerry Reed, Billy Joe Royal, and Ray Stevens. But
until the emergence of Phil Walden and his Capricorn label in 1969, no south-
ern-based company, not even Sun Records in Memphis or the New Orleans
producers of the 1950s, had successfully rivaled those in other regions of the
United States. Walden, once the manager of Otis Redding, was one of many
southern music entrepreneurs who had long resented the failure of the South
to hold on to its rock musicians. His establishment of Capricorn Records in
Macon, Georgia, was a direct effort to make use of the musical wealth of the
South while keeping the region's rock performers at home. Walden literally
created the Allman Brothers Band in 1969 when he asked Duane Allman, a
gifted session guitarist at the recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to
recruit some other musicians to make recordings and live appearances. The
Allman Brothers subsequently gained great popularity throughout the United
States, made Capricorn a nationally known label with a gross of $43 million
in 1976, and contributed very largely to the creation of what became known
as the Macon Sound. The Allmans used an instrumental format widely copied
by other southern rock bands, particularly those who recorded for Capricorn:
two guitars, two sets of drums, keyboards, and bass. Theirs was basically a
blues-rock sound given shape by Duane Allman's slide-style guitar and by
Gregg Allman's white soul singing. But the Allmans sometimes also projected
a country feeling through the playing and singing of guitarist Dickey Betts, as
in "Rambling Man," in which Betts's solo guitar playing closely resembles that
of a steel guitarist.
Some southern rock bands, such as Lynyrd Skynyrd from Florida, the
Marshall Tucker Band from South Carolina, and the Charlie Daniels Band
(COB) from Tennessee adhered very closely to the Allman Brothers's instru-
mental format while often differing widely in the type of material performed.
The 1960s and 1970s 113
Others, such as Wet Willie from Alabama, Sea Level, a direct offshoot of the
Allmans, .38 Special from Jacksonville (led by Donnie Van Zant, brother of
Lynyrd Skynyrd leader Ronnie Van Zant), the Amazing Rhythm Aces from
Memphis, and the Atlanta Rhythm Section diverged from the Allman instru-
mental pattern. Some used backup singers, including women, in a male-domi-
nated musical genre, much the way rhythm & blues bands did. Wet Willie
and Sea Level performed basically white blues and r&b with no country ad-
mixture at all, though the Amazing Rhythm Aces had a hit, "Third Rate Ro-
mance," on the country as well as pop charts in 1976 and Charlie Daniels
became known as a fiddler as well as guitarist and lead vocalist in his band.
Wet Willie produced a national hit, "Keep On Smilin,'" which recreated the
r&b sound for the white youth audience. It should be pointed out also that
the Marshall Tucker Band was virtually alone, with the British band Jethro
Tull, in giving a flute a central place in its music.
Southern rock music was marketed with a self-conscious southernness
unknown even at the height of the rockabilly craze. Capricorn distributed
thousands of buttons admonishing record buyers to "Buy Southern." Phil
Walden made the most of his personal and political friendship with Jimmy
Carter. As governor of Georgia, Carter had supported a bill to control tape
piracy, a cause dear to Walden, who, in turn, made financial contributions to
Carter's political campaigns. During the crucial opening stages of Carter's run
for the presidency, when he was little known outside of Georgia--even stump-
ing panelists as to his identity on the popular game show "What's My Line?"-
several southern rock bands played at concerts to raise much-needed money
for his campaign. Carter's identification with rock bands did not hurt him
among the nation's youthful voters, and the bands undoubtedly profited from
their association with the successful presidential candidate. Indeed, the Marshall
Tucker and Charlie Daniels Bands were featured at the main ball celebrating
Carter's inauguration.
Such rock magazines as Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy, and other types of
promotional literature, made constant allusions to the presumed "southernness"
of southern rock bands. It was not solely their instrumental style, with its
indebtedness to blues, r&b, and country forms, or the images in their lyrics
that evoked notions of southern culture and southern identity. Other more
intangible qualities concerning attitude, behavior, and lifestyle set southern
rock musicians apart from those from other areas of the country and some-
times from images being promoted by advocates of New South ideology. Some-
times this style was projected as nothing more than a musical reflection of an
easy-going ambience and an honest, down-to-earth approach to life, but often
the emphasis was on the mythical southern machismo with its hedonistic atti-
tude and underlying acceptance of violence. According to Stephen R. Tucker,

southern rock "emphasized such traditional [southern] themes as masculine
aggression, the superiority of rural life, and unbridled individualism ... .
appeal[ing] most strongly to white southern working-class teenagers ... "4
Some bands displayed Confederate flags at their concerts and in their promo-
tional literature, giving rise to questions about whether they were expressing
racist inclinations or whether they were simply trying to set themselves apart
from rock groups from other parts of the countty. Some imagery and behavior
seemed to suggest desires for self-assertiveness and self-determination, long-
held southern yearnings with respect to the region's place in the United States.
One journalist described southern music as "something more than just rock-
and-roll south of the Mason-Dixon line. At best, it's the living image of Southern
culture; a fusion of the varied and sometimes antagonistic elements of South-
ern life. At worst, it's awful, a sort of mindless, shake-your-butt disco music
for the smash-the-beer bottle-over-the-waitress'-head set. "5 Some southern rock
musicians even questioned the notion that the form was a distinctive one
when it first came out. Toy Caldwell, leader of the Marshall Tucker Band, was
quoted as saying, "I guess to me, Southern music is just a band from the South
playing music. "6
Other musicians lived and performed out of a more focused southern
image, if not stereotype. Charlie Daniels probably became the most aggres-
sively southern of all the rock musicians, representing the South of the hell-
raising good old boy who lives only to play music, get drunk, make love, and
fight if the need arises. Lynyrd Skynyrd also built a devil-may-care image that
carried more than a hint of potential violence, though they diverted from
some of the more aggressive themes of southern rock in their anti-handgun
song "Saturday Night Special." Ronnie Van Zant, the lead singer of the group
who died in an airplane crash in 1977 with two other members of the band,
was the coauthor of "Sweet Home, Alabama," a militant hymn of praise to the
state with at least ambivalent defense for its former governor George Wallace,
who was internationally famous for resisting racial desegregation. One line in
the song is a reply to singer Neil Young's disparaging remarks about race rela-
tions in Alabama: ''A Southern man don't need him around anyhow."
Chet Flippo, a southern-born rock journalist, probably spoke for many
southern rock fans, at least those with a sense of cultural inferiority, when he
said that the Allman Brothers "more than anything else, returned a sense of
worth to the South." He may have overstated the point when he said that the
Allmans had "moved a whole generation of southern kids uptown" and that
"kids in the South finally had cultural heroes of their own."7 Going "uptown,"
after all, or at least breaking out of the old impoverishment of the South is
The 1960s and 1970s 115
something that most southern musicians, and many of their fans in the South,
have striven to do all along. Whether they could make the trip without losing
much of their cultural baggage has always been the question for such
southerners.
Southern-born rock entertainers strongly identified with their native
region, and as successful musicians they became personalities many southerners
appreciated and regarded with pride. Furthermore, the images that appeal to
the southern rockers were often closer to those of the '~ustin outlaws" than to
scenes or symbols in their own home areas. Charlie Daniels, for instance,
spoke of his southern origins with a truculent pride, saying "Be proud you're a
rebel" in his song of praise to his fellow southern musicians, "The South's
Gonna Do It Again," but he adopted the dress of the cattle drover and nursed
a penchant for the western novels of Louis [Amour. Similarly, the members
of the Marshall Tucker Band were products of cotton-mill families in
Spartanburg, South Carolina, but their hearts seemed to be in the Old West.
Like Charlie Daniels, they too adopted the attire of working cowboys, and
became known for their passion for old cowboy movies. 8
Though ZZ Top made their reputation as a hard-driving rock band whose
songs often featured suggestive lyrics, the group also earned considerable ac-
claim for inventiveness in exploring the seemingly endless varieties inherent in
the deceptively simple blues-based rock genre. ZZ Top's lead singer and gui-
tarist, Billy Gibbons, developed a distinctive, black-tinged vocal style, and
although the band used only three instruments--guitar, bass, and drums-
they became known for producing some of the highest-decibel sounds in
American rock music. They also earned a place at least on the edges of south-
ern rock, possibly an appropriate place for them in light of the ambivalent
narure of their state's ties to the South. Not often mentioned with the Allmans,
Marshall Tucker, or CDB, nevertheless ZZ Top embodied many of the traits
of the genre, especially with their strong regional identity. The difference was
that ZZ Top focused more on Texas than on the Deep South. The "little old
band from Texas" carried the cowboy myth, at least a Texas version of it, to its
greatest lengths among rock musicians. As was true of the Allman Brothers
Band, ZZ Top was the creation of a music promoter, Bill Ham, a former
Houston record distributor. Their concerts were accompanied by an avalanche
of publicity exceeded only by that accorded the Beatles and Rolling Stones. At
a time when many artists performed at the mercy of quirky sound and light
systems in venues around the country, ZZ Top created legendary stage perfor-
mances using multiple tons of their own equipment, including a 40,000-
watt sound system. They performed on their own stage built in the shape of
Texas, outfitted with various livestock and wildlife reminiscent of the Old
West-longhorn steers, buffalo, vultures, and rattlesnakes-all before a Texas

panorama.
Although ZZ Top continued to flourish well into the music-video era,
southern rock began to decline in the 1980s. But it played an interesting,
somewhat familiar, role in the evolution of southern music. In a way, the
British invasion was one of the best things that happened to southern ver-
nacular music in the 1960s. It helped liberate rock 'n' roll from the homog-
enized, formulaic sound it had acquired during its nationalized, "safe" period
in the very early '60s. The "roll" in rock 'n' roll may have been lost, but its loss
helped make possible a new brand of youth-oriented popular music that actu-
ally reinfused the possibility for regional variations. Just as surely as the British
rock musicians developed a myriad of southern-rooted styles of their own,
their revolt against nondescript rock 'n' roll helped make southern rock pos-
sible. Whether it lived up to its New South hype, it lived nonetheless. When it
went into decline, it did not die, but found new expressions in other forms, as
will be seen in the next chapter.
While they did not universally share the values and preoccupations of rock
music, all forms of music in the 1960s showed the evidence of heightened
commercialization and organization, and all exhibited an awareness of the
primacy of youth in contemporary popular culture. Consequently, virtually
all entertainers, secular and gospel, understood the importance of displaying a
youthful image and vitality, while also keeping abreast of changing fashions
and styles. Long hair and modern dress became associated with nearly all
musicians, not solely those with an affinity for rock music. Every variety of
music in the United States became deeply immersed in the matrix of big busi-
ness, and each demonstrated a concern for packaging, promotion, and mer-
chandising that showed how far it had traveled from its folk roots. Furthermore,
drums and electric instruments, including synthesizers, appeared in every
musical genre, and instrumental techniques and even vocal mannerisms bor-
rowed from rock appeared with regularity in other musical forms.
By the beginning of the 1960s gospel music had come to terms with the
world and had thoroughly appropriated the techniques of show business, while
continuing to infuse much of its own spirit into the field of secular music. The
sense of religious mission no doubt still burned brightly in the lives of many
gospel singers, but an increasing number viewed the music as just another
facet of popular music or as an avenue for entrance into different kinds of
performing careers. Singers with rural or downhome flavor still existed. Some
of them attained great popularity, both white groups such as the Chuck Wagon
Gang, the Sullivan Family, Wendy Bagwell and His Sunlighters, and Mrican-
Mahalia Jackson with Thomas A. Dorsey, 1940. Jackson and Dorsey, through their
singing and songwriting, contributed immeasurably to the shaping and populariza-
[ion of black gospel music. Dorsey is known as "The Father of Black Gospel Music,"
while Jackson was the genre's most revered singer. William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive,
Tulane University.
Above, Kid Howard's Band, 1958. Photo by Ralston Howard. Hogan Jazz Archive,
Howard- Tilton Memorial Library. Tulane University. Below, Professor Longhair. Hogan
Jazz Archive, Howard- Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University.
Above, Pictured here in 1926 with his famous Hot Five Band,
Armstrong was the greatest southern-born musician who ever lived,
and one of America's finest ambassadors to the world. Left to right:
Louis Armstrong, Johnny St. eyr, Johnny Dodds, Edward "Kid" Ory,
Lil Hardin Armstrong. Hogan Jazz Archive, Howard- Tilton Memorial
Library, Tulane University.
Right. Albert Brumley was

the most popular white gos-
pel composer, and his songs
circulated widely in both
gospel and country music
through inclusion in paper-
back hymnals and radio
broadcasts. His best known
song, ''I'll Fly Away," won
renewed popularity in the
early-twenty-first-century
through its performance in
the soundtrack of 0 Brother,
Where Art Thou? Photo cour-
tesy ofAlbert E. Brumley &
Sons.
Above, B.B. King with his guitar Lucille. The "Beale Street Blues Boy"
reshaped his native Mississippi Delta blues style into an electric and
electrifying form that captivated listeners here and abroad. The "Brit-
ish Invasion" by rock performers in the 1960s owes much of its form
and flavor to King. Photo by Michael P Smith. Below. Shown here in
1936 with the veteran talent scout Eli Oberstein, Lydia Mendoza (,The
Meadowlark of the Border") built an intimate relationship with her
many Tejano working-class fans. Her music is now known around the
world. Photo by Allee Wallace. University o/Texas Institute o/Texan Cul-
tures at San Antonio.
Above, Dolly Parton. This Tennessee mountain girl may be best known
for her flamboyance and beaury, but she is also one of America's
finest singers and songwriters. Photo by Becky R. Johnson. BeLow, Arthel
"Doc" Watson. Since his introduction to folk revival audiences in
the early 1960s, this extraordinary North Carolina-born guitarist
and singer has built a reputation as America's greatest traditional
musician. Each April he hosts in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, a gi-
ant festival named for his deceased son, Merle. Photo by Becky R.
Johnson.
Above, The Hackberry Ramblers. Led by fiddler Luderin Darbone and accordionist
Edwin Duhon, this venerable group has taken their blend of Cajun and country music
[0 audiences in America and Europe for over sixry years. Photo courtesy o/Ben Sandmel.
Beww, Clifton Chenier, the "King of Louisiana," wears his crown proudly, as is befit-
ting of the man who introduced Zydeco music and his infectious accordion sryle [0
the world. Photo by Philip Gould © Philip Gould 2003.
Before her death in 1995, Selena Quintanilla had become the most popular Tejano
singing star of all time. While preserving her fantastic appeal among Latino fans, she
had taken her unique version of the Tex-Mex style to audiences throughout the na-
tion. Photo by John Dyer ©John Dyer 1992. All Rights Reserved.
\I
Above, Tish Hinojosa. Few emertainers have more ably illustrated the
eclectic nature of southern music than this San Antonio-born singer-
songwriter with her Latino, pop, folk, and coumry blend. Below, Robin
and Linda Williams. This husband-and-wife duo has imroduced south-
ern songs and styles to national audiences for many years through
their recordings and personal appearances. As longtime members of
the Prairie Home Companion cast, they reached audiences that other-
wise would not have known about the richness and diversity of south-
ern music. Photo by Senor McGuire.
The 1960s and 1970s 117
American groups such as the Consolers and Fairfield Four. Almost any night,
at least up through the 1980s, on a string of radio stations across the country,
one could hear the transcribed broadcasts of the Reverend and Mrs. J. Bazzd
Mull as they talked to the "neighbors" and hawked their special offers of Chuck
Wagon Gang and other gospel quartet albums.
The world of the Mulls and the Chuck Wagon Gang, however, was a
rapidly receding one. The Chuck Wagon Gang endured, surviving numerous
personnel changes over the many years of their existence. Longtime member
Anna Carter and her husband, former Louisiana governor and Country Mu-
sic Hall of Fame member Jimmie Davis, continued to perform together as
Davis approached his one hundredth birthday. But no facet ofAmerican music
has been more competitive or more highly professionalized than gospel mu-
sic. Gospel singers typically dressed in expensive, elegantly tailored suits. While
women in gospel groups continued to dress somewhat traditionally, male singers
often sported elaborately styled hair and often wore "pencil-thin" mustaches,
looking like either stereotypical morticians or professional gamblers, super-
seded later by longer hair and even, occasionally, beards. The days of simple
piano accompaniment disappeared almost completely, and virtually every
quartet began performing with drums, electric bass, and a retinue of horns or
electric guitars. White gospel groups began to lean toward country and west-
ern instrumentation, while black singers adhered to the instrumental sounds
of rhythm and blues or soul music, especially being more likely to employ
organs than were white groups and being more likely to perform in choirs
than whites. The performing styles of black and white singers still differed
greatly. The physical presence and prowess of Mrican-American singers dis-
tinguished their performances, as they moved all about the stage and out into
the aisles of auditoriums and churches where they appeared, often with re-
markable energy and endurance. Except for leaning into the one microphone
that was usually reserved for singing, the old white quartets traditionally stood
rigidly and formally while their pianists clowned, to varying degrees, interact-
ing with and often delighting audiences. Although differences persisted in the
ways black and white gospel groups conducted themselves, the gap narrowed
greatly in the 1960s when most white quartets began to use multiple micro-
phones and introduced stage routines that essentially amounted to choreogra-
phy, something of a risky venture among audiences often hostile to dancing.
Often this new concern for coordinated movement meant nothing more than
the use of synchronized hand gestures or a little swaying. But in the case of a
few singers, most notably the Oak Ridge Boys, the routines were not far re-
moved from those of the popular soul singers of the day.
Gospel songs underwent a similar evolution toward homogeneity and
predictability as rock 'n' roll did in the early 1960s. In an effort to make their
music palatable to the largest possible audience. many gospel singers and com-
posers created a product much like that of the fast-food franchises: general-
ized. bland. and quickly produced. The songs had little theological or
denominational identification. and generally eschewed references to the old
themes of death and redemption or images of hellfire and damnation. Their
general tone became that of an up-tempoed. yet reassuring. affirmation of the
life of the believer. Seldom did groups perform the old-time "blood" songs,
referring to the sacrificial death of Jesus. or the songs admonishing his follow-
ers to reject the world. such as "Farther Along" and ''I'd Rather Have Jesus,"
that were once so dear to the hearts of southern evangelicals. Devotees of
songs such as "Lonely Tombs." "We'll Understand It Better By and By," "Con-
versation with Death" ("Oh Death"), or "The Blood That Stained the Old
Rugged Cross" searched for them in vain in the repertories of the white quar-
tets. They appeared most likely in the performances of the country and blue-
grass gospel groups, such as Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. the
Sullivan Family, or in the singing of a downhome black group. such as lola
and Sullivan Pugh, who recorded under the name of the Consolers. Black
gospel singers. on the whole, preserved a stronger traditional feeling in their
songs than the white quartets. Although they exhibited characteristics derived
from jazz, rhythm and blues, and soul idioms, black singers in the 1970s still
sang, and made hits of, such songs as ''I'm Waiting for My Child to Come
Home" and "Don't Drive Your Mother Away," a best-selling sermonette re-
corded in 1969 by Shirley Caesar.
Whatever the nature of their songs, and regardless of the motives that
underlay their singing, gospel performers both black and white have included
some of the greatest singers that the United States has produced. Men and
women of great vitality, with enormous vocal range and remarkable vocal con-
trol, they generally performed for audiences composed exclusively of the faithful,
and only rarely became known to the mainstream public.
If gospel music has had an international superstar, it would surely be
Mahalia Jackson, born in New Orleans in 1911. She grew up in a home of
devout Baptists, but absorbed much of the fervor of the Sanctified people who
had a church near her home. She also loved the records of Bessie Smith, and
this fusion of blues and gospel music was no doubt a major factor in her
appeal. She moved to Chicago in 1927 and entered a community that was
already teeming with great solo gospel singers, but she held her own among
them even as a teenager. Although she recorded for Decca in 1937, her career
did not blossom until after World War II. During the war she joined forces
with Thomas Dorsey, with whom she toured the entire United States. She
The 1960s and 1970s 119
resumed recording in 1946, and her third record, "Move On Up a Little

Higher," was one of the best-selling gospel records of all time and the prime
force behind her national success. At this stage of her career, Mahalia sang in
the freewheeling style of the southern churches, and her popularity was par-
ticularly intense among the black southern migrants to the northern United
States. Tony Heilbut maintains that she was "unashamedly Southern, roam-
ing and growling like the down-home congregations, and skipping and strut-
ting like the Sanctified preachers."9
In the early 1950s Jackson began to build a large following in white
America, largely through her appearances on the popular radio shows of Chi-
cago-based Studs Terkel, as many jazz devotees began to notice a resemblance
between her and Bessie Smith. In 1954, amid great fanfare, she signed with
Columbia Records and began appearing on her own radio and television shows.
An appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 and a best-selling album
recorded with pop icon Percy Faith brought her immense success and demon-
strated how far she had traveled from the downhome churches of the South.
Although her style and choice of songs came to diverge widely from the music
of her childhood-"Silent Night," for example, was her first big international
hit-she retained the loyalty of black people everywhere until her death. Be-
cause they had both done so much, in their own special ways, to liberate and
elevate Mrican Americans, it was only fitting that she should sing in tribute to
Martin Luther King Jr. at his funeral, choosing King's personal favorite, the
Thomas Dorsey classic "Precious Lord." When Mahalia died in 1972, she was
laid to rest in New Orleans, in one of the most heavily attended funerals in the
storied history of such events in that city.
No other gospel singer won such acclaim as that accorded to Mahalia
Jackson. But Sister Rosetta Tharpe, from Cotton Plant, Arkansas, a guitar-
playing, Holiness-style singer, made some very popular records for Decca dur-
ing the 1940s, and saw them go higher in the Billboard charts than any
previously recorded by gospel singers. Her hot guitar style and swinging, blues-
tinged singing of such songs as "Strange Things Happening Every Day" and
"Up above My Head," sung with Marie Knight, won a widely diverse audi-
ence. Her records, for example, often could be heard on country deejay shows.
Still, Tharpe never became a major force in American show business, and even
though other singers, such as Bessie Griffin, Alex Bradford, Andrae Crouch,
and the Clara Ward Singers, created sophisticated routines and carried them
even into the nightclubs, none of them ever achieved the standing in Ameri-
can popular culture attained by Mahalia Jackson. The chief arenas for black
gospel music remained the churches where the robed choirs held sway, or the
auditoriums in cities around the country that staged package shows featuring
the Swan Silvertones, the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Five Blind Boys, Shirley
Caesar, or James Cleveland. Most Mrican-American gospel singers or singers
who drew heavily from the gospel tradition and became household names did
so by leaving the genre, usually for soul music or rhythm & blues. Sam Cooke,
a Mississippi native brought up in Chicago and formerly of the venerable
black gospel group the Soul Stirrers, not only found success as a soul singer, in
the secular use of the term, but also crossover success in the pop music market.
AI Green, a native Arkansan who spent most of his teen years in Grand Rap-
ids, Michigan, went the other way, so to speak. He established a huge base of
popularity in both soul and r&b and then took his gospel-based style and Sam
Cooke influences to the leadership of the Church of the Full Gospel Taber-
nacle in Memphis, where his singing and preaching epitomized the crossover
phenomenon in every sense of the word.
White gospel singers never received the acclaim enjoyed by Mahalia Jack-
son, nor did they often move away, or at least not far, from music that ap-
pealed to their traditional gospel audience. Occasionally the crossover pathway
led the other direction, as in the case of performers such as Red Foley, Stuart
Hamblen, Martha Carson, Jimmie Davis, or Tennessee Ernie Ford, who had
built earlier identifications as country singers and then recorded religious songs
that made the popularity charts. Thomas Dorsey's "Peace in the Valley," in
fact, attained its greatest popularity through a Red Foley recording. At least
one white quartet, the Jordanaires, gained an entree into Hollywood during
the late 1950s and early' 60s, as well as considerable recording success, through
their work as backup singers for Elvis Presley. The Statesmen, especially their
lead singer, Jake Hess, received great acclaim on their own and through admi-
ration showered on them by Presley. It may not be too much to say that Presley
revered Hess, though he was never able to emulate Hess's remarkable tenor
style. The Statler Brothers, none of them actually named Statler, gained initial
exposure for their classic gospel quartet performances as part ofJohnny Cash's
traveling show, but they soon left the gospel field altogether to win fame as
country singers. They kept a gospel presence in their repertory, stayed with the
four-part harmonies that made them famous, suffered minimal personnel
change, and thus sustained a remarkable popularity with continued record-
ings, personal appearances, and, for a time, their own television program. No
quartet, however, took gospel music farther afield from its traditional moor-
ings or from its earlier image than the Oak Ridge Boys. Even before they left
the gospel field to take a prominent place in country music, the "Oaks" tested
the limits of tolerance of traditional gospel lovers. They wore long hair and
mustaches and fancy costumes at a time when most other white gospel per-
formers continued to dress and behave in a fairly traditional manner, and sang
The 1960s and 1970s 121
hard-charging, hand-clapping gospel songs to the accompaniment of electric,

rock-style instrumentation. The Oaks carried their high-energy gospel music
into the nightclubs of Las Vegas and profited from modern promotional tech-
niques that seemed worldly to some other gospel performers. Although they
might have been embarrassed when an overzealous adman asserted that they
"sing the hell out of a gospel song," they seemed to enjoy the hip image that
surrounded them. Like the Statler Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys continued to
rely on their gospel-based vocal harmonies as they moved into the country
music mainstream, even on their crossover cover of Dallas Frazier's "Elvira."
Despite the exceptional success attained by the Oak Ridge Boys, white
quartets, on the whole, stayed close to the one-night-stand regimen, playing
in churches, courthouses, and school auditoriums, at all-night singing con-
ventions, and on the increasing numbers of evangelistic television programs.
Performing schedules were as gruelin.g for the quartets as for the country and
rhythm and blues singers, and big, customized buses with the names of gospel
groups painted on their sides became as common on the nation's roads and
highways as those of country and western singers. Quartets began making
effective use of television during the 1960s, with several of the groups, such as
the Florida Boys and the Happy Goodman Family, combining to present syn-
dicated shows on Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings. Connections with
the old publishing houses faded. The legendary gospel name "Stamps," for
example, became merely a registered name owned by bass singer J.D. Sumner,
with no affiliation with either a business or any member of the Stamps family.
The evolution of the gospel business increasingly has paralleled that of the
country music industry, not only in the nature of the music performed, but
also in the techniques used to advertise and merchandise the music. Although
many amateur performers continued to buy sheet music and songbooks, gos-
pel publishing companies waned in importance relative to the record compa-
nies. The Gospel Music Association (GMA), headquartered in Nashville, was
formed to help build a popular image for the music while promoting its sale.
A Hall of Fame, similar to the one that promotes countty music, was started
to celebrate noted figures in the music, and the GMA instituted the annual
Dove awards to honor particularly successful gospel figures.
If any quartet can be said to have dominated the gospel world during the
1960s and 1970s, it would be the Blackwood Brothers. And if anyone singer
in white gospel music can be designated a superstar of that era, it would be
James Blackwood, born in Choctaw County, Mississippi, on August 4, 1919.
James Blackwood began singing with the Blackwood Brothers Quartet when
it was organized in 1934, consistently won the Dove award as top male gospel
singer, and became a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1974. The
Blackwoods's music grew out of their Pentecostal church experience and re-
flected a sense that their concerts should be religious services in song. Al-
though they had already gained considerable popularity both in the South
and in the Midwest, where they spent the 1940s, their status as the top act in
white gospel music came in 1954 when they won first place on the Arthur
Godfrey Talent Show and subsequently saw their version of "Have You Talked
to the Man Upstairs" climb into the top ten of the Billboard popular music
charts. Tragedy followed soon thereafter when two of the quartet's members,
R.w. Blackwood and Bill Lyles, lost their lives in the crash of their small plane
near Clanton, Alabama. The Blackwood Brothers experienced numerous
changes in personnel over the years, often pulling various male family mem-
bers into the quartet, and long remained at the top of the gospel music busi-
ness through the adroit fusion of innovation and tradition. The evangelical
fervor and sincerity with which the Blackwood Brothers strove to infuse
their performances evoked the old-time primitivism of the little country
church, a quality their admirers appreciated as much as their consummate
vocal musicianship.
One gospel group that challenged the Blackwoods's supremacy almost
from the time of its founding in the mid-I960s was the Cathedral Quartet,
named for Rex Humbard's church in Akron, Ohio. The Cathedrals, like the
Blackwood Brothers, employed a mixture of veteran and younger singers and
had an uncanny sense of how to mix the traditional and innovative without
losing their audience in the process. As a group and as individuals, the Cathe-
drals won numerous Dove awards and pointed the way toward the future of
gospel music. As the 1970s wound down, that future began to look increas-
inglyas if it were going to bring some very dramatic changes in a musical form
much beloved to southerners and to many people in other parts of the United
States and the rest of the world.
If audience involvement was often an important factor in the performance of

both white and black gospel music, it was positively indispensable in the soul
music that became such a vital force in U.S. popular culture in the mid-1960s.
Soul music was something of an extension of rhythm and blues in that it was
first popularized by singers who had earlier gained identification in r&b, but
its real power and distinctiveness came from the infusion within it of black
gospel music and of the social and political ferment of the period out of which
it arose. According to Peter Guralnick, "Southern soul music developed out of
a time and a set of social circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated .... It
was for a considerable length of time limited almost exclusively to a black
audience which had grown up on the uninhibited emotionalism of the church
The 1960s and 1970s 123
and to a secret but growing legion of young white admirers who picked up on
rhythm and blues on the radio and took it as the key to a mystery they were
pledged never to reveal."IO Soul was very much a partnership between black
performers and composers who wanted to find a mixed-race audience for their
music and for their freedom message and white musicians, composers, and
recording company personnel who accepted the message and recognized the
commercial potential of the music. References can be found using the word
"soul" as a term for black music as early as the nineteenth century, but the
term came into wide use in the mid-I960s, inspired in large part by the emer-
gence of the Black Power movement. The word was susceptible to many defi-
nitions, but to most people at the time soul was clearly identifiable with and a
product of the black experience in the United States. Many observers, black
and white, assumed that soul was something only Mrican Americans had,
something that embodied the essence of their survival and grew out of their
culture as a people who endured slavery, segregation, and rural poverty. The
term came to be widely used, particularly after 1967-68 when the media seized
upon it in the wake of riots and urban unrest, to describe a wide range of black
musical styles. "Soul" was often linked to rhythm & blues experience, but
usually soul singers pointed to some type of gospel music training or inspira-
tion. In fact, much of the style associated with soul music had specific origins
in churches or in church-derived music.
Soul music was associated largely with two groups of performers: sec-
ond-generation northern Mrican Americans, particularly some of those who
recorded for the Motown label in Detroit; and, more importantly, southern-
born blacks and whites, especially those associated with the independent re-
cording labels and studios in Memphis, Macon, and Muscle Shoals. The
Motown Sound, which arose at about the same time as soul music, had a
heavily commercialized, somewhat formulaic pop sound that was palatable to
the general white audience. Seldom has a recording studio produced such an
instantly recognizable sound, almost without regard to artist or song selec-
tion. Such Motown stars as Diana Ross and the Supremes were sometimes
disparaged for trying to de-emphasize their ethnicity to win the approval of
white fans and critics. In addition, there was no small irony in the fact that
Motown, a black-owned label, made its reputation largely by selling records to
whites while the premier soul labels, which were white-owned, developed their
success by appealing to Mrican Americans and the black pride ideal. Motown
artists nevertheless had a large following among blacks too, particularly among
black youth who took great pride in the success of their peers, while soul
music produced similarly large sales among whites.
Another Detroit singer, Memphis-born Aretha Franklin, many would
argue, was the most popular African American performer in the late 1960s
and early '70s and unquestionably a major force in the entire world of Ameri-
can popular music. Although she was not southern-reared, Franklin's style was
clearly moored in the black church, and she freely admitted the influence of
the gospel-singing Clara Ward. Her father was the Reverend c.L. Franklin,
the prominent pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, who
successfully carried on a tradition introduced by the Reverend J.M. Gates in
the 1920s, having recorded over fifty best-selling albums of sermons. Resis-
tant to attempts made by occasional producers to change her style but con-
tinually adapting as she added decades to her success, Franklin became a
soul icon. She transformed Otis Redding's song "Respect," as Peter Guralnick
says, "from a demand for conjugal rights into a soaring cry of freedom," I I
moving audiences with the incredible power and range of her voice and her
determination to include women's perspectives in the call for black power
and liberation.
Southern-born singers usually performed with styles that were consider-
ably more earthy than those of northern performers. But this did not prevent
some of the southern singers, such as Ray Charles, from winning wide acclaim
among white listeners in areas other than the South. Born Ray Charles Robinson
in Albany, Georgia, on September 23, 1930, and blinded by glaucoma at the
age of six, Charles turned to music and began playing professionally in Florida
as a teenager. In 1948 he moved to Seattle, where he organized a piano trio in
the fashion of Nat "King" Cole's earlier popular group. Although his rough
voice and limited range did not permit him to recreate the Nat Cole vocal
sound, Charles had uncanny intuition about how to use his voice to great
effect and exhibited a fascination with all kinds of popular music. In 1952 he
signed with the Atlantic label as a blues and rhythm & blues singer, and he
contributed mightily to the popularization of the r&b gente and to the mix-
ing of categories that came in the mid-1950s. His influence went beyond the
immediate realm of gentes of vernacular music, however. In the early 1950s
Charles recorded gospel songs along with his blues and r&b selections, then
went on to become one of the first r&b entertainers to record secular remakes
of gospel songs. "I Gotta Woman" had been "I Gotta God" in 1954, and
"This Little Light of Mine" became "This Little Girl of Mine" in 1955. Charles's
biographer Michael Lydon tells how Charles and musical companions were
traveling through the Indiana countryside late one night: "Ray was always
searching for good music on the radio, and when he found a gospel station,
that's where he stopped the dial. One night near South Bend, [Renald] Rich-
ard remembered vividly, a gospel tune came on with a good groove, and they
started singing along," adapting the words and beginning the process of ap-
The 1960s and 1970s 125
plying gospel vocal techniques to quite a secular theme. 12 His use of gospel
vocal techniques-falsetto shouts, groans, extended melisma, and call-and-
response patterns, usually between Charles and his female backup singers, the
Raelets-attracted mixed reactions, including a great deal of criticism from
ministers. But gospel music was toO important to him, as was the freedom to
draw from any musical form. He had never sung in a gospel group; he simply
had heard and absorbed the music all his life. But Charles never sang one type
of music exclusively. He tried to revive traditional jazz and in 1955 recorded
"A Bit of Soul" and in 1956, "Houseful of Soul," two of the first usages of the
term in the post-World War II period.
In 1959 Charles's recording of "What'd I Say" made the pop charts, his
first of many such experiences. In 1959 he joined ABC-Paramount and in
1960 recorded "Georgia on My Mind," which became number one on the
pop music charts and, later, the state song of Georgia. Charles went on to
record show tunes, pop standards, and some very successful albums of coun-
try and western songs. In his progress toward becoming one of the most suc-
cessful musicians of all time, Ray Charles retained a very large following among
Mrican Americans, although some of his original fans, annoyed by his eclecti-
cism, accused him of selling out to the lure of commercial success. However,
Charles was an eclectic musician from the time he entered professional music
in the mid-1940s. In discussing his country albums, for example, Charles
noted that as a boy he had often listened to the Grand Ole Opry, and that one
of his earliest professional stints was with a white country band called the
Florida Playboys.13 He was simply contributing to a southern music tradition
of long standing.
Music coming out of Memphis had been fusing country and western
music with rhythm & blues since the mid-1950s. Memphis's emergence as a
recording center had begun about 1954 when Sam Phillips and his Sun label
began recording white talent covering r&b tunes. The second stage in that
evolution began in 1959 when a local banker and ex-country fiddler named
Jim Stewart and his sister, Estelle Axton, opened a studio in a former vaude-
ville theater in the heart of the black ghetto. Their Stax label achieved national
prominence in 1962 when a local band named Booker T. and the MGs re-
corded a million-seller, "Green Onions," an accomplishment followed by a
string of hits made by AI Green, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, and Wilson
Pickett. Organist Booker T. Jones and the other MGs served as the session
musicians for Stax. The label's success benefited from the easy-going ambi-
ence and biracial character of the people who owned and produced it. Stewart
was white; his vice-president was black. The house band was racially mixed,
and the company's two principal writers, Isaac Hayes and David Porter, were
black men who freely borrowed from many musical sources, including coun-
try and western lyrics.
The Memphis Sound, as developed by Stax and several other small com-
panies, was touted as a composite of two southern folk traditions, black r&b
and white country. The contrast with Detroit's Motown was obvious. As Arnold
Shaw said, "The Memphis Sound has more grit, gravel, and mud in it than
the Detroit Sound."14 By the early '7Os, Memphis was the fourth-largest re-
cording center in the nation, behind New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville,
and some of the most exciting sounds in the soul genre were coming out of its
studios.
Many fine musicians were associated with the Memphis soul scene, but
Otis Redding was the acknowledged superstar of the Memphis Sound. Born
the son of a minister in Dawson, Georgia, in 1941, Redding grew up in Ma-
con in an active r&b environment that included Little Richard, the singer
Redding most admired. Although he had recorded a few songs on small labels
in Macon and on the West Coast, Redding's most fruitful recording affiliation
came with Stax afrer November 1962. By 1966 he had taken his music to
enthusiastic audiences in Britain and France, and a British music magazine,
Melody Maker, called him the world's number-one male vocalist. Redding was
always popular among African-American fans, but after a critically acclaimed
performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 he seemed on the verge of
winning large-scale white support as well. But on December 10, 1967, his
private plane crashed into Lake Monona, in Madison, Wisconsin, killing him
and four of his band members. The posthumously issued "Sitting on the Dock
of the Bay" was an award-winning and best-selling record.
Many soul singers showed evidence of having absorbed nonblack musi-
cal influences or, as in the case of Ray Charles, of having consciously striven to
win white support. But James Brown, the "King of Soul," never compromised
his musical approach. Many fans and critics said his was the "blackest sound"
. in American popular music, and he never diluted it even when singing before
white audiences. Brown's music, therefore, most closely conforms to the popular
image of soul: black music performed for black audiences. Brown was born in
Georgia near the South Carolina line in the early 1930s, but he grew up in
Augusta where he essentially reared himself, dropping out of school in the
seventh grade and working at everything from shoeshining and cotton pick-
ing to dancing in the streets for nickels and dimes. Orphaned, poor, and black,
Brown was led by his frustrations into a short experience with juvenile delin-
quency, and he served almost four years in a reform school. After his release at
the age of nineteen, he began singing in a church in Toccoa, Georgia, in order
to support his early marriage. Soon thereafrer he took his gospel-influenced
The 1960s and 1970s 127
style into the dives and honky-tonks of the Deep South, and in 1956 he re-
corded his first big hit, "Please, Please, Please," for the King label.
Until the mid-I960s, when the emphasis on Black Power encouraged a
closer look at authentic black talent, Brown remained almost totally unknown
to the white world, while consistently ranking at the top of the r&b list. Brown
never tried to cross over into the pop field, either during the rock 'n' roll
period, or during the Motown era, a resolution that endeared him all the more
to militant black fans. His songs were never the type that white pop artists
could easily cover, and he never modified his approach to make his music
more accessible to whites. Brown's great reputation in the ghettos was en-
hanced in the mid-I960s when he began visiting them and communicating
directly with the teenagers there. His first publicized trip of this sort was to
San Francisco in 1966, where he advised black youngsters to remain in school.
The visit was soon followed by a recording of "Don't Be a Drop-Out." After
the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, Brown responded
to urgent pleas from the mayors of Boston and Washington, D.C., byappear-
ing for hours on television in both cities pleading for ghetto-dwellers to re-
main orderly and stay off the streets.
Brown's prominence in quelling riots and his adulation in the black ghet-
tos contribured to the larger public's discovery of him, and his sociopolitical
identification was one of the major factors that generated the publicity he
received at the time. Americans were acutely conscious of Black Power rheto-
ric and the ghettos in 1968. Brown definitely identified with Black Power,
though he alienated some of the black radicals, such as H. Rap Brown and
Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), when he opposed the violence of the
riots and affirmed his commitment to the United States, as in "America Is My
Home." Along with his emphasis on education, which was almost a religion
to him, Brown promoted the idea of black economic self-help. Black capital-
ism, to Brown, seemed to be the essence of Black Power, and it was this aspect
of his career, especially his fabulous commercial success, that most intrigued
the media. Magazine accounts invariably stressed his wealth and material ac-
quisitions, as they have always done when discussing any folk-derived musi-
cian who has made it big. Admittedly, Brown's earnings and investments were
enough to attract anyone's notice. In 1968 his gross from one-nighters was
about $2.5 million. He owned two radio stations, including one in Augusta
where he had once shined shoes, a record production company, extensive real
estate, a house that was essentially a castle, a wardrobe legendary for its size
and flamboyance, numerous expensive automobiles, and his own Lear jet.
Musically, Brown was unique in that his was almost a totally black sound,
and he succeeded with it as no other Mrican-American performer ever had.
By 1968, after leading the r&b field for years, he was named Cash Box's choice
as the number-one male vocalist in all of popular music. He achieved this
distinction with a style that seemed to come not only from the rural southern
black churches but, with its heavy emphasis on beat and rhythm at the ex-
pense oflyrics, from Mrican roots as well. At a time of musical amalgamation,
when the leading Motown performers were reaching out toward the middle-
class mainstream, Brown reached far back to the very sources of black music.
Performance was everything in a James Brown appearance. Using grunts,
moans, and unearthly screams, repeating words endlessly and bending them
to unbelievable lengths, and interacting with his musicians, chorus, and audi-
ence in a hypnotic, often erotic call-and-response pattern, Brown com-
municated with his enormous audiences as few performers had ever done.
These performances were also remarkable as choreographic experiences, for
Brown had few peers as a dancer. His act was folk in its earthiness and in its
indebtedness to older forms and styles. but it was also ultramodern in its orga-
nization. polish. and timing.
Though Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination ended much of the inter-
racial cooperation on which soul music was based in the 1960s, the political,
emotional, and moral fervor of the times produced some powerful musical
messages through the songwriting of Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield.
Gone were the days when the Muscle Shoals "Alabama peckerwoods" and
"southern crackers." as Robert Palmer called them, backed up the leading
black singers of the day. Gone also, by the mid-1970s, was Stax, as Palmer
says, "its equipment sold at public auction." He notes that soul music suffered
an attrition of its own as groups broke up and key figures died or left the field.
culminating in the experience of Al Green. When "Green abandoned secular
music to preach the gospel. in 1979, there could be no doubt that the soul era
was over." 15
Creative tension. however. between the poles of eclectic folk background
and contemporary techniques continued to enliven southern music. The sort
of tension that yielded Brown, Charles. Redding, Franklin, and the others
such success. drawing from various streams of southern musical experience,
was in very large part the same matter of balance that affected the other "soul"
music of the South and of the United States. country music.
Chapter 8
THE NATIONAL RESURGENCE

OF COUNTRY MUSIC
Southern-derived grassroots music of various genres suffered from the rock 'n'
roll onslaught of the 1950s. After that, various forms made comebacks, though
none more spectacular than that of counrry music, which gained a stature in
U.S. popular culture that had scarcely been dreamed of during its hillbilly
beginnings. Indeed, the boast of the Country Music Association (CMA) that
counrry was "best liked worldwide" seemed not far from accurate. Fiddles and
steel guitars, the instrumental mainstays of World War II-era country bands,
virtually disappeared from country recordings for a few years, to be replaced
by rock 'n' roll-style electric guitars or by pop-style instrumentation. The ac-
cent was now clearly on youth, and record companies energetically searched
for new and exciting successors to Elvis Presley. Almost all older country sing-
ers tried their hands at either rock 'n' roll or some upbeat style that might
appeal to a youthful audience. Rock 'n' roUleft its mark on country music in
many ways. Several rockabillies, including Jerry Lee Lewis and ConwayTwitty,
carved out very successful careers as mainstream country singers. Other rock
'n' roll musicians joined country bands, taking their instrumental licks with
them and thereby altering, perhaps permanently, the sound of country music.
Country music as a whole moved into the '60s thoroughly committed to a
heavy electronic sound, created by the increasingly centralized recording es-
tablishment dominated by producers and marketing executives. Country
music was on its way to becoming middle-class. Only bluegrass musicians
held against the tide.
Although tradition-minded country fans despaired at what seemed to
be the disappearance, or betrayal, of old-time country styles, some trends of
the period turned out to be less threatening than they first appeared or faded
fairly quickly. Tradition-based styles still flourished away from the glare of the
public limelight. Some of them resurfaced with a vengeance a few years hence,
commanding national attention as neo-traditional styles. But in U.S. popular
culture, some transitory phenomena seize the public imagination with such
intensity that they sometimes seem as if they will last-indeed, have already
lasted-a lifetime.
By the time country music began its comeback about 1958, the term
"hillbilly" had been abandoned except by a few scholars who used it to de-
scribe music from the days before World War II and by a scattering of fans and
performers who, at least privately, liked to refer to themselves and their music
as "hillbilly." The word "country" was now almost universally employed to
describe the music, and the acknowledged center of the "industry," also now a
commonly used word, was Nashville.
Much of country music's commercial regeneration can be attributed to
the efforts of the Country Music Association. Founded in 1958 as a trade
organization, the CMA worked to elevate the image of the music and to dem-
onstrate its commercial potential to advertisers. One of the CMA's main strat-
egies was to encourage radio stations to play country music exclusively. The
fact that many stations did exactly that contributed greatly to the national
popularization of country music, but it also often prompted a blurring of
identity within the music. Most country stations developed their own ver-
sions of the Top Forty formats pioneered by rock or youth-oriented stations.
Listeners could turn their radio dials all day long and hear nothing but the
same handful of songs, and no one could ever be sure how the tight play-list
was determined in the first place. Because of the rapid multiplication of coun-
try radio stations, a large number of announcers with no earlier experience
with country music became associated with it. Some of these young deejays
had come of age musically during the rock 'n' roll era, and they carried many
of the perceptions of those years into their new affiliations with country mu-
sic. To be sure, veteran country disc jockeys, who had a folksy rapport with
their listeners that extended the hayseed image projected by the music, also
had their own biases and predilections that affected their selection of records,
influencing music styles in the process. But by the 1960s, these deejays had
almost totally disappeared, leaving a rare exception here and there such as
Gordon Baxter of Beaumont, Texas, who uncompromisingly insisted on main-
taining his unique "loose board," downhome style of friendly chatter and fa-
vorite records. Baxter and a few other country deejays in the 1960s ignored
the constant risk ofgetting fired for maintaining an individualized style counter
to the homogenized, market-driven dictates of the Top Forty format.
Led by Chet Atkins, the country music industry reacted to the rock 'n'
roll threat by attempting to create a product that would appeal to the broadest
possible spectrum of listeners, that is to say, a music shorn of most of its
"rural" characteristics. Atkins, RCA's recording director in Nashville and one
The National Resurgence of Country Music 131
of the prime forces behind the innovations unfolding there, explained the
changes as a "compromise" that made country music more popular while per-
mitting all of its substyles to endure and flourish. The music that emerged
from the recording studios of Nashville, called variously the "Nashville Sound,"
"country-pop," "countrypolitan," or "middle-of-the-road music," de-empha-
sized or omitted fiddles and steel guitars and introduced pop-styled back-
ground voices and sedate, multi-layered instrumentation designed to reach
new listeners while holding on to the older ones. Atkins and other record
producers who sought to emulate his successful techniques deliberately sought
to create recordings with appeal in all markets. Country songs had been picked
up by pop singers with great frequency since the early 1950s when those writ-
ten by Hank Williams enjoyed great vogue, but country singers themselves
almost never appeared on pop charts. Rock' n' roll, however, had changed all
the rules, and in the climate of the '60s crossover hits became a typical, and
sought-after, aspect of the music business. In the early part of the decade those
country singers with smooth voices and little rural identification had the best
chance of gaining acceptance as pop singers. Eddy Arnold, despite his popular
designation as the Tennessee Plowboy, had long anticipated the country-pop
approach, but Jim Reeves, from Panola County, Texas, a singer with a very
smooth voice, won the widest acclaim with such songs as "Four Walls" and
"He'll Have to Go." In the 1970s, Mac Davis, from Lubbock, Texas, and Glen
Campbell, from Delight, Arkansas, built on and surpassed in many ways the
popularity enjoyed in the '60s by such singers as Arnold, Reeves, and Roger
Miller. Both Davis and Campbell, an especially versatile instrumentalist, hosted
very popular nationally syndicated television shows built on images only loosely
related to country music.
Country-pop's emergence paralleled Nashville's rise to preeminence as a
music center. Culturally aspiring Nashvillians, who had once termed their city
the "Athens of the South" and boasted of its massive replica of the Parthenon,
and who had been embarrassed by the presence there of the Grand Ole Opry,
learned to swallow their pride as money rolled in to feed the burgeoning mu-
sic industry. Publishing and licensing houses, booking offices, and recording
studios hummed with such activity that Nashville came to be described on
billboards and in city-sponsored promotional material as Music City, USA, a
nickname that garnered Nashville far-greater fame than its Athenian aspira-
tions ever produced. Country singers appeared on the pop music charts so
frequently in the early '60s that a large number of singers from other genres
began coming to Nashville by the end of the decade to use its recording facili-
ties and versatile session musicians, leading to, if not culminating in, Bob
Dylan's watershed albums John ~sley Harding and Nashville Skyline. Nash-
ville became known far and wide as country music's capital, but the music
recorded there actually encompassed much of the full spectrum of popular
musIC.
Country music's commercial revival and national surge of popularity in
the 1960s and '70s were marked by an accompanying identification with na-
tional purpose and definition. This phenomenon was demonstrated by the
music's growing "respectability," by recurring White House endorsement, and
by the use of the term 'l\merican" by some of its performers to describe their
music. In its most extreme form, the equating of "country music" and 'l\meri-
canism" was shown during the mainstream or "middle" American backlash
against the upheaval of the 1960s in such country lyrics as "when you're run-
ning down my country ... you're walking on the fighting side of me."1 During
the '60s and early '70s, when urban-born folksingers and rock performers
subjected the government and its domestic and foreign policies to withering
criticism, the appearance of a spate of unabashedly pro-America songs con-
tributed to country music's reputation for 100-percent Americanism. It also
helped explain why President Richard Nixon would travel to Nashville during
the most troubled period of his administration to participate in the formal
opening of the new Grand Ole Opry House and play the piano for the de-
lighted fans.
Country music's emergence as an ultrapatriotic and even jingoistic genre
during the late stages of the Vietnam War was not simply an extension of
sourhern working-class values into a national setting. It also reflected the po-
larization of the period and the country industry's attempts to gain accep-
tance by identifying with national trends and attitudes and capitalizing on
public fears and neuroses. Merle Haggard, the California-born son of Okie
migrants, became the singer most often identified with the "reactionary" or
backlash songs of the 1970s. With a past that included some trouble with the
power structure of the day, including some fairly serious run-ins with the law,
and similarities in background to Woody Guthrie, Haggard might have been
expected to espouse something of an anti-establishment political viewpoint.
Indeed, several of his songs from the '70s, such as "Working Man's Blues,"
carried a vaguely populist tint. But Haggard became identified, possibly for-
ever, with the militant conservatism of two songs, "Okie from Muskogee" and
"Fightin' Side of Me." The first was his rebuke of the hippie culture and a
paean of praise to the people who came to be called in the 1970s "Middle
America." Though "Okie from Muskogee" was apparently conceived as a joke
or parody, its astonishing popularity brought Haggard national exposure and
media coverage aspiring performers often only dream of. "Fightin' Side of
u.s.
Me," with its "love it or leave it" stance toward critics of military actions
and social values, served to confirm Haggard's conservative credentials, though

people of his acquaintance insisted that he was anything but a reactionary or a
warmonger. His ascent to stardom and country music's rise to national recog-
nition were clearly helped along by the national mood of emotional schizo-
phrenia that accompanied the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and
the rise of the counterculture, including a perceived link between rock music
and youthful rebellion. Haggard's compositions struck a responsive chord,
particularly among audiences far from the South, and he received warm wel-
comes in such cities as Philadelphia and Duluth. Partly because of its identifi-
cation with "the silent majority," country music was "discovered" by the media,
scholars of pop culture, and even the national political establishment. Presi-
dents Johnson and Nixon both brought country entertainers into the White
House, gestures that no doubt disgusted those who recalled the artistic soirees
of the Kennedy years.
As in the chaotic 1920s, many people in the turbulent '60s seemed to
find something in country music that projected a more stable image than that
conveyed by youth music. In the '20s, the cultural disintegrator was jazz; in
the '60s, it was rock. But country music allegedly represented pure American-
ism, and some people on the left of the political spectrum no doubt found the
country music world strangely fascinating if not downright terrifying. An ar-
ticle in Harper's blamed everything from working-class alienation to the truckers'
strike of 1972 on country music, while in Mademoiselle the music was de-
scribed as "the perfect musical extension of the Nixon administration" and a
repository of values that "ought to frighten every longhaired progressive ur-
banite, and every black man who is not part of it."2 As in the early days of its
commercial history, country music evoked stereotypically opposed responses,
the feeling that it was either a music of unthinking bigotry, or a music of
genuine patriotism and morality, something that might help hold the line
against the longhaired, dope-smoking rebels who seemed intent on ruining
the country.
Country music's identification during the Nixon years with "establish-
ment" values was remarkable in light of its origins and development. Some
wondered how a music once contemptuously dismissed as "hillbilly" and pre-
sumed to be the province of cultural degenerates living in a "benighted" re-
gion got to be the exemplar and upholder of national norms. Also surprising
was the fact that a region famous for resistance to nationalization, whether in
the middle decades of the nineteenth century or those of the twentieth, came
to be seen as the hotbed of unquer.tioning patriotism. The relationship be-
tween country music and "Americanism" has always been odd and tenuous,
rooted in the South's ambivalent relationship to the nation at large. The sense
of being both out of the mainstream and at the same time being more "Ameri-
can" than other regions of the nation was an attitude that many southerners
had held well before the Civil War, often feeling that the majority northern
culture had violated or marginalized "original" American ideals. Regardless of
the degree of mythology inherent in the viewpoint, the country music of the
1970s especially reflected southern ambivalence toward the rest of the nation.
Conscious of its "southernness," and therefore presumably of its uniqueness,
the music also reflected a conviction that the South embodied the best in the
American character as a whole.
Country music industry leaders had energetically endeavored since the
1950s to broaden the base of the music, to make it more "respectable" and
therefore, they reasoned, more marketable. Much of the identification of coun-
try music with establishment culture, by which it actually came to seem bour-
geois in the years of backlash against '60s-era rebelliousness, therefore, came
from conscious efforts of music industry executives and entrepreneurs to pass
the music off as the embodiment of middle-class propriety and respect for law
and order. Those who grafted a respectable, conformist attitude onto country
music played havoc with its history and traditions, for the music was always
much more complex than either its devotees or detractors recognized. The
rural South from which the music sprang had always been a multifaceted
place, in its own way something of a counterculture. 3 The resurgence of coun-
try music in the 1960s and '70s, with its image of national conformity, seemed
strange coming from a region long noted for intense individualism. The tradi-
tion of the drifter, the rounder, and even the lawless man, preceded the period
of commercialization and constituted a thread in the music from Jimmie
Rodgers in the 1920s and '30s to Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson in the
'70s. The "law" was never treated with particular reverence in the old country
songs, and personal morality, while often preached as a virtue, was just as
often violated in practice. Endorsement of the status quo in country music,
often assuming bland, homogenized forms and directed as much toward the
pocketbook of Middle America as toward its mind or heart, obscu~ed the
music's historic diversity. Despite the abundance of songs stressing domestic
virtues and sense of place, country music, as much as anything, has been the
music of an uprooted people with an acute consciousness of a world of shift-
ing values. Country music is indeed "American," but its Americanism is broad
rather than narrow, deriving from many sources and presumptions and hardly
contained within the political or social agenda of one particular group.
Country music's quest for legitimacy was not without its innovative or
"liberal" components. Indeed, to a great extent the industry attempted to be
all things to all people. While on one hand projecting conservatism, it also
strove to be aware of the latest developments and trends, and at least to give
the impression of broadening its horizons. The music's image as the most
male-dominated white Protestant music in America began to undergo some
alterations in the 1960s and early '70s. The period saw the emergence, for
instance, of the first black country superstar, Charley Pride, from Sledge, Mis-
sissippi, and the first Chicano superstars, Johnny Rodriguez and Freddy Fender
(Baldemar Huerta), from Sabinal and Weslaco, Texas, respectively. It also gave
rise to the first Cajun superstar, Doug Kershaw, from Tiel Ridge, Louisiana,
and at least one Jewish country singer, Kinky Friedman, from Austin, Texas,
who, if not a superstar, cenainly became one of the most colorful and outra-
geous of country singers.
Probably more significant, though, than the ethnic breakthrough in coun-
try music in the 1970s was the burgeoning activity of women singers. Until
the appearance of Kitty Wells in the early '50s, almost no women in country
music had attained independent identities apart from men, and they had sel-
dom won the financial rewards gained by male singers. Virginia-born Patsy
Cline had become a powerful presence in country music in the late '50s and
early '60s as an extraordinarily gifted song interpreter whose searing style made
many leading songwriters want her to record their work. She also made moves
in the early stages of the rise of country-pop that foreshadowed her coming
leadership in that phase of country music. Then she was killed in a plane crash
in March 1963. In the period of country music's resurgence, however, and
partly inspired by Cline's example, women began competing with men on
more than even terms and won the kind of success that black women singers
commanded in previous years. Tanya Tucker, Tammy Wynette, Crystal Gayle,
Melba Montgomery, Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Panon were
only a few of the women who achieved stardQm in the 1970s. Of these, some
built eclectic styles that attracted followers from outside country music, such
as Gayle, Lynn's sister, who achieved success as a middle-of-the-road pop
singer, and Tucker, Harris, and Panon, who did so as folk-rock-tinged country
singers.
, Loretta Lynn's style and personality remained purebred country, but she
reached fans outside country music's normal base and achieved a recognition
in American life in the 1970s that none of the other women singers, and few
of the men, attained. Lynn appeared frequently on television shows and in
commercials, graced the covers of several mainstream magazines, including
Newsweek in June 1973, and wrote, with George Vecsey, a best-selling autobi-
ography titled Coal Miner's Daughter, which was made into a critically ac-
claimed film at the end of the decade. She became widely known as much for
her wit and open, country honesty and charm, as for her highly praised sing-
ing. Born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, to a coal mining family, she began
trying her luck at singing in Custer, Washington, in 1961, where she and her
husband Mooney Lynn had moved in the early '50s. When her first song,
" Honky Tonk Girl," appeared on a small label in '61, she and her husband set
out by automobile across the United States, sleeping in the car and dressing in
service-station washrooms, pushing her record to deejays in radio stations all
over the country. Her hope was to achieve something of the success of her
mentor, Patsy Cline. For years she maintained a personal appearance schedule
almost as rigorous, but traveling in a style befitting a superstar who now en-
joyed the luxury of agreeing to interviews and meetings with deejays only as
she saw fit. Throughout the period of her remarkable success, Lynn continued
to impress and delight fans with her personal qualities and always remained
very accessible to those fans. Women especially admired her for the successful
ways she balanced professional and family life, something increasingly impor-
tant in the 1970s as more women began to work outside the home. Lynn
moved away from the poverty of her humble origins and the downhome sounds
heard on her early records, but her clear, pure voice and old-fashioned diction
continued to give testimony to her mountain beginnings.
Mountain roots clung tightly to Dolly Parton also, even as she moved
farther than Loretta Lynn from the "hard country" repertory. Parton won the
readers' poll in Rolling Stone as the top country singer of 1977, and by the end
of that year was hosting her own television show and making a determined
effort to carve out an identity appealing to rock/youth audiences. One of
eleven children born into a mountain farm family near Sevierville, Tennessee,
her first singing experience came in a Church of God congregation where her
grandfather was pastor, but she began appearing on local barn dances and
singing on the radio in Knoxville as a small child. No one was really surprised,
therefore, when she set out by bus for Nashville the day after she graduated
from high school. Parton's entree to stardom came through her work on Por-
ter Wagoner's syndicated television show and through her very popular duet
recordings with Wagoner. Fans of Wagoner's television and road shows soon
became fans as well of the buxom young woman who managed to combine an
arresting physical appearance, flamboyant outfits and wigs, and a personality
that was at the same time fetching and innocent. Parton seemed to be acting
out the fantasies of a poor mountain girl whose family had never been able to
buy her the makeup, jewelry, or fine clothes she desired. Many critics were put
off by what they saw as Parton's affectations and missed the opportunity to
hear one of the great talents in American popular music.
Like Lynn, Parton excelled both as a singer and as a songwriter. With
one of the most expressive voices in any field of American popular music, she
moved easily and convincingly from the tenderest love songs to rousing nov-
elty tunes and even yodels. Although considered preeminently an entertainer,
she also became one of the best writers in country music. Her compositions
run the gamut of themes and emotions commonly found in country music,
but even the most personal of her songs have a convincing, charismatic integ-
rity and appealing universality. Some of the best songs deal with her child-
hood, with bittersweet recollections of growing up a sensitive child in a large,
poor, but loving family. No song more effectively describes the ambivalent
feelings that she and many people with country origins have when they reflect
upon their rural experiences than "In the Good Old Days When Times Were
Bad." But her greatest song, and probably her most intimate, is "Coat of Many
Colors," a personal childhood narrative that weaves a poignant verbal tapestry
of poverty and maternal love.
Women made dramatic gains in country music in the post-World War
II era. They came to hold positions of power as industry executives, and as
performers they competed on increasingly favorable terms with men, often
producing greater incomes than male performers. To a certain extent, the prog-
ress of women in country music paralleled the increasing consciousness of
women in the United States and general awareness of their rights in the 1960s
and '70s. It also constituted an especially dramatic shift in both the status and
the image of southern women. Revolutions, however, always unfold slowly in
country music, and many women singers continued to sing of values associ-
ated with an older world while leading lives as entertainers that often ran
counter to those values. Like many women, they found themselves caught
between age-old expectations that had kept their mothers and grandmothers
locked in tightly constricted roles and the growing recognition that they should
have the same opportunities as men. Many women in country music felt enor-
mous pressure to preserve the veneer of domesticity while pursuing careers
with an aggressiveness and singleness of purpose that left little time or energy
for home and family. For the most part, too, the world described in their
songs was a man's world, and their lyrics dealt often with women who were
dependent on men or those whose terms of existence were largely dictated by
men. Tammy Wynette, for example, had a significant career on her own in the
mid-I960s. When she married the great country singer George Jones in 1968,
they became known as "Mr. and Mrs. Country Music." From then on, despite
her own significant talent and broad appeal, Wynette became identified to a
great extent by her relationship with Jones, through the time of their turbu-
lent marriage, widely publicized divorce, and eventual reunion duet appear-
ances. Though she continued to have a solid solo career and large following
until the end of her life, Wynette became a stereotype or a role model, de-
138 Sourhern Music/American Music
pending on one's perspective, even a political symbol, if only for her most
famous song, "Stand By Your Man." She was the long-suffering, faithful woman
whose life was essentially defined by a troublesome man and who opened her
story by saying, "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman."
Old attitudes persist, bur new ones crept into country music along with
a new breed of writers and musicians. Consequently, the audience for country
music changed significantly after the 1960s. Since that decade, country music
ceased to be thought of as solely an expression of Middle America and gained
an audience that cut across generational, geographic, and socioeconomic lines.
In part, the broadened interest in country music reflected a wave of nostalgia
or an urge to explore the roots of American life not confined to old people,
transplanted ruralites, or die-hard reactionaries. The mood was shared by many
young people as well in the 1970s, many of whom might have been radicals or
members of the counterculture back in the '60s. Anyone who attended a blue-
grass festival or a "progressive country" concen at the Armadillo World Head-
quaners in Austin, Texas, or one of Willie Nelson's giant picnics in the '70s
saw a remarkable spectrum of humanity turned on to the music. Country
became chic among many Americans who once ignored or despised it. While
the reasons for these reversals of attitude are many and complex, one simple,
bur important, factor is that the music itself changed. A new generation of
songwriters appeared in the '70s. In the strong tradition of southern music,
they drew upon the resources of other musical forms for sustenance and upon
the social currents of their own day for inspiration. But their music was largely
attuned to youth. Further, though the music was preoccupied with romantic
love, that everlasting staple of American popular music, it treated the subject
with a candor and guiltless sensuality rare in earlier country music.
In the 1970s the writer who most consistently appealed to the widest
spectrum of American listeners was Kris Kristofferson. A highly un typical
hillbilly, Kristofferson was an army brat born in Brownsville, Texas, and reared
in California who became a Rhodes scholar preparing for a career as a profes-
sor of English literature. After a stint in the army, Kristofferson turned down
an opportunity to join the faculty at West Point and moved to Nashville.
Inspired by an early love for Hank Williams's music, he began writing country
songs. "Me and Bobby McGee," recorded in 1969 by Roger Miller and later
by Janis Joplin, was the first of a long succession of very successful Kristofferson
songs recorded by leading country entertainers including "For the Good limes"
(Ray Price), "Come Sundown" (Bobby Bare), "Help Me Make It through the
Night" (Sammi Smith), and the song that won him his first CMA award, in
1970, "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" (Johnny Cash). Kristofferson's own
recording career began in 1969 for Monument, and in 1973 he hit a chord
that resonated deeply with southern audiences but also with fans allover the
u.s. when he recorded "Why Me, Lord," inspired by a religious experience he
had one evening in a Pentecostal church in Nashville. Religious themes did
not dominate his music, though. He became quite well known in the industry
and in the public mind as the writer of songs about freedom, honest relation-
ships, and sensual experience. But his songs' appeal derived from their musical
quality as well as from their thematic bases. They featured pretty, singable
melodies, economy of language, and memorable aphorisms. Kristofferson
moved on to stardom as an entertainer and actor, and his production of hit
songs declined substantially, but the enduring quality of his best songs not
only opened other commercial doors for him, it also indicated that country
music had enormous market potential across lines that traditionally separated
groups of people in the United States, including the all-important demographic
distinction between youthful and not-so-youthful record buyers.
One of the factors that bridged gaps in the music marketplace was a
change in attitudes about subject matter in songs, something Kris Kristofferson
and others of his generation helped bring about. The passing of the rebellious
1960s did not mean that middle-class sensibilities with their moderating in-
fluences were going to regain control of U.S. culture. One trend that contin-
ued through the '70s was the inclusion of sexually suggestive lyrics in country
songs. Such lyrics appealed to younger audiences and helped make country
music more profitable, though producers and publishers had to worry about
alienating more mature or more conservative customers. The more explicit of
the new breed of songs aroused the indignation of many people both inside
and outside of the country music industry. Some radio stations refused to play
them. Veteran country songwriter Cindy Walker called them "skin songs."4
Old-time country fans no doubt had some difficulty adjusting to such songs
as Freddy Weller's "Sexy Lady," Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors," and
Conway Twitty's "You've Never Been This Far Before," but each song became
a hit. Old double-standards made it more difficult for fans to accept such
songs from women songwriters, though Floridian Linda Hargrove, one of the
most candid and sensitive of the new breed of songwriters, wrote such a song,
"Just Get Up and Close the Door," and saw it emerge as a hit for Johnny
Rodriguez. Her own recording of "Mexican Love Songs" was even more ex-
plicit, featuring a woman who picks up a man in a honky-tonk and regrets
waking up the next morning with a cowboy who "takes up three-fourths of
the bed."
While a fairly diverse group of new songwriters contributed to the broad-
ening of perspectives within country music, an entire community of musi-
cians arose who introduced alternative styles that offered a direct challenge to
establishment values. Many of these singers became strongly identified with

the musical scene in Austin, Texas, one of several southern cities that became
important music centers.' Austin's rise to musical prominence was accom-
panied by a heightened interest in what came to be called during the 1970s
"progressive country music," an ambiguous term first associated with the eclectic
programming pioneered by station KOKE in Austin, a format then copied by
several other stations. KOKE program directors announced an intention to
play all kinds of country music, from the traditional to the modern, but their
selections actually leaned heavily toward rock-influenced material, and par-
ticularly toward that produced by Austin-based entertainers. Progressive country
music, therefore, became increasingly associated with youth-oriented music,
particularly country-rock and other hybrid forms, including some that drew
on folk music. KOKE's programming, like the music played in most of the
clubs in Austin, was aimed at the city's youthful audience, a generation reared
on rock music. As the site of a state university with an enrollment of over forty
thousand, Austin had a large and annually self-replenishing young audience
that craved musical entertainment.
Many progressive country musicians in Austin, like the deejays at KOKE,
affected cowboy dress, as did many of the young people who constituted the
audiences. The stereotype initially associated with Austin music was that of
the hippie in a cowboy costume, the "cosmic cowboy," as Michael Mutphey
expressed it in one of his songs. The first major locus of activity for these
people and their music was the Armadillo World Headquarters, founded in
1970 in an old national guard armory, and a direct outgrowth of the city's
counterculture movement. Beginning as a haven for rock music, the Arma-
dillo soon began to featute country entertainers too, particularly those who,
like Waylon Jennings and Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen,
could attract both country and rock audiences. The Armadillo also booked
performers who, like Murphey, had come to be known to young Texans from
their appearances on the state's coffeehouse circuit in the late 1960s and '70s.
Austin was the undeniable headquarters of the movemenr, and musi-
cians backing any number of artists who appeared at the Armadillo called
themselves the '~ustin interchangeable band." But many people recognized
the roots of progressive country in the folk-oriented music that emerged in
the coffeehouses in Dallas, Denton, and Houston, as well as Austin, performed
by Murphey, Steve Fromholz, Nanci Griffith, Townes Van Zandt, Willis Alan
Ramsey, Bill and Bonnie Hearne, and others who went on to gain fairly wide
reputations or at least had strong influences on well-known artists. Fromholz,
for instance, and his then-partner Dan McCrimmon, calling themselves the
duo Frummox, crafted songs of farming, ranching, and lost opportunities, as
in Fromholz' "Texas Trilogy," every bit as evocative of rural traditions as the

work of any country songwriter/performer and performed with the acoustic
instrumentation of the old-time string bands. Much the same could be said of
Ramsey, though he, like Fromholz, also infused a wry sense of humor into his
often droll, ironic lyrics that distanced him from more mainstream songwriting,
as did his use of open guitar tunings, as on his oddly haunting tune "Satin
Sheets." The Hearnes, a legally blind married couple, added a rousing combi-
nation of tight vocal harmonies and gospel-based piano playing that gave en-
ergy to the new music while also reminding its performers of the importance
of strong melodies. Nanci Griffith, Tish Hinojosa, and Lyle Lovett were only
a few of the younger musicians who came under the influence of the Hearnes.
Dallas-native Murphey achieved perhaps the greatest acclaim of the Austin-
based musicians from that period, particularly later when he moved closer to
mainstream country, and protested when his picture appeared on the cover of
Jan Reid's The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, saying, "I'm not a redneck,
and I don't play rock music." But Murphey continued and solidified the use of
western and cowboy imagery in his music and his stage presence, later becom-
ing widely identified with the burgeoning cowboy poetry movement.
In the early '70s, the number of youth-oriented clubs multiplied in Aus-
tin and they, along with the older country and western clubs in the city, such
as the Broken Spoke, the Split Rail, and Soap Creek Saloon, soon gave Austin
the reputation of being a thriving center of live music. Much of the talent
found in the city-Frieda and the Firedogs, for example, led by gifted Louisi-
ana-born singer and piano player Marcia Ball-enjoyed only local or Texas
recognition in the '70s. But a few musicians of national or growing repute,
such as Jerry Jeff Walker, the New York urban folksinger who had written
"Mr. Bojangles," and Doug Sahm, the versatile Texan who had been promi-
nent in the 1960s rock scene, made Austin their base of operations. The city
was already a burgeoning community of musicians when Willie Nelson moved
there from Nashville in 1972. 6 Nelson, a major if long-neglected talent in
country music, was both a supreme vocal stylist, whose blues-tinged voice was
one of the most distinctive since Jimmie Rodgers, and a gifted songwriter
whose finely crafted songs had placed him in the vanguard of Nashville's new
breed of writers. After he moved to Austin, Nelson demonstrated that he was
consummately skilled in still another art, that of image building.
Willie Nelson was born in 1933 in Abbott, Texas, where he absorbed a
heavy diet of gospel, honky-tonk, pop, and western swing music, all of which
later appeared in his own highly individualistic style. In Nashville, where he
moved in the early 1960s, Nelson won immediate success as a songwriter,
supplying hit songs for other entertainers: "Crazy," for Patsy Cline, "Funny
How Time Slips Away," for Billy Walker, "Hello Wall," for Faron Young, and
"Night Life," for Ray Price. Nelson was far from being a failure in Nashville,
and although he was at least on the periphery of a small group of musicians
known as the "Nashville Rebels" (or "Outlaws"), he was really neither an icono-
clast nor a nonconformist. His decision to move to Austin was primarily mo-
tivated by losing his home in a fire, but more generally by his desire to return
to what he saw as the simpler and more familiar pace of his native state of
Texas. Nelson deliberately set out to build an audience among the rock-ori-
ented youth of Texas and beyond, and he succeeded in a way that was unprec-
edented for a country singer.
Nelson became a national phenomenon, landing roles in movies and
appearances on the most prominent television programs, including those aimed
at young audiences. The most intriguing facet of Nelson and his updated
image, however, was that his singing remained emotive, even plaintive as of-
ten as it was mischievous, and his style and choice of songs became more
traditional. Many of the listeners he attracted to gospel and earlier varieties of
country music, including honky-tonk, probably would not have listened to
such music without Nelson's endorsement. Nelson also introduced many coun-
try music fans, young and old, to the concept album, which he carried off to
critical acclaim in the 1970s with Red Headed Stranger and with Phases and
Stages, one side of which presents love lost through the eyes of a man and the
other side through those of a woman. There was some irony in the fact that
Waylon Jennings, a talented country writer/performer in his own right, be-
came best known in the decade as Nelson's comrade and fellow "Outlaw,"
capitalizing on the Texas image of expansiveness and easy living in his songs,
especially his number one hit of 1977, "Luckenbach, Texas," in which he
urges his listeners to "get back to the basics oflove." Nelson moved to Austin,
established his own recording company, and maintained his original musical
sound, adjusting his physical image to suit contemporary Texas youth tastes,
while Waylon, also a native of Texas, remained in Nashville and aligned with
the largest record company in America, RCA, while singing of being an out-
law, cut free from the constraints of the Nashville establishment. Jennings
later recorded and appeared with Nelson, Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash in a
group they called the Highwaymen, perpetuating an image of independence
and just a touch oflawlessness. All fout performers had fairly legitimate claims
to nonconformity, but Nelson came the closest of the four to living what he
sang and wrote about, both in his free-spirited lifestyle and unconventional
approach to his work, both of which got him into considerable trouble from
time to time.
The fusion of country and rock sounds and the consequent gravitation
of a youth audience toward country music resulted as much from the experi-
mentation of country-oriented rock musicians as from the innovativeness of
country musicians. For some new fans, finding their way into the country
music subculture seemed to be another way to rebel against the establishment.
Furthermore, many young fans admitted an interest in country music only
after the music was lent respectability through an endorsement by a rock singer
such as Bob Dylan, Stephen Stills, or Neil Young. Dylan, for instance, prob-
ably did more than any other individual to break down prejudice against coun-
try music when he went to Nashville and hired local musicians to help him
record an album of his own country-flavored songs, Nashville Skyline, includ-
ing a duet with Johnny Cash, "Girl from the North Country,» which became
a hit single. About nine months before Dylan's album appeared, however, the
folk-rock group the Byrds released Sweetheart ofthe Rodeo, the first album by a
rock group to be composed exclusively of country songs. The Byrds were well
known for their experimentation, having earlier pioneered in the performance
of psychedelic rock and folk rock, but at least two of their members, Chris
Hillman and Gram Parsons, had experience with and genuine love for coun-
try music. Together, they comprised the nucleus of a later and more consis-
tently country group called the Flying Burrito Brothers, the prototype of most
of the country-rock groups that emerged later.
Gram Parsons was born Cecil Ingram Connors in Waycross, Georgia,
on November 5, 1946.7 Though he came from the right side of the tracks and
was the heir of a considerable fortune, Parsons brought to rock music a fasci-
nation with hard-core, honky-tonk country music. When he left the Burrito
Brothers, he set out on a campaign, about three years before Willie Nelson's
highly publicized Texas ventures, to fuse more closely the sounds of country
and rock and to break down the mutual suspicion between the two audiences.
Parsons ultimately failed in his efforts within his own lifetime, but after his
death in 1973 he and his music became objects of cultic adulation. Unfortu-
nately, Parsons's self-destructive behavior, like that of so many of his peers,
undermined his potential and caused the waste of a talented artist and vision-
ary, and the young rock audience to which he appealed never came to terms
with country music to the extent that he hoped. But the whole country-rock
movement, including such successful entertainers as the Eagles, the Marshall
Tucker Band, Linda Ronstadt, and Uncle Tupelo, owed a great debt to Par-
sons because of the inroads he made for country music within the youth audi-
ence ofAmerica. It is not possible to calculate the number of musicians, obscure
and otherwise, who, knowingly or unknowingly, were touched by Parsons.
Chris Hillman, for instance, who deserves much credit for the creation
of country-rock, a term he did not care for, had played bluegrass and country
before joining the Byrds. He tells how Parsons started playing a Buck Owens'
song, "Under Your Spell Again," at a rehearsal shortly after Parsons joined the
Byrds. "I stopped in my tracks and ran over and caught the tenor part. This
was Heaven," according to Hillman. "I'd found an ally and quite possibly my
future."8 The genealogy of country-rock influences becomes virtually impos-
sible to trace among many of the major groups of the 1960s and '70s, but
musicians who played with Parsons and/or Hillman, or with those who did,
keep showing up. The Byrds were a source of the music, as can be heard on
"Mr. Spaceman," "Chestnut Mare," and the satirical "I Wanna Grow Up to
Be a Politician." In addition to Hillman and Parsons, Byrds alumni also in-
cluded David Crosby, who was most famous for his membership in the group
named for him, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young. Stills and Nash
were both veterans of the rock group Buffalo Springfield, which had also ex-
perimented with country-sounding songs or motifs, as on "Kind Woman,"
"Go and Say Goodbye," and their biggest hit, "For What It's Worth," which
featured guitar effects that prefigured the use Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
made of the steel guitar in "Teach Your Children." When that group broke up,
Stills and Young, whose bitter anti-segregation songs had angered many white
southerners, both pursued solo careers featuring frequent use of country sounds.
Stills went on to form Manassas, an eclectic group he fronted in the mid-1970s
that featured rock-influenced country-sounding songs and country-influenced
rock-sounding songs. The group traveled and recorded with a steel guitarist, Al
Perkins, and a mandolin and guitar player and vocalist, Chris Hillman.
Surely Gram Parsons' most direct and important influence was on his
protege Emmylou Harris. Though southern-born, in Birmingham, Alabama,
and reared in Virginia, Harris was the daughter of a career military officer, so
her background could hardly be called country. Her first musical experience
came as an urban folksinger, but Parsons taught her country phrasing and
introduced her to what she called "root country," and she began adding to her
repertory songs from Merle Haggard, George Jones, the Louvin Brothers, and
the early Everly Brothers. Her first solo album in 1975, Pieces of the Sky, was
highly praised, and a single from the recording, an old Louvin Brothers song
called "IfI Could Only Win Your Love," was one of the most popular country
songs of the year. Harris brought one of the purest and most refreshingly clear
voices heard in country music in a long time, and she was immediately touted
as a future superstar. One of the most remarkable aspects of her success was
the fact that she built strong bases of support with both rock and country
audiences by generally adhering to older styles of country music, foreshadow-
ing and providing leadership in a trend of traditionalism among younger coun-
try performers.
Despite all the modernizing trends of the postwar period, and despite
the almost irresistible pressures placed on country musicians to modify their
performing sryles, many of the older forms did persist. Much of the impetus
behind the revival of tradition-based styles came from the urban folk revival of
the late 1950s and early '60s in which nonfolk entertainers performed folk
material or songs with a folk sound. From the 1958 popularity of the Kingston
Trio's "Tom Dooley," an adaptation of a North Carolina murder ballad, to the
coming in 1964 of the Beatles, there had been a strong flurry of interest in
what was loosely termed "folk" music. Urban folk music, thus seen, may have
prospered as a reaction against rock 'n' roll, but more likely it represented just
one more flirtation with the exotic or novel. Although urban folk music drew
much of its inspiration and repertory, at least indirectly, from the South, from
the protest singing of such 1930s radicals as Aunt Molly Jackson and Woody
Guthrie, and from the Library of Congress collection of southern field record-
ings, it was basically a facet of mainstream pop music and was supported by
the widest possible spectrum of Americans, most of whom had no identifiable
roots in the cultures from which the songs derived. Southern folk music had
often featured anti-authoritarian, even protest, themes, but as many northerners,
especially young people, embraced the music of the folk, they put their own
stamp on the presentation and interpretation of the music. It took on an
especially progressive political orientation as a result of the identification of
many folk music figures with the ideals of President John F. Kennedy and the
civil rights movement. But its tone became more strident and cynical after
Kennedy's death and as the promise of reform dissipated in the wake ofAmerica's
deepening involvement in Vietnam. Urban folk music became a vehicle for
many young people to express themselves both musically and politically, and
to get a start in the music business, especially after rock 'n' roll receded from
its first delirious peak. Many a veteran of the urban folk movement, such as
Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan, went on to a career in rock or other forms of pop
music. As Robert Palmer says, "Once country rock reared its head, the neo-
folkie harmonies of Crosby, Stills, and Nash and the early-seventies prolifera-
tion of introspective, folk-based singer-songwriters were sure to follow. The
Eagles were just around the bend."9
On the other hand, the folk fad did contribute to an awakening of inter-
est in real grassroots American music. Once their appetites for folk music were
whetted, many young people reached back for the rural roots of such music:
blues, cowboy, hillbilly, Cajun, and other related forms. This interest had im-
portant social and musical consequences. A few recording companies released
material from the 1920s that had long been buried in their vaults, and de-
voted collectors produced longplaying recordings of music taken from their
own private collections of old 78s. Many urban enthusiasts had been intro-
duced to rural music of various sorts through the invaluable Anthology ofAmeri-
can Folk Music, an assemblage of hillbilly, blues, Cajun, and gospel recordings
taken from the collection of Harry Smith and released on the Folkways label
in 1952. Partly as a result of interest engendered by the urban folk revival,
Sam Charters came upon the concept of country blues, a matter of great im-
portance for black-white musical interaction as white, urban, fairly affiuent
young people, both in the U.S. and beyond, found themselves captivated by
the music of black, rural, older people, often of modest means. 10 Other collec-
tors and scholars became interested in exploring the origins of current-day
popular music and found that they had to modify some of their preconcep-
tions and prejudices about plain folk. Most happily of all, several of the pio-
neer performers, such as bluesmen Mississippi John Hurt and Furry Lewis,
and hillbillies Dock Boggs, Clarence Ashley, and Buell Kazee, were rediscov-
ered and given chances to build second careers they never could have imag-
ined. Furthermore, the urban folk audience was receptive to newer performers
with a traditional orientation, such as the Balfa Brothers, Cajun musicians
who received a hearing far beyond the borders of southwest Louisiana. Finally,
scholars for the first time began to recognize the relationship between folk
music and such commercial forms as blues, gospel, and country. The most
significant result of this interest was the publication in 1965 of the "hillbilly
issue" of the Journal ofAmerican Folklore. a collection of essays devoted solely
to various aspects of early commercial country music, something folklorists in
earlier times considered unworthy of study. II
Indeed, even within the evolutionary framework of 1960s and '70s com-
mercialization, the distinctive musical sounds of the working-class South en-
duted. Some country singers, such as Kentuckian Marshall Louis "Grandpa"
Jones made no compromises at all with the newer sounds. A few, such as the
immensely talented Arthel "Doc" Watson, a blind musician from Deep Gap,
North Carolina, were skillful enough to alternate convincingly between the
very oldest folk styles and the most modern innovations. Watson, a singer of
great subtlety and power with a repertory ranging from sixteenth-century bal-
lads to modern blues tunes, made his greatest impact as a guitarist. Often
performing with his son Merle, Watson exhibited a precision and speed in
executing solo guitar "runs" seldom heard before from any guitarist, even one
with eyesight. Watson's playing set off a vogue for flat-picking, as opposed to
the use of a thumb pick or the fingers as so many guitarists did who were
influenced by the folk revival. His work touched scores of young musicians in
both country and rock music, most notably, Dan Crary, Norman Blake,
Clarence White, and Tony Rice. When the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band pulled a
number of country musicians into their plan to record an album of traditional

country tunes, Watson joined them, performing blistering duets with master
fiddler Vassar Clements, one of the true stars of the album, on such tunes as
"Black Mountain Rag" and "Down Yonder." The album, Will the Circle Be
. Unbroken, featured cover art recalling the Union and the Confederacy and the
statement, "Music makes a new circle." Grand Ole Opry mainstay Roy Acuff.
country matriarch Maybelle Carter, vocalist Jimmy Martin, banjo legend Earl
Scruggs, finger-picking guitarist and vocalist Merle Travis, and several noted
Nashville sidemen joined the eclectic Dirt Band for a rousing marathon re-
cording session that resulted in a three-disc album, a great deal of fine music,
and a considerable amount of goodwill.
One musician who refused, quite famously, to accept the Dirt Band's
invitation to join the Circle session was Bill Monroe. He was so committed to
maintaining the purity of the bluegrass music he had done so much to create
that he chose not to participate in whatever hybrid music might result from
cooperation with a California band with such a strange name. For decades,
Monroe had been creating sounds that were deeply grounded in tradition,
though he himself was always innovative enough to survive and flourish in the
modern period. Born in Rosine, Kentucky, in 1911, Monroe took his mando-
lin sryle, his high tenor singing, and his pioneering string band, the Blue Grass
Boys, to the Grand Ole Opry in 1939, where they remained until Monroe's
death in 1996. Through the long march of country music evolution, and
during a period marked by the almost universal adoption of electric instru-
ments, Monroe preserved acoustic instrumentation and the "high-lonesome"
style of singing, and in so doing created a genre of tradition-based music that
spread around the world. Scores of musicians served apprenticeships with
Monroe and then moved on to form their own bands. Many others heard his
broadcasts, bought his records, or attended his road shows, and subsequently
began copying the sounds Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys popularized.
All of the original bluegrass bands resisted electrical amplification, sang
in a high, strident style featuring two and three-part harmony, leaned toward
old or old-fashioned songs, and generally performed them at breakneck tem-
pos. Although other instruments have since been adopted by bluegrass musi-
cians, the "classic" bands, those clinging most closely to the original Monroe
pattern, featured guitar and string bass for back-up rhythm, and mandolin,
fiddle, and five-string banjo as lead instruments. Monroe's chop-style of man-
dolin chording was crucial in setting the distinctive rhythmic surge of blue-
grass music, but other talented musicians made important contributions that
made the music both unique and popular. Preeminently, Earl Scruggs, born
in Flint Hill, North Carolina, in 1924, played with the Blue Grass Boys from
1944 to 1948 and featured a style that revolutionized the sound of the banjo
and did much to make bluegrass music popular throughout the United States
and beyond. Building upon styles long heard in the hill country of the Caro-
linas, Scruggs perfected a highly syncopated, three-finger style that made the
banjo a solo instrument of dazzling speed and versatility. Don Reno, from
Spartanburg, South Carolina, also knew the style, having learned it from Dewitt
"Snuffy" Jenkins, but Reno joined the Blue Grass Boys only after Scruggs had
left the group to form, along with Lester Flatt, another very popular bluegrass
organization. Otherwise, what is called "Scruggs style" picking might have
been called "Reno style."
Initially, the bluegrass audience was concentrated in small towns and
rural communities of the South among people who resented the pop trends of
country and western music. By the early 1950s, however, bluegrass began to
win adherents in the North, particularly on college campuses. In 1954 the
patriarch of urban folk music, Pete Seeger, included a section on "Scruggs
picking" in the second edition of his banjo instructor. Three years later the
style won further sanction among urban folkies when Folkways Records is-
sued an album edited by Mike Seeger called American Banjo Scruggs Style.
Because bluegrass resisted electrical amplification and adhered to traditional
songs and sounds, and because so many of its prominent musicians came
from the southern hills, the music appealed to many young Americans as a
form of mountain folk music, and it was certainly more folklike than the
Nashville-dominated country music of the day. Bluegrass music clearly prof-
ited from its association with the urban folk boom of the late '50s and early
'60s. Earl Scruggs appeared to rave reviews at the first Newport Folk Festival
in the summer of 1959, and in that same year Alan Lomax, the best-known
American folklorist, further popularized the music among academics and avant-
gardists when he termed it in an Esquire article "folk music with overdrive."12
As Flatt and Scruggs led the way with appearances allover the United States,
they not only became the busiest of all country groups during those years,
they also helped bluegrass music gain a respectability in U.S. popular culture
that no other form of country music had ever attained.
Oddly, the country music industry was largely indifferent to the blue-
grass phenomenon, particularly during the period of the greatest academic
interest in it. Bluegrass groups, such as those led by Bill Monroe, Flatt and
Scruggs, Bobby and Sonny Osborne, and Jim and Jesse McReynolds, appeared
regularly on the Grand Ole Opry, and a few other bluegrass entertainers, such
as Mac Wiseman, the Stanley Brothers, and Don Reno and Red Smiley, at-
tained some commercial recognition during the 1950s. But bluegrass fans
generally encountered little but frustration in the search for their favorite kind
of music. The Top Forty country radio stations did not play bluegrass, juke-
box vendors would not distribute it, and the major record labels essentially
pretended that it did not exist. Although the reasons for the country music
industry's neglect of bluegrass may never by known, mainstream country singers
may have been jealous, or even contemptuous, of the acclaim received by
bluegrass in the academic community, or industry people may have been cool
to the rural image bluegrass continued to embody at a time when country
music was trying to become more sophisticated.
Regardless of the neglect, bluegrass bands proliferated since the 1950s,
and the genre spawned its own substylings, ranging from traditional to pro-
gressive, and bluegrass generated its own methods of dissemination. Vast num-
bers of communities allover the U.S., and many in other countries, came to
have at least one bluegrass band, although the music performed was often
only remotely related to the original Bill Monroe sound. Bluegrass developed
a particularly strong following among southern migrants in the North, espe-
cially in Detroit and in the southern portions of such states as Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. In fact, few bluegrass singers had a more pro-
nounced rural sound or stronger commitment to tradition than Larry Sparks,
born in Ohio of Kentucky-born parents.
Since at least the mid-1950s, the Washington, D.C., area became home
to the greatest concentration of bluegrass interest in the U.S. The city and
surrounding metropolitan area had a large number of dubs catering to the
mixed assortment of government workers, students, military personnel, and
others from allover the United States. As a city with a large population of ex-
southerners, many of them from contiguous areas where the music long thrived,
Washington was peculiarly situated to be a bluegrass capital. Several bluegrass
bands worked out of the area, the two most important being exemplars of the
"progressive" sound, the Country Gentlemen and the Seldom Scene.
As demonstrated by the mixed audiences of devotees found in Washing-
ton, bluegrass music had attained a merger of cultures long before Gram Par-
sons and Willie Nelson attempted their respective experiments with country
and rock. Lacking the media support that mainstream country or country
rock enjoyed, bluegrass musicians effected this merger largely through appear-
ances at festivals. The first bluegrass festival, organized by Bill Clifton and
held near Luray, Virginia, in 1962, was sparsely attended, and festivals did not
become annual events until after 1965 when Carlton Haney began sponsor-
ing his popular affairs. By the 1970s, however, if bluegrass fans had enough
time and money, they could attend a festival somewhere every week in the
United States from May until November.
Even the larger festivals, attended by thousands of people, such as those
at Bean Blossom, Indiana; Camp Springs, North Carolina; and Hugo, Okla-
homa, still managed to retain the brush arbor feeling of the old-time camp
meetings. People camped out for days, listened to the music of visiting profes-
sional bands, and stayed up all night jamming with each other on fiddles,
guitars, banjos, and mandolins. The festivals became meeting grounds for
young and old, liberals and conservatives, hippies and rednecks. Truck driv-
ers, coal miners, and farmers shared benches with "freaks," college students,
and white-collar workers, and stood by campers for hour after hour trading
instrumental licks and harmonizing on "Salty Dog Blues" or "Roll in My
Sweet Baby's Arms." Probably nowhere else in the polarized '60s and early
'70s could one find a similar forum where such disparate groups communed
so peacefully. McGovern and Wallace supporters attending the festivals may
not have reconciled their political differences as a result of their similar musi-
cal preferences, but their shared passion for bluegrass suggested a common
aesthetic based upon a genuine search for sources and a reaction against the
plasticized offerings of pop culture.
Bluegrass music may have represented an impulse toward tradition, but
its directions have often been shaped by people and forces outside the South,
by the urban folk music movement and by folklorists and others who clung to
the romantic myth of the southern mountains as the sole repository of Ameri-
can folk music. Honky-tonk music also experienced a revival in the 1960s,
but it never gained the endorsement of intellectuals or folklorists, nor did it
really ever become chic among the urban middle classes. Its evolution, there-
fore, could be said to reflect more honestly the organic changes in southern
white working-class life than one might find in the development of any other
form of music. Because honky-tonk music generally reflects no particular ide-
ology, it has never been very interesting to academics and intellectuals. Be-
cause it rarely deals with mountain life or little country churches, but instead
concentrates on people's private concerns and does so with a heavily electrified
beat, it has never been very appealing to folklorists, with very few exceptions,
or to those whose conceptions of folk music remain shaped by the vision of a
pastoral and nontechnological society. Some writers, such as Nat Hentoff and
Nicholas Dawidoff. have offered a reappraisal of honky-tonk music for its
lyrical honesty about the lives of people on the edges of the American dream.
Dawidoff says of George Jones's work, "[H]is recordings that will endure are
about the permutations of sorrow; the ways people adjust their hopes as time
grows shorter; how you get through a life that you never planned on; the way
abiding misfortune feels and how you get used to it; what it's like to be left
behind. This is not music for swinging teens. It's raw stuff for grown-up people
who ... know something about disappointment. And what he means when
he says of record companies, 'They've taken the heart and soul out of country
music,' is that they've removed the pain."13
During the heyday of rock ' n' roll interest, the honky-tonk style had
been affected more adversely than any other form of country music. Only two
major singers, Ray Price and George Jones, both from Texas, remained true to
the honky-tonk sound. Price, in fact, gained great success with the form dur-
ing the very peak years of the rock 'n' roll boom. Jones's rise as a singer in the
early 1960s paralleled the general resurgence of the honky-tonk style. During
these years Jones built his reputation as one of the supreme stylists of country
music, singing about cheating and drinking to the accompaniment of a bluesy
fiddle and wailing steel guitar. The honky-tonk revival was made possible partly
by the revitalization of these two instruments, which had declined in use so
drastically during the late '50s. They, like virtually all instruments in the honky-
tonk bands, were now electrified, and pedals had been universally attached to
the steel guitars, permitting the musicians to stretch and bend the strings in
order to achieve a more sustained and flexible vibrato. By the end of the '60s
innovative steel guitarists such as Pete Drake, Buddy Emmons, Ralph Mooney,
and Lloyd Green were appearing regularly on Nashville recording sessions.
Similarly, the fiddle regained much of the prominence it had once enjoyed.
The CMA's choice as instrumentalist of the year in 1976 was Nashville's most
popular session fiddler, Johnny Gimble, a native of Tyler, Texas.
Honky-tonk music withdrew from its encounter with rock 'n' roll bear-
ing some of the characteristics of its adversary. Rock-derived instrumental licks
showed up in every form of country music, especially as disco and punk rock
drove many guitarists away from the rock field and into country music, and
much of the energy of rock 'n' roll suffused the performances of some of the
honky-tonk singers. Buck Owens, for instance, a native of Sherman, Texas,
but identified with the Bakersfield, California, country music scene, became
the top-rated male country singer of the mid-1960s with a style that ranged
from rockabilly to honky-tonk. In the '70s Kentucky-born Gary Stewart won
acclaim among country fans because of his pleading, husky vibrato and honky-
tonk-style voice, but he also received critical praise in Rolling Stone for his
rollicking rockabilly style. Several singers began their careers as rockabillies
and later shifted with great effectiveness to the honky-tonk style. Gene Watson,
Buck Owens, Darrell McCall, Johnny Bush, and Porter Wagoner were some
of the singers people had in mind when they used the expression "hard" coun-
try to describe performers who seemed more "pure" country, not necessarily
exclusively honky-tonk, but uncompromisingly devoted to the expressiveness
of country music, as so many honky-tonk performers were.
Honky-tonk music has had almost as tenuous an existence in country
music as bluegrass. After the early '60s, the industry as a whole was never
hospitable toward the hard country sound because of perceived limits of its
market, and singers were easily tempted into the financially more rewarding
pop areas of country music where greater possibilities for crossover hits ex-
isted. Honky-tonk fans in the '70s continually hoped that Ray Price might
return to his original sound, or that someone would restore the old George
Jones style to country music. Consequently, singers or recordings were periodi-
cally seized upon by hopeful fans as the harbingers of genuine and full-scale
honky-tonk revivals, such as Mel Street's "Borrowed Angel," Wayne Kemp's
"Who'll Turn Out the Lights," Ronnie Milsap's "I Hate You," Johnny
Rodriguez's "Pass Me By," John Conlee's "Rose Colored Glasses," and Norman
Wade's "Close Every Honky Tonk." The promise usually remained unfulfilled.
Rodriguez's first album was consistently honky-tonk in style and repertory, a
worthy reflection of his Texas inheritance, but his succeeding albums persis-
tently moved away from that original sound toward the more lucrative field of
country-pop. In the 1970s, two proponents of the honky-tonk sound, though
both preferred the term hard country, were Vernon Oxford and Moe Bandy,
natives of Arkansas and Mississippi respectively. Oxford's pure country sound
built a remarkable popularity among music devotees in Great Britain. Bandy
conformed for a time to the classic mold of the honky-tonk musician: the
singer with his guitar in front of a band with a fiddle, pedal steel guitar, and
electric walking bass-the essence of the Texas shuffle beat-singing songs
about cheating, hurting, and drinking to a noisy crowd sliding across a smoky
dance floor. Honky-tonk and Moe Bandy seemed made for each other, par-
ticularly in songs such as "I Just Started Hating Cheating Songs Today," "Don't
Anyone Make Love at Home Anymore?" and "Hank Williams, You Wrote
My Life." But he moved away from his honky-tonk style and, for the most
part, its enthusiasts remained disappointed for the rest of the decade, though
the style became more popular as the twentieth century drew to a close.
Honky-tonk music's spirited cousin, western swing, declined but did
not die after World War II, even though the large bands of the Bob Wills
variety became rare. Hoyle Nix of Big Spring, Texas, and Waco native Hank
Thompson kept the swing genre going during the 1950s and '60s, playing for
dances allover the Southwest. Their bands were typically smaIl, and Thomp-
son was best known for his interpretation of such honky-tonk songs as "The
Wild Side of Life." But the memory of Bob Wills's exciting bands was still
vivid throughout the Southwest, and songs that he and the Texas Playboys
introduced remained in the repertories even of musicians far removed from
the western swing tradition. Long before Wills died in 1975, a western swing
renaissance was under way, largely through the efforts of Merle Haggard, who
recorded a tribute album to Wills in 1970 using several former Texas Play-
boys, began including western swing numbers in his performance repertory,
and learned to play the fiddle in the Bob Wills style. A band of young musi-
cians, Asleep at the Wheel, inspired in large part by Haggard's tribute, focused
their efforts on western swing and helped make Wills, admitted to the Coun-
try Music Hall of Fame in 1968, a cult figure in the southwest in the 1970s, as
he had been in that region in the 1930s and '40s.
Through the performances of Merle Haggard and Asleep at the Wheel,
and other longtime admirers such as Willie Nelson, a new generation of west-
ern swing enthusiasts came into existence who previously knew Wills, Milton
Brown, and other swing pioneers, ifat all, only through their recordings. Asleep
at the Wheel and other young "revivalists" such as Cooder Browne and Alvin
Crow and His Pleasant Valley Boys made their headquarters in Austin, Texas,
and drew throngs of youthful, rock-oriented audiences who were already en-
thused by the burgeoning Austin music scene. They were so successful that
the Public Broadcasting System chose to create a long-running program, Aus-
tin City Limits, and taped its first program on the campus of the University of
Texas in September 1975. The program consisted of Asleep at the Wheel and
Bob Wills's Original Texas Playboys, who had gotten back together after the
death of their leader the previous spring. Youngsters were not the only mem-
bers of the reinvigorated western swing audience. Red Steagall and the Coleman
County Cowboys worked more directly within the country music mainstream
and found their most loyal listeners among traditional country music fans. A
native of Gainesville, Texas, Steagall carried on the tradition of western swing.
He also became a leading performer of rodeo music in the United States, sang
for rodeo dances allover the country and, as an ex-bull rider, succeeded in
writing in a very sensitive way about the sport and the way of life it reflects.
With his performance of "Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills' Music," Steagall also
paid tribute to two institutions cherished by country music fans in the South-
west. 14 The popularity of such musicians as Steagall and Asleep at the Wheel
demonstrated western swing's continuing influence in American music and
added evidence that younger performers could win a new hearing among coun-
try and rock audiences.
Western swing's resurgence was in part a tribute to the mythmaking
quality of regionalism, something folklorist Nick Spitzer called "romantic re-
gionalism,"15 in this case the supposedly liberated and expansive Southwest,
and to the man, Bob Wills, who put this freedom to the service of music.
Western swing appealed both to an older audience appreciative of the past
and to those too young to have experienced the music's heyday but hungry
for something enduring, an original and rare prize in the midst of the ever-
shifting patterns of popular culture. But it also demonstrated something true

of much of the story of country music in the 1970s. By making room for
young people who were, of all things, traditionalists as well as innovators,
country music exhibited one of the key factors that always characterized south-
ern music, the ability to combine the quicksilver ofadaptability with the touch-
stone of continuity with the past. By the mid-1970s, the longhairs Merle
Haggard derided in "Okie from Muskogee" and the rednecks Charlie Daniels
derided in "Ballad of the Easy Rider" were shocked to find that they liked
much of the same music-hard country, bluegrass, western swing-and, be-
fore long, many country stars began wearing long hair themselves and dress-
ing more like counterculture wanderers, or people who lived in the country,
than like middle-class aspirants. A symbolic gap was bridged through music,
something inconceivable as recently as the early part of the same decade. More
change was to come, but nothing as dramatic as the changes of the 1970s.
Chapter 9
A FUTURE IN THE PAST
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, southern music had come to a cross-
roads. Indeed, it seemed as if it might disappear altogether, as the "American-
ization of Dixie" and musical homogenization came to fruition. The turbulent
1960s and '70s brought pressures and changes to U.S. culture as a whole, the
kinds of upheaval always reflected in the popular music of any age. Some
observers were left to wo~der if anything traditional in the United States might
survive, especially regionli differences, most especially those in a region whose
racial and political values had been so thoroughly denounced by many people
in the news media and other institutions that shape public opinion. Partly
because of the political resurgence of the South beginning in the 1980s and
partly because of changes in the structure of the organizations that produce
and market music, southern music adapted with the times, as the people of
the South themselves had always done. Ironically, southern political resur-
gence paralleled the departure from office of Jimmy Carter, the first president
elected from a southern state other than Texas since before the Civil War (Vir-
ginia-born Woodrow Wilson had been a longtime resident of New Jersey when
he was elected). Though Carter had an identification with southern music,
Ronald Reagan and George Bush both claimed to appreciate the old-time
American values allegedly inherent in country music and appropriated politi-
cally active country music fans fairly successfully. When ultra-patriotic coun-
try artists such as Lee Greenwood began singing at Republican Party events,
one could tell that the days of the Solid (Democratic) South were over. Far
from disappearing, however, southern styles of music actually adapted to the
future by reverting, in some surprising and also ironic ways, to methods and
sensibilities deeply rooted in their past.
For one thing, southerners of all races remained actively involved in
making music, and the musical landscape on which they operated became
much more diverse. Southern musicians already familiar to the public were
joined by musicians from immigrant groups not previously associated with
the South. Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and other "Latin" people who had begun
moving to southern cities in the years following World War II included musi-
cians who began to make their mark in the musical life of the nation, Cuban-
Floridian superstar Gloria Estevan among them. Asians, especially those
displaced by the Vietnam War, added their presence, particularly in the coastal
towns of Texas. Vietnamese and Hmong immigrants enriched the cultural
fabric of the South and further confounded notions of the region as a bastion
of cultural or musical "purity." Klezmer bands sprang up in Austin, Houston,
New Orleans, and elsewhere in the South, reflecting the musical interests of
Jewish communities in those places as well as the growing diversity of musical
tastes of the general public in many cities in the region.
Two musical phenomena that illustrate the changes in southern music
were the Cajun/Zydeco revolution and the explosion in various musical forms
formerly lumped together under the term "Latin," including Tejano and Salsa.
These forms challenged older ideas about southern distinctiveness, particu-
larly the presumption that the region's uniqueness rests on Anglo-Saxon hege-
mony. These two broad groups actually reinforced two of southern music's
preeminent characteristics, its diversity and its cultural rootedness, and en-
couraged people to abandon an always-faulty notion, that southern music
flows from a uniform ethnic/racial past.
Tejano music's flowering was part of a larger public fascination with
Hispanic or Latino music of all kinds, something that in turn reflected the
spectacular growth of Spanish-speaking communities throughout the United
States. The long migrations of farmworkers and other immigrant people seek-
ing blue-collar jobs took elements ofTejano style to the Midwest, the North,
and both coasts of the U.S. Texas-born Chris Plata, for example, became one
of the most highly regarded participants of the vernacular, roots music scene
in Madison, Wisconsin, with a style that flowed easily from Tex-Mex to rock
'n' roll. Other Hispanic musicians, such as Flaco Jimenez, continued to enjoy
popularity as the twenty-first century dawned through his appearances at fes-
tivals and other venues and on the television program "Austin City Limits."
Jimenez's conjunto accordion style was widely admired and imitated, and he
worked in numerous acts with only a peripheral relationship to Tejano music.
Along with Doug Sahm, Augie Meyer, and Freddy Fender, Jimenez performed
with the Texas Tornadoes, mixing country, rock, and Tejano styles. Like the
San Antonio-raised Sahm, Arizona native Linda Ronstadt grew up listening to
traditional Mexican music. She contributed to the diversification of American
popular music as a whole through her popular songs over several decades but
also to the diversification of southern music through her recordings of two
albums of canciones and corridos in the 1980s, including songs from her own
Mexican ancestry. She thus encouraged singers in Texas and elsewhere to real-
A Future in the Past 1S7
ize that the music of Hispanics could attract audiences from beyond their own
ethnic communities. California native Ry Cooder exhibited a fascination for
all kinds of ethnic music, especially Latin American and African, and, like
Ronstadt, helped broaden and deepen the public's taste for different kinds of
music and encouraged performers to make places for themselves in the musi-
cal marketplace.
Cooder, Ronstadt, and Sahm helped introduce the public to Santiago
Jimenez, the father of Flaco Jimenez, Narciso Martinez, and other Tejano
musical pioneers. Cooder almost single-handedly popularized a whole gen-
eration of aging Cuban musicians through his work on albums and television
programs highlighting the Buena Vista Social Club, work that became im-
mensely popular in Florida particularly. Such effons were complemented by
those of Chris Strachwitz, the legendary German immigrant who came to the
u.S. as a teenager in 1947 and began reissuing the music ofTejano artists in
the early 1960s on his Arhoolie label, which also kept before the public blues
and other roots performances that might have been lost to memory. One of
the high points in the rediscovery of Tejano music came in 1982 when the
National Endowment for the Arts gave Lydia Mendoza a National Heritage
Fellowship, I the reward for a career that spanned over fifty years and included
at least fifty albums and more than two hundred songs.
Although burgeoning Tejano music drew much of its vitality from a
sense of ethnic pride and cultural nationalism, it became much more than
simply a force for nostalgia or musical conservatism highlighting only its old-
est and most traditional performers. Its musicians moved freely between the
Anglo and Hispanic cultures and benefited from the patronage of an audience
that was increasingly urban and musically sophisticated. They also took ad-
vantage of a musical infrastructure of clubs, radio stations, record companies,
and television programs that skillfully marketed their music. The musicians
tended to dress like South Texans who had helped build the ranching empires
of that area while also evincing great pride in their Mexican heritage. They
generally spoke both English and Spanish and thus were able to deal more
effectively with the people who managed the musical infrastructure and main-
tain greater control over their own careers. The first musicians who began
making listeners conscious of the thriving Tejano culture in the 1960s, work-
ing-class youth who sang with the urgency and idioms of rock 'n' roll, Freddy
Fender, Sunny Ozuna and the Sunliters, and Little Joe Hernandez y la Fa-
milia, achieved much success in the late twentieth century. They became role
models for other Hispanics who hoped to achieve middle-class status in the
u.S. without giving up their own heritage. Younger Hispanic artists followed
in the footsteps of their forebears and proudly presented their music-usually
in Spanish-with the full panoply of styles ranging from rock to blues, coun-
try, disco, and hip-hop.
Music created by San Antonio-born Rosie Flores, for instance, refutes
many of the limitations people from the majority culture might like to place
on artists of her ethnic background, and illustrates the interplay of musical
forms that shape the styles of recent performers. She started singing profes-
sionally when she was a child and made recordings for major labels beginning
in 1987 when she recorded Rosie Flores for Warner Brothers. She went on to
record several albums for Hightone and Rounder that combine her love for
old-time hillbilly music, honky-tonk, and rockabilly, as well as Tex-Mex, and
impressed critics with her range and versatility and with the fact that she did
her own lead guitar work. Her fourth album, Rockabilly FiOy, which came out
in 1995, features duets with the veteran rockabillies Wanda Jackson and Janis
Martin. Flores's music rocks when she wants it to and evokes images of the
barrio or the honky-tonk, again, as she sees fit, not as the strictures of other
people might try to determine.
While most Hispanic performers played in small barrio clubs and cafes,
mainly in the region of South Texas bounded by Corpus Christi, San Anto-
nio, and Houston, some attained superstar status. La Mafia, Emilio Navaira,
Laura Canales, and Selena Quintanilla presented their music in large arenas
replete with all the trappings of huge stadium rock shows. They also extended
the reach ofTejano music into northern Mexico, California, and other areas
where large numbers of Spanish-speaking people lived, confounding earlier
understandings of the wholly Texan nature of the music.
Selena began her career singing in her family's band when she was eight
years old. Her father, Abraham, had been the leader of a '60s doo-wop group,
Los Dinos, and became the driving force in his daughter's career, encouraging
her to sing and insisting that she improve her Spanish. As her style matured,
so did her own self-image and direction. Selena created a sensual persona
modeled on the stage presence and provocative costuming of the pop singer
Madonna. Like no one before her, Selena dominated the "Latin" music cham
in the United States in the early '90s with such songs as "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,"
"Como La Flor," and "Arnor Prohibido." She became immensely popular in
Mexico, an accomplishment not often enjoyed by Tejana musicians. At the
peak of her popularity, she was shot to death by the president of her fan club
after Selena and others accused her of embezzlement. 2 Selena's legacy may be
difficult to ascertain because of the brevity of her career, but her immense suc-
cess pointed to the huge potential of "ethnic" music to hold its own in a popular
music marketplace not often eager to embrace departures ftom the mainstream
and to the increasing diversity of the music of the southern United States.
A Future in the Past 159
Another example of this diversity in the late twentieth century was found
in Cajun music. The music's popularity was accompanied by a fascination
with all things Cajun: the humor, cuisine, and free-wheeling pursuit of a joy-
ous life encapsulated in the expression laissez les bon temps roulez. The appear-
ance of Dewey Balfa, Gladius Thibodeaux, and Louis Vinesse Lejeune at the
Newport Folk Festival in 1964 may date the beginning of a revival of interest
in traditional Cajun music. Even among many Cajuns, especially those aspir-
ing to middle-class acceptance, Cajun music had been viewed as "nothing but
chanky-chank," according to Barry Jean Ancelet, Jay Edwards, and Glen Pitre
in Cajun Country. But appearing on the bill at Newport with such stars of the
day as Peter, Paul, and Mary and Joan Baez, and receiving a standing ovation
gave Cajun music a lift both at home and in the U.S. as a whole. 3 Balfa espe-
cially was impressed by the enthusiastic reception, and the veteran fiddler
returned to Louisiana determined to revive interest in the music among his
own people, many of whom had suffered humiliation, even violence, on ac-
count of their supposed cultural inferiority. Other Cajuns, such as folklorist
Ancelet, followed Balfa's lead and re-established the teaching of Cajun French
instruction in the schools, long forbidden in South Louisiana, and began teach-
ing young people the methods of Cajun music.
Cajun and Zydeco music, and the cultures that surrounded them, won
broader attention by various means. The disastrous World's Fair of 1984, for
example, an economic nightmare for its host city of New Orleans, managed to
introduce the rich musical resources of Louisiana, including the sounds of
Cajun and Zydeco, to thousands of tourists. Most people, in fact, made their
first acquaintance with Louisiana music either through periodic visits to New
Orleans or through such movies as The Big Easy, which featured songs by
Terrance Simien, Beausoleil, and Buckwheat Zydeco, or through participa-
tion in public spectacles such as the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.
During the closing ceremonies of those Olympic games, Buckwheat Zydeco
played for an international television audience that may have numbered in the
billions. Long before the Cajun revival occurred, the music could be heard at
Alan Fontenot's Club in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, and it was show-
cased constantly at the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans and in such
local clubs as Mulate's, Ttpitina's, Michaul's, and the Maple Leaf Bar.
New Orleans, of course, is neither a Cajun nor a Zydeco town. Most
connections between the city and these forms exist because entrepreneurs know
tourists think Cajuns live in New Orleans and because many New Orleanians
like Cajun and Zydeco music. To find these forms in their authentic social
contexts, one could visit such towns as Thibodeaux, Lafayette, Breaux Bridge,
and Rayne in Southwest Louisiana, or Port Arthur, Texas. Devotees also heard
the many varieties of Louisiana French music at the annual Festivals Acadiens
in Lafayette or the Zydeco Festival in Plaisance. Barry Jean Ancelet, one of the
most articulate and tireless champions of Cajun culture, established another
popular venue for the music in Eunice, Louisiana, a radio show held at a local
theater each Saturday night with everything, including announcements, com-
mercials, and entertainment, presented in Cajun French.
"French" revival styles did not always closely resemble the kind of music
that Dewey Balfa and his brothers had played, but they did represent the
diverse influences at work on the musicians of Louisiana. Above all, they re-
flected the fact that Cajun and Zydeco musicians, like all southern musicians,
were Americans who grew up immersed in the sounds of a broadscale popular
culture. "Traditional" Cajun music thrived, put forth by such bands as Balfa
Toujours, headed by Dewey's daughter Christine, and Beausoleil, preserving
the sound and ambiance of the old times even as musicians added modern
songs and riffs to their presentation. In business since 1933, the Hackberry
Ramblers continued to perform their infectious mixture of Cajun and coun-
try music in the twenty-first century for both American and European audi-
ences. In 2002 accordionist Edwin Duhon (age ninety-two) and fiddler Luderin
Darbone (age eighty-nine) were rewarded with National Heritage Fellowships.
While the. older styles remained popular, fans more often were likely to hear
music that blended the rhythms and energy of rock and r&b with the tradi-
tional accordion and fiddle sounds so associated with Louisiana French mu-
sic. Cajun music and Zydeco burst onto the national scene pardy because of
their infectious dances, conveyed by Zachary Richard (described as the Cajun
Mick Jagger), Wayne Toups, Steve Riley, and Bruce Daigrepont.
Zydeco largely outstripped Cajun music in popularity by the turn of the
century, largely because its heady components of blues, r&b, and even hip-
hop, appealed to young fans. As Zydeco musicians were quick to point out,
their style of Louisiana French music diverged pretty dramatically from Cajun
style. Although they typically sang in French and used accordions and rhythm
rubboards, pioneered by Clifton Chenier's brother Cleveland, such Zydeco
stars as Chenier himself, Boo Zoo Chavis, Buckwheat Zydeco, Queen Ida
Guillory, and Rockin' Dopsie also used saxophones, drums, and electric gui-
tars and basses to produce their unique versions of Mrican-American/Louisi-
ana-French blues styles.
New Orleans and the exotic aura of Cajun culture may have been blended
falsely in the popular imagination, but the city still had enough romance and
charm of its own to reaffirm its image as the country's most musical city.
Historically neglected by the city's power establishment, even once denounced
as "whorehouse music" by local newspapers, New Orleans music nevertheless
flourished in legendary proportions and began to gain the support of the city's
leadership. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, local musical tradi-
tions and commercial opportunities came to be encouraged by the Orleans
Parish school system, which established a vigorous Music in the Schools pro-
gram encouraging the performance of jazz, helped in various ways by Ellis
Marsalis and various members of his famous musical family. The city's politi-
cal and business establishment learned to see the wisdom of supporting music
and backed the maintenance of music parks, protecting musical venues in the
French Quarter, and enhancing the annual Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Music continued to float from virtually every corner of New Orleans
with styles still reflecting the character of local neighborhoods. As if to dem-
onstrate the perennial importance families have in passing music on to their
children, groups such as the Neville, Batiste, and Marsalis families dominated
much of the musical life of New Orleans. The two most famous Marsalis
offspring, saxophonist Branford and trumpeter Wynton, made national repu-
tations in jazz. Wynton also earned considerable acclaim in the field of classi-
cal music and hosted a National Public Radio musical program broadcast
from Lincoln Center. They and other members of their family, however, con-
tinued to appear in New Orleans, touching base with the culture that gave rise
to their music with its distinctive r&b sound, Mardi Gras, festivals, and funer-
als with their "second line" tradition of accompanying musicians returning
from depositing the departed at the cemetery. The marching brass bands per-
sisted, though the bands added contemporary styles of music to their tradi-
tional jazz repertories. Preservation Hall continued to draw tourists, and locals
and tourists also mixed at Tipitina's, the Maple Leaf Bar, Snug Harbor, and
the Mid-City Bowling Lanes, known locally as "Rock and Bowl," a favorite
stop-off of visiting musicians such as the Rolling Stones. New Orleans r&b
and funk bands, the Meters, the Radiators, and the Neville Brothers, explored
the edges of eclecticism, with the Nevilles adding a strong Caribbean influ-
ence, touching on the city's connections with that region. Irma Thomas,
Charmaine Neville, Marcia Ball, and Dr. John established names for them-
selves and loyal followings among people in New Orleans and' from other
places who came to the city specifically to see these artists perform.
A culture unto itself, New Orleans can hardly be called a typical south-
ern city. Even with its prominent monuments and street names celebrating its
Confederate past, New Orleans is simply different from everyplace else, south-
ern or otherwise, with its own dialects, its own terminology, and its own mu-
sical styles and rhythms. Country music, on the other hand, remained the
most self-consciously southern style of music in the United States. Despite the
prominence of a few Canadians and other outlanders, southern-born person-
alities continued to dominate the music. In fact, many fans and critics contin-
ued to gauge a song's authenticity by the degree of southern "twang" in its
singer's style. For many devotees of country music, though, the identity of the
form and its integrity came under threat of dissolution from various forces,
including longstanding ones such as industrial/market pressures and some
newer ones related in odd ways to the actual success of country music. Like
many things southern, as country music entertainers became more successful,
and more affluent, and as the people who performed and patronized country
music became less rural, the character of the music, and of the people, changed
in some dramatic ways.
Even with the arrival of new forms, and the perpetuation oflongstanding
traditions of southern musical diversity, old conceptions and perceptions of
the South and its music survived the end of the twentieth century. The South
continued to fascinate musicians in the United States and beyond, fueling the
styles of performers and the lyrics of songwriters. Southerners themselves be-
came more prominent in the making of these songs than in days gone by
when "outsiders" dominated the field, but the outsiders hardly went away.
Many of them made music dealing with or linked to the South, including
John Fogerty, Robbie Robertson, Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton, Ray Benson, Bruce
Springsteen, and Little Feat, among others. They created songs inspired by
southern themes and often became promoters of southern styles, performers,
and viewpoints. Some such figures, including those associated with the "in-
surgent" alternative country movement, gloried in the rowdier or seamier tra-
ditions of country music, affirming stereotypes many southerners would just
as soon had disappeared. Some of the musicians, however, who affirmed and
repopularized those aspects of the music included southerners, such as Steve
Young; Jimmie Arnold, with his concept album Southern Soul; Tim O'Brien,
with Songs from the Mountain; and Marty Stuart, with The Pilgrim. Hank
Williams Jr. expressed an unabashed neo-Confederate stance in his country/
rock/honky-tonk music, while Dale Watson, Wayne Hancock, and Hank
Williams III explored the rough edges of honky-tonk and rockabilly.
West Virginia native O'Brien produced and performed on two albums
in 1999 that employed· traditional themes, Songr from the Mountain, inspired
by Charles Frazier's popular Civil War novel, Cold Mountain, and The Cross-
ing, a collection consisting mostly of original songs asserting a link between
southern country music and Celtic roots. Marty Stuart, from deep in the heart
of Dixie, produced and performed on The Pilgrim, based on a story he re-
membered from growing up in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Jimmie Arnold's
Southern Soul was a musical tour-de-force on which he wrote or arranged all of
the songs, sang all of them, and played most of the instruments heard on the
recordings, so intense was his desire to link his own experience with the mythical
South he was trying to represent.
Southern Soul was particularly remarkable, focusing on the myth of the
Lost Cause and the ways the southern rebel spirit could be used to rationalize
hedonism and social nonconformity. Virginia-born Arnold, who employed
traditional and original songs to tell the story of Southern Soul, embodied
much of the life he sang about. The son of Pentecostal cotton mill workers, he
moved back and forth between drug and alcohol addiction and preaching the
gospel, felt equally at home in Pentecostal and Baptist churches or among the
denizens of the biker subculture, and hastened through a wanton lifestyle his
death at age 40. He thus fused his own rebellious and self-destructive story
with that of the Lost Cause.
Music was always a solid reality of the South, but the mythic South
continued in a number of ways to attract a variety of songwriters and musi-
cians. Although cable music video channels proliferated on television, digital
technology revolutionized the recording industry, and Internet access rede-
fined marketing strategies, huge numbers of southerners and others in the
u.S. and from outside the country continued to throng to live-music festivals
in the South. From the long-running old-time fiddle contests in Galax, Vir-
ginia, and Union Grove, North Carolina, and the Kerrville, Texas, Folk Festi-
val to the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, music lovers found their
way to live music venues that demonstrated the exotic appeal of the South
long after the music industry had gone high-tech. MerleFest, in Wilkesboro,
North Carolina, became known as one of the best showplaces for acoustic
musicians of all kinds in the United States. A Prairie Home Companion, a live
public radio program, and Austin City Limits, the public television program
recorded before a live audience, became mainstays in the presentation of many
southern-born or -styled musicians who had little likelihood of being heard
on Top 40 radio. Robin and Linda Williams, for instance, natives of North
Carolina and Alabama, knew more country songs, and treated them with greater
affection, than most performers who dominated the broadcasts of mainstream
radio. Known for their touching original songs, close harmonies, and down-
home sensibilities, the Williamses found their largest audiences through the
broadcasts of "Prairie Home Companion."
Songwriters especially continued to be drawn to the names of southern
places and to images that seemed rooted in the region's customs and tradi-
tions. John Fogerty and Robbie Robertson, for example, joined the ranks of
musicians with concept albums, celebrating the sensuous abandon and rhyth-
mic drive of southern music and culture, while acknowledging the danger and
intrigue long associated with the region, in short, a mythical land of perpetual
appeal to artists and musicians. Both Fogerty and Robertson used Louisiana
as the setting for their albums, a state that always seemed especially exotic to
outsiders, and to many insiders. Robertson's album, Storyville (1991), used
some of New Orleans's best and best-known musicians, including members of
the Neville Brothers, the Meters, the Zion Harmonizers, and Mardi Gras In-
dians, and focused on the legendary red-light district of early twentieth-cen-
tury New Orleans.
Fogerty and Robertson illustrate the vital role played by non-southerners
in the making and mythicization of the musical South. Eric Clapton and
Bonnie Raitt, among many other non-southerners, performed that function
in the blues, recording the songs of the great southern blues artists, putting
their own interpretations especially on the Delta blues tradition, and some-
times appearing and recording with blues artists such as B.B. King, Buddy
Guy, and John Lee Hooker. Bruce Springsteen drew passionately from varied
musical traditions, but became especially compelling when paying tribute to
the Dust Bowl-spawned radicalism of Woody Guthrie. Ray Benson and Asleep
at the Wheel did not simply memorialize the music of Bob Wills and His
Texas Playboys; they also evoked images of the expansive and liberated West,
alongside those of the musically rich South. These and other artists simulta-
neously found sustenance in the cultural material of the South while also build-
ing on its image as a land occupied by musical people.
Northern or foreign-born musicians were not alone in playing upon
romantic or stereotypical perceptions of the South, and white or country
musicians were not the only ones who pursued dreams of reviving traditional
southern sounds. The brass brands of New Orleans, for example, especially
the Dirty Dozen and Rebirth, included many young players who had grown
up hearing the stories of the old legendary brass and percussion masters of
that city. As the older generation passed from the scene, many fans were de-
lighted to find kids who wanted not just to take the place of the oldtimers but
who also wanted to keep their music alive. The young bands even included
musicians who had studied the musical styles that vary by neighborhood in
New Orleans, hardly the sort of pursuit taken up by the stereotypical tough,
young street kids in urban areas.
Older southerners continued to make highly appealing music without
trying to capitalize on their southernness. Hazel Dickens and Doc Watson,
for example, never moved away from their identities as southerners, which
simply came out in their music. Other performers carried the South, with its
diversity and its tendency to reach across cultural lines, in their styles and their
personalities. Several used elements of their cultural origins very self-consciously
without trying to adopt a southern "persona." Lucinda Williams, Iris DeMent,
and Tish Hinojosa, for example, carried the traditions of the South in their
music, drawing on southern experiences, places, and people for material with-
out trying to identify themselves as overtly southern. They also linked their
songs to a southern tradition of infUsing music with social commentary.
Lucinda Williams's songs are often suffused with the imagery and atmo-
sphere of the South. As the daughter of Miller Williams, the University of
Arkansas literature professor who read one of his poems at President Bill
Clinton's 1996 inauguration, she grew up in a series of university towns. She
absorbed influences from her poet father and musician mother, but probably
learned more from her experiences as a singer-songwriter on the folk and blues
club circuits in the 1970s. The South appears as a backdrop and context for
Williams's tales of loneliness, pain, and suicide in her award-winning album
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road particularly. Referring constantly to places such
as Baton Rouge, Jackson, West Memphis, Greenville, and Lafayette, Williams
paints portraits of bittersweet relationships that bear close resemblance to the
work of two famous southern namesakes, the simple clarity and economy of
Hank Williams and the steamy and almost gothic atmospherics of Tennessee
Williams. With her sensuous songs of personal angst and yearning, Williams
became a strong force in U.S. popular music, prompting covers of her songs
by Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and others. Al-
though her work generally defied stylistic classification, a quality that some-
times hampered Williams's commercial acceptance, no one could deny the
powerful impact made by the South on the tone and subject matter found in
her songs.
Iris DeMent grew up in California, but in a family and communiry
made up of transplanted southerners. She was always aware that rural Arkan-
sas remained a presence in the lives of her working-class parents, and she car-
ried that influence in her diction, values, and music. Like Lucinda Williams,
DeMent heard and absorbed the music of Bob Dylan, the Bearles, and others
who were important to her generation, and she honed her performing skills
and songwriting gifts on the coffeehouse circuits of the West Coast and Kan-
sas City. She also borrowed heavily from the music, both religious and secular,
bequeathed to her by her parents. Her affectionate song "Mama's Opry" is a
loving tribute to her mother and the rural musical culture that did so much to
shape her life.
DeMent did not set out to be a writer of protest songs, and wondered if .
she "was up for hate mail,"4 but her honesty and sensitivity about the condi-
tions in which many people live evoked from her some of the finest expres-
sions of social comment heard since the days of Woody Guthrie. She explored
child abuse in "Letter to Mom," the declining fortunes of Native Americans
in "These Hills," the bitter legacy of the Vietnam War in "Wall in Washing-
ton," materialism and career-driven anxieties in "Quality Ttme," and a host of
injustices such as the corporate control of American life and politics in "Waste-
land of the Free."
Ttsh Hinojosa did not think of herself as a southerner, and when she
described her move to Nashville in the title track to her album Taos to Tennes-
see, she declared that "Southern ways are new to me." Hinojosa's music instead
carries the imprint of a dual heritage, the experience of growing up in a Mexi-
can-American family in San Antonio. In "The West Side of Town, " she simul-
taneously pays tribute to her parents and to the generations of Mexican
immigrants who forged new lives in the land north of the Rio Grande. As a
child, she heard the same kinds of pop music available to Williams and DeMent,
but she also absorbed the Tejano rhythms beloved by her father and the Mexi-
can love songs brought to Texas by her mother. Out of these varied sources,
Hinojosa fashioned an eclectic repertory that speaks sensitively about per-
sonal experiences and social issues. In "Something in the Rain," for instance,
a song dedicated to labor leader Cesar Chavez, she addresses the consequences
of pesticides and other hazards that threaten the lives of migratory workers
and their children.
Hinojosa, DeMent, and Williams illustrate qualities that have always
been present in the music of the South: its diversity, its rootedness in tradi-
tion, and its ability to change without losing its identity. Like Nanci Griffith,
Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Steve Earle, James McMurtry, Townes Van Zandt, Willie
Nelson, Steve Young, and other southern-born musicians, they also reaffirm
the importance of the singer-songwriter, a figure far removed from the
tunesmiths ofTtn Pan Alley or the slavish devotion to old forms simply for the
sake of preserving them and denying the claims of all subsequent experience.
No musical genre embodied these qualities more strongly than country
music, and no form has been more strongly torn between tradition and inno-
vation. Consequently, country music underwent dramatic changes since the
1980s. Bruce Feiler argues in fact that the music most identified, whether
accurately or romantically, with rural America had become suburbanized, some-
thing that happened as lower-middle-class and working-class southerners and
other country music fans became more affluent and abandoned rural areas
and cities alike and moved to the suburbs. Jack Temple Kirby went so far as to
say that country music's middle-class homogenization represented a "betrayal"
of its working-class roots. 5
Someone who represented the suburbanization of country music was
crossover star Mary Chapin Carpenter. In her 1992 hit single "He Thinks
He'll Keep Her,:' for instance, many country music fans, male and female,
identified with the woman whose increasingly lonely life was characterized in
part by the scheduling demands of her busy children: "She drives all day."
Such concerns, long the subject matter of essays and short stories on the lives
of well-to-do suburbanites, made as much sense to many country fans as they
did to fans of pop music. In the same way, Carpenter's appeal to both groups
made sense because people in the two groups were coming increasingly to
resemble one another, and in fact, were in some ways indistinguishable.
Perhaps it was appropriate that this particular trend in country music
was illustrated in the post-70s era by a New Jersey native who graduated from
an Ivy League university. As Carpenter enjoyed a rush of popularity in the
1980s and '90s, it became apparent that Top Forty country voiced many of
the feelings, values, and aspirations of people who did not grow up in work-
ing-class homes. Its sound, and often its message, was closer to '80s rock than
to traditional country. Many country radio stations turned to a Top Forty
format, tightening their playlists so greatly that they seemed only to push
"safe" recordings that struck many critics and country music lovers as bland
and homogenized. On the other hand, for every fan who felt betrayed by the
crossover success of Carpenter and others and who longed for more country
stars such as Dwight Yoakam and Marty Stuart, who openly embraced the
name "hillbilly," there was probably another fan who was won over to country
music by the energy and musicianship of the new country artists or one who
felt that being southern or being interested in country music did not mean
one should reject success.
Many people were attracted also to country music because of the infu-
sion in the 1980s and '90s of female stars such as Carpenter, Reba McEntire,
Kathy Mattea, K.T. Oslin, Patty Loveless, Leanne Rimes, Lee Ann Womack,
and Roseanne Cash. Many new fans, especially women, were attracted by
the incorporation of contemporary subject matter. Without abandoning the
well-established themes of romantic difficulty, marital distress, and job dis-
satisfaction, country artists such as Carpenter, McEntire, and the Dixie Chicks
spoke for many women who were tired of being powerless to change a soci-
ety they felt they were holding together. McEntire's music, such as her song
"Is There Life Out There?" spoke to the needs of women who were
undereducated or otherwise disadvantaged. The Dixie Chicks inspired nu-
merous contrasting responses, sometimes enraging traditionalists with their
rock-based, show-band approach, but also impressing audiences with their
musicianship and socially relevant songs. They certainly raised many eyebrows
and the consciousness of many people with their hit "Goodbye Earl," in which
an abusive husband gets what many women would have agreed he had com-
ing to him.
Lyrics that dealt with up-to-date social concerns did not mean that coun-
try music abandoned its heritage. Indeed, social commentary was part of the
heritage itself, and a sizable segment of the country music community placed
a high value on nostalgia, another dimension of the form's background. South-
ern themes and metaphors continued to appear in country songs, even as
country music videos became popular. The music video marketing innova-
tion was something many people decried for its shortening of kids' attention
spans and its ability to distract listeners from the shortcomings of some songs
that might not have flourished simply as music on the radio.
Music videos seemed to many people to be something new that would
lead to no good, but country music entertainers used videos to communicate
their endorsement of age-old values just as frequently as they did to flout
them. Randy Travis tugged on viewers' heartstrings with images of old couples
still in love just as his lyrics promised his own undying affection in his 1987
hit "Forever and Ever, Amen." Travis and many others employed in music
videos southern scenes, especially small towns, churches, football fields, and
other locales not unique to the South but having iconic significance for many
southerners, offering a reassuring message of continuity with the past. Alabama's
video for "Song of the South" employed images of the Great Depression and
the New Deal to reaffirm the spirit of perseverance in the face of desperate
odds, inhospitable weather, and grim economic forces. Shania Twain, years
later, offended many viewers with a video for her hit song "I Feel Like a
Woman," in which she appears in increasing stages of undress. By then, how-
ever, most fans knew that she was just another expression of the eclectic coun-
try music marketplace. Twain's song and video could have dealt with the sexual
exuberance of a free-spirited woman anywhere, but many other country stars
still used the South as a reference point, sometimes because it simply made
sense in the context of the song and in light of their own lives. Sometimes they
were trying to tap into a sense of nostalgia that many people felt for a comfort-
ing past or a bygone South. The Nashville Network, which began broadcast-
ing by cable in 1983, Country Music Television, and the Great American
Country cable network all included programming that focused on the south-
ern past, but they all also distributed and helped popularize virtually all of the
most pop-flavored country music being produced. This kind of programming
went far beyond anything previously seen on Dolly Parton's or Barbara
Mandrell's network television shows, which featured music and comedy that
down played the "countryness" of their stars in order to assure viewership.
The cable networks simply put videos on the screen, usually without com-
ment even from a "veejay." If a video on a country music cable network
seemed not very country, the viewer had no context in which to make sense
of the song, no host or hostess to interpret the ways the song might or might
not seem country. The result was liberating or scandalous, depending on one's
perspective.
Pop influences elicited strong reactions from neo-traditionalists in country
music. As James Cobb points out in Southern Cultures, the clash, one might
even say dialectic, between traditionalism and modernism, is a longstanding
conflict in country music and in southern culture as a whole. 6 But a particu-
larly telling example of the depth of feeling about the perceived captivity of
country music by pop market forces arose in 1999 in the bluegrass hit "Mur-
der on Music Row" by Larry Cordle and Larry Shell, covered by country
superstars Alan Jackson and George Strait. The song spoke to the feelings
many country lovers felt, hardly new but pressing nonetheless, about the com-
mercial enslavement of their art. It also reflected, however, an effort to pre-
serve the heart of country music that had been going on for quite some time.
Neo-traditionalists such as Strait, Emmylou Harris, John Anderson, and
Ricky Skaggs had been trying since the late 1970s and early 1980s to pull
country music back to its roots without simply being nostalgic or antiquarian.
They showed that more "authentic" country music could sell, and they won
numerous awards and salutations of people in the business, including many
whose work the traditionalists were trying to overcome. Harris became presi-
dent of the Country Music Association, the genre's promotional and educa-
tional organization, and managed to win many fans to older-styled music
without alienating admirers of the newer forms. Randy Travis and Dwight
Yoakam joined the traditionalists' ranks in the 1980s, and along with Gene
Watson, Keith Whitley, Vern Gosdin, Alan Jackson, Marty Brown, and Brad
Paisley added a commitment to country influences such as those of Lefty Frizzell
and other forebears. All of these neo-traditionalists and others tried to convey
at least the aura of earlier country music, if not its substance. If they did not
succeed in stemming the tide of pop influences on country music, at least it
could be said that they persisted, stayed on the scene, and remained largely
popular at the turn of the century. Asleep at the Wheel continued to carryon
the western swing tradition, enlisting numerous and sundry guest artists to
record two tribute albums to Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in the 1990s.
Cowboy music stayed in the marketplace courtesy of Riders in the Sky, the
Sons of the San Joaquin, Chris leDoux, Michael Martin Murphey, Red Steagall,
and Don Edwards. Murphey, Steagall, and Edwards also made reputations in
the burgeoning cowboy poetry movement.
Other artists who seemed country but successfully mixed rock elements
into their music included Marty Stuart, Travis Tritt, and Gary Stewart. Tritt's
1990 song "Put Some Drive in Your Country" spoke of how he loved "old
country" but missed Duane Allman, and how he had a feeling that Hank
Williams would be adding some (rock) drive to his music ifhe were still around,
as, indeed, Hank Williams Jr. was prone to do. That several of these and other
country artists contributed to a highly successful tribute album honoring the
Eagles suggested how important rock music had been to them during the
1970s. The most phenomenally successful of such artists, also one of the most
multi-faceted, was Garth Brooks, the Oklahoma native whose performances
mixed very traditional-sounding tunes with those that had dramatically strong
pop influences. That he was able to sell astronomically large numbers of al-
bums and perform to huge crowds virtually everywhere, including New York's
Central Park, seemed to be evidence that country music had indeed become a
national phenomenon.
In the aftermath of the 1970s, rock music moved further away from its
roots as dance music. As punk rock became ascendant, rock music also moved
away from the kind of blues-based guitar styles that had formed the core of
rock 'n' roll from the 1950s until well past its metamorphosis into rock. The
place to find old-time rock guitar playing, whether country purists liked it or
not, was in country music. In addition, one of the few places where people
could go dancing, at least for those who could not stand disco music, was the
local country dance hall or nightclub. Few old-time roadhouses remained, but
owners of clubs and dance halls soon found their establishments all the rage.
In one of those chicken-and-egg situations that occur so often in popular
culture, the country dance craze inspired and was fueled in large part by Ur-
ban Cowboy, the John Travolta/Debra Winger film of 1980. The film was set
in Pasadena, Texas, and largely filmed at Mickey Gilley's famed club. The fact
that Travolta had starred in a disco-dance movie, Saturday Night Fever, in
1977 did not seem to bother country-dance fans, many of whom got their
initiation to country music through Urban Cowboy. A general dance craze
broke out in the United States in the 1980s and '90s, when ballroom dancing
made something of a comeback, various forms of Latin and Cajun dance gained
new adherents, and a resurgence of swing music occurred. By the '90s, line
dancing became popular, phenomenally so in some places, a form of stylized
group dancing adapted from African-American step-dancing such as the
Harlem Shuffie, aided in its popularity by such music videos as Billy Ray
Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart." To some, line dancing resembled a form of work-
ing out, and its aerobic dimensions no doubt contributed to its popularity in a
country increasingly obsessed with trying to get in shape. It also had some demo-
cratic advantages in that one could participate with or without a partner in tow.
Bluegrass continued to thrive, and even vaulted to unexpected heights
of popularity through its inclusion in the movie soundtrack a Brother, Where
Art Thou? After the death of patriarch Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley was el-
evated to that honorific position. Ricky Skaggs returned to the exclusive per-
formance of bluegrass. Del McCoury carried on the tradition with some modern
dimensions, as did the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Seldom Scene, James King,
Alison Krauss, Doyle Lawson, the New Grass Revival, Nickel Creek, and Bela
Fleck. Increasing numbers of women found their way into bluegrass bands.
Indeed, the feminization of bluegrass may have been one of the most impor-
tant trends in southern music in the late twentieth and early twenty-first cen-
turies, with Lynn Morris, Rhonda Vincent, Dale Bradley, Suzanne Thomas,
Linda Williams, Laurie Lewis, and Clair Lynch joining Alison Krauss in achiev-
ing bluegrass prominence. Even Dolly Parton had a hit album in the form,
The Grass Is Blue, in 1999.7 This seemingly old-fashioned musical genre ironi-
cally attracted a growing youthful component. Musicianship continued to be
staggering, with dizzying speed still one of the most common characteristics
of the music. Contemporary sounds found their place in bluegrass, but the
old cabin home still attracted musicians and fans, and the form remained
overwhelmingly the province of white musicians, despite its deep debt to
Mrican-American culture.
Artists who reached across the lines of musical categories abounded in
the South in the closing years of the twentieth century. Because hard-to-clas-
sify usually equals hard-to-market in the music business, the popularity of
such musicians was remarkable in some cases and downright surprising in
others. In the 1980s Alejandro Escovedo combined Mexican musical influ-
ences from his family experience, a love of rock music, and the iconoclasm of
the punk movement, defYing ster~types about the kind of music someone of
his background might play. He worked with the cowpunk group Rank and
File, then created an excited following as a solo performer based out of Austin.
Texan Chris Duarte also surprised many listeners who thought he might in-
cline toward something more "Hispanic," but he exploded onto the blues-
rock scene in the 1990s, blending jazz, hip-hop, and funk sounds held together
by his Stevie Ray Vaughan-inspired guitar playing. The Indigo Girls likewise
challenged categories throughout the '90s, drawing on a rich songwriting ability
infused with traditional southern concerns for theological integrity and com-
munity with lesbian sensibilities and employing folk, rock, gospel, country,
and other motifs. REM, like the Indigo Girls, a group with Georgia roots,
established a reputation for writing and performing rock music with literate,
"intelligent" lyrics and became a particular favorite of film producers, who
included their songs on soundtracks as far back as the mid-1980s. Hootie and
the Blowfish, a pop band with South Carolina roots, achieved acclaim for lead
singer Darius Rucker and the group's romantic moodiness, though the band
exhibited little southern identity. Widespread Panic and Southern Culture on

the Skids had somewhat more modest success with multilayered music evok-
ing southern themes and attracting admiration among singer-songwriters who
invited various members of the two bands to record with them and among
film producers who used their music in movies.
Because one of the clearest realities of southern music in the late twenti-
eth and early twenty-first centuries was the difficulty of trying to categorize
artists and their songs, independent radio stations became a precious source of
support for those artists. A fairly extensive number of disc jockeys played older
country music on college and other independent stations with Americana or
roots-music formats, stations such as WWOZ in New Orleans, KABF in Little
Rock,. and WORT in Madison. Realizing the connections among country
music and the broad folk traditions of the United States, programmers at such
stations cycled hard-to-classify contemporary artists into their playlists. They
helped tremendously to keep such artists afloat by creating followings for them.
Such disc jockeys also contributed to the success of another musical form that
drew heavily on southern roots, alternative country.
Alternative country singers and groups carved out a place among young
fans especially, who liked their southern themes drenched in an edgy icono-
clasm. Alternative country music often defied clear definition, ranging from
rock-flavored to neo-honky tonk to various other forms of fusion. but its main
unifying element was its opposition to Nashville's industrial approach to mu-
sic making and the homogenized predictability of Top Forty radio program-
ming. Some alternative musicians such as Marty Brown. Dale Watson, Wayne
Hancock, Hank Williams III, Iris DeMent. TIsh Hinojosa, Buddy and Julie
Miller, Nanci Griffith, and Gillian Welch were drawn to country music by
way of rockabilly, punk country, gospel, or music from the urban folk revival
and its later offshoots. Watson and Hancock explored the honky-tonk form
with abandon, emerging as unabashed apologists for a hard country sound.
Some alternative artists. even those with non-southern roots, were viewed as
traditionalists, such as Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, BR5-49, Big Sandy and
the Fly-Right Boys, the Derailers, and the Carpetbaggers, but seemed more at
home in the rockabilly mode. Consequently, many alternative country per-
formers seemed too traditional, or too folky, to be played on mainstream coun-
try radio stations. Others, however, were drawn not only to older styles of
country music and to such older artists as Hazel Dickens and Ralph Stanley,
but they also embraced country music's raunchier traditions, illustrating the
continuing appeal of its darker romantic side. Steve Earle, Robbie Fulks, Uncle
Tupelo, and others found enough of a fan base to stay in business despite
refusing to play the games required by the music industry. They persisted
partly because their superb songwriting meant that their work got recorded
frequently by more mainstream artists who were bold enough to record songs
written by alternative country musicians but not bold enough to break away
from Nashville's corporate culture. Many alternative musicians were northerners
or were from the West Coast. They brought their romantic visions of what
country music and its culture should be, and they and their southern-born
compatriots alike judged Nashville to a great extent on how it conformed to
such visions.
Some alternative country acts earned the name "insurgent,» a term coined
by Bloodshot Records in Chicago. They tended to have strong country-rock
dimensions and often looked to Gram Parsons for inspiration; others alluded
to traditional sources. Some seemed to have been pushed toward country music
by producers and record company executives. The rise of alternative or insur-
gent country began when Uncle Tupelo made its first recordings in 1990,
including a Carter Family song called "No Depression in Heaven." By 1994
the band dissolved and re-emerged as two other country-rock bands called
Wileo, led by Jeff Tweedy, and Son Volt, led by Jay Farrar. Some called the
genre No Depression music, and it spawned a website and a magazine with
the same name. Other groups followed the lead of Tweedy and Farrar and of
Jason and the Scorchers, including the Old 97s, Whiskeytown, Freakwater,
the Bottle Rockets, Hazeldine, and the Waco Brothers.
Once a linchpin of southern music, jazz settled into a pattern of being
largely a northern form, except for the vibrant jazz scene in New Orleans and
the work of a few southerners who blended traditional and progressive forms
of the music. In the years after the eclipse of the cool jazz of the 1950s and the
toning down to some extent of the more often frenetic experimental jazz of
the 1960s and '70s, a fusion movement followed in which jazz was often com-
bined with rock, as in the music of Pat Metheney. Always an urban phenom-
enon, live jazz music was presented in few southern cities as the twentieth
century came to a close, though San Antonio, of all places, supported it, largely
through the efforts of Jim Cullum, longtime host of a National Public Radio
program on traditional jazz. The music was more often identified with New
York, Chicago, or Kansas City, reflecting, however, one of the constant fea-
tures of southern music, its migration and evolution. The northern ness of jazz
was made possible by the black diaspora, the vast migrations of Mrican Ameri-
cans throughout the first two-thirds of the twentieth century.8 With the swing
craze of the 1990s, some southern bands with jazz connections came to the
fore, especially including the Squirrel Nut Zippers from North Carolina, whose
song "Got My Own Thing Now" showed an excitement about the swing form
as pure as if the band had discovered it itself
Squirrel Nut Zippers vocalist Katherine Whalen, a Billie Holiday devo-

tee, also recorded in North Carolina with a group called the Jazz Project. She
and two Mississippi natives added further to the recognition that jazz could
provide a creative setting for mixing the avant-garde and the traditional and
could flourish around vocalists. Cassandra Wilson combined traditional south-
ern jazz with elements of the New York and Chicago progressive movements,
folk, rock, and blues. Olu Dara, a fixture on the New York avant-garde loft
scene, combined cornet, trumpet, and guitar with his sensuous vocal styles
and created a captivating sound that "fused" and "crossed over" without seem-
ing commercially self-conscious.
Although hip-hop culture was broadly associated with urban life in the
North and on the West Coast, a southern stream of rap music emerged in the
late 1980s, especially in Miami, Atlanta, and New Orleans. The most impor-
tant performers in southern rap were 2 Live Crew, featuring Luther Campbell's
sexually explicit lyrics, and Arrested Development, which offered material more
intellectually complicated. In the 1970s gospel music entered a period domi-
nated by a phenomenon known as "Contemporary Christian." Growing largely
out of the publishing and recording companies associated with WORD, Inc.,
which began in Waco, Texas, Contemporary Christian represented a philo-
sophical and commercial stance bent on capturing customers, or saving way-
ward souls, depending on one's perspective, away from sinful music and toward
that of the gospel. But it was far from the old-time gospel music associated
with the South. One measure of the popularity of Contemporary Christian
music, somewhat ironically, was that it helped inspire the creation of a new
category of music, "Southern Gospel," to distinguish the older-styled music
from the more modern, pop-styled forms. Amy Grant, who became the wife
of country star Vince Gill, Sandi Patti, and hosts of young pop-influenced
artists appeared, singing what sounded very much like ordinary love songs,
until the listener realized the loved one being addressed was most often Jesus.
Grant became the queen of Contemporary Christian, though she alienated
many fans by occasionally performing and recording with secular artists such
as Chicago's Peter Cetera.
Gospel music in some ways illustrated the notion that the future of south-
ern music was in its past. Shirley Caesar, for instance, incorporated soul and
r&b elements into her music, managing to update it without losing the feel-
ing fans saw and heard in her work, gaining ten Grammys, seventeen Doves,
and numerous other awards for her almost forty albums. She continued to bill
herself as "Pastor" Shirley Caesar and the Queen of Gospel and appeared in
such diverse locales as Disney World, VH 1, the first Bush White House, and
the second Clinton inauguration, while another gospel singer-songwriter, Bill
Gaither, also bridged the past and the future. Gaither produced a series of
popular old-fashioned "gospel sing" videos, using new formats to recreate old
forms of expression for audiences that had never gotten to partake of them,
bringingJ .D. Sumner and the Stamps, Jake Hess, Howard and Vestal Goodman,
and other gospel legends before old fans as well as new ones. Still, the driving
market forces meant that fans of Contemporary Christian music dominated
the world of gospel music. They wanted updated styles and recording tech-
niques borrowed from the pop world. When they asked the old question "Why
should the devil have all the good tunes?" they had little interest in seeing the
crossover phenomenon head the other direction.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, southern music renewed its
diversity, not ignorant of market forces and pressures, but more assertive of its
own identity. New forms, new alliances, combinations, and discoveries en-
sued, and a great deal of interesting music emerged. Fans and analysts were
left wondering if southern traits still discernible in the various styles of music
associated with the region at the dawn of the twenty-first century were "au-
thentic" or "natural" or whether "southernness" was largely a pose or a bow to
tradition. If southern music was still American music, they also wondered,
was it America's music?
CONCLUSION
For many who made and loved southern music, the South of imagery endured
even as its performers and musical forms gradually became absorbed into the
national mainstream. The lure of the South for American musicians remained
as strong as it was in the days of Stephen Foster and his cohorts, who did so
much to create public conceptions of the South. Though a long procession of
northern poets contributed to the mythologizing of Dixie and its inhabitants,
southern musicians played active roles in keeping their own special versions of
the southern myth alive. They also reminded observers that there is not one
South but many.
For over a century and a half the South has left its imprint on American
music, not only as a source of images, but as an exporter of musicians and
styles. Beginning with the spirituals in the late nineteenth century and ex-
ploding into the national consciousness after World War II, southern music
forms did more thap merely contribute to the revitalization ofAmerican popular
music; they virtually became popular music itsel( Forms born in cotton fields,
textile mills, and other work places and in the shacks, honky-ronks, and
churches of the South moved on to national outlets, northern concert halls,
and the lounges of Las Vegas. Music became one dramatic avenue through
which poor southern boys and girls could attain glamor and wealth and escape
the ghettos, coal camps, textile villages, and tenant farms that had long held
their forebears in bondage.
But in a sense, at the hour of its victory southern-born music also suf-
fered defeat. Commercial acclaim, general popularity, and international rec-
ognition were won at the price of the loss of distinctiveness and individuality.
The world was enriched by the periodic infusions of southern-derived music,
but southern musicians have absorbed much from that wider world to which
they were introduced. Southern styles became so enmeshed in American popular
culture, in fact, that it became impossible to determine where their southern-
ness ended and their American-ness began. Gospel and secular styles were so
closely intertwined that often only their lyrics differentiated them; black and
white musicians borrowed freely from each other; country and pop moved
closer to each other; and musicians in all genres strove to find the key to
Conclusion 177
universal popularity. The result was not exclusively a homogenization ofAmeri-

can popular music, for the various genres remained somewhat distinct even as
they borrowed from each other. But certainly one could wonder which force
had been stronger, the southernization of U.S. music or the nationalization of
the South.
Breaking down barriers between the races, between income groups, even
regions of the country was a worthy, one might say essential, goal of U.S. and
southern society. But the diminishing of musical distinctiveness represented
more than the loss of cherished traditional styles. It also meant, potentially,
the loss of an important dimension of the cultural identity oflarge numbers of
people in the U.S., especially those in the ranks of the less affluent and the less
powerful in the South.
All was not lost, however. Away from the beaten and jaded paths of
professional entertainment, older expressions of the folk South persisted and
found an expanding audience, one much too large to be dismissed as simply
old people engaged in a quaint pursuit of nostalgia. In fact, that audience was
basically an audience of the young. The enthusiasm for folk music is no more
vividly demonstrated than by the immense throngs who attend the fiddlers
contest each year in Union Grove, North Carolina, or who seek out other
such meets in such places as Huntsville, Alabama, or Athens, Texas. The pro-
liferating bluegrass festivals provide further evidence of the back-to-the-roots
urge that always seems to run so strong in the history of U.S. culture. The
folklife festivals, such as those in Kerrville, Texas, in New Orleans, and on the
Mall in Washington, D.C., provide samplings of the wide range of southern
music, food, crafts, and customs to ever-increasing audiences. The large-scale
appeal of the music was still only part of the story, however, with long-run-
ning jam sessions and recurring picking parties taking place in people's homes,
American Legion halls, and countless public places around the country.
All one would have to do to know that folk music, for instance, was far
from being solely a spectator sport would be to visit the Stone County Court-
house square in Mountain View, Arkansas, on virtually any evening when the
weather is nice. Though people in the United States embraced processed, pre-
fabricated, franchised culture, a great hunger for the homemade and the genuine
endured, an impulse that led people to the folk resources of the South. The
immense popularity of the guitar was inspired primarily by the example of
rock musicians, but increasing numbers of young people took up such folky
instruments as the fiddle, banjo, autoharp, and dobro steel guitar. Bluegrass
music, which long drew upon the resources of tradition, became a haven for
young musicians, and the performances of musicians not yet teenagers thrilled
festival audiences. The old forms of music showed a tremendous amount of
vitality, captivating listeners at such non-traditional venues as world's fairs in

Knoxville and New Orleans, the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, various
presidential inauguration events, and vast numbers of music theaters and blues
clubs in amusement parks, tourist meccas such as Branson, Missouri, and
ordinary towns and cities. The Old-lime Herald flourished, becoming the clear-
inghouse for the modern folk-music movement, and the year 1997 saw the
reissuance of the historic Folkways Anthology by the Smithsonian Institution.
Strange and wondrous things occurred, even within the context of com-
mercialization. The homogenization of styles encouraged by the pop music
world sometimes bred rebellion. The repetition and uniformity of the Top
Forty concept could and did inspire a search for the novel and fresh. Dis-
satisfaction with mainstream pop music encouraged experimentation with new
forms and occasionally led to a reaching back for the old. To young listeners
who never heard the music during its first appearance, the old seemed new
and innovative, as did rhythm and blues, urban folk music, bluegrass, and
western swing during their respective "revivals" since World War II. The inter-
est in the older forms of music was often fueled by "outsiders" who made use
of southern materials, as seen with Joan Baez and Gillian Welch and Ap-
palachian ballads, Tony Glover and blues, Asleep at the Wheel and western
swing, the Red Clay Ramblers and old-timey fiddle band music, Si Kahn and
John McCutcheon and protest music. Furthermore, much patronage came
from northern audiences. But native southerners were responsible for much
of the utilization of older southern music. Some of these southern musicians
were conscious revivalists who merely recreated what they heard. Others, such
as Steve Earle, were eclectic artists who built new forms out of the varied
ingredients of the music, both traditional and contemporary, that surrounded
them. These musicians became living testaments to the possibilities inherent
in the fusion of tradition and modernity in southern music.
Some musicians, such as Lucinda Williams, Tim O'Brien, Katherine
Whalen, Nanci Griffith, Cassandra Wilson, and Olu Dara, managed to com-
bine both the oldest and newest strains in the music of the South, suggesting
that a vigorous and organic regional music could still be produced through
the absorption and transmission of a variety of styles and an earnest invest-
ment of sincere feeling. They and others also showed that commercialization,
ever the blessing as well as the curse of all popular music, need not rob music
of its soul. Even though teams of hired songwriters in Nashville and elsewhere
produced quotas of material for country singers and marketing specialists de-
cided what music should be produced and sold to the public, some musicians
still created their art because they loved southern music, American music.
Southern music!American music is more than just the sum of southern
Conclusion 179
styles, and certainly more than the music of national white culture. While
much of it has been appropriated by upper-class interventionists, 1 it also has
appropriated U.S. culture, with the help of a great deal of marketing and hard
work by artists and business people associated with southern music. Southern
music has been a hugely important part of momentous social changes, help-
ing create a youth culture that altered enormous segments of modern western
society, the mass media, and broad approaches to marketing products, serving
various purposes in the Cold War and in other cultural and political struggles
within the U.S. and beyond.
British- and Mrican-American blendings continue to shape the musical cul-

ture of the U.S. as they have done since the inception of southern and Ameri-
can history. These fusions speak especially to youth. American youth culture
became a worldwide phenomenon, one largely borne by music rooted in the
South, whether it was ragtime at the turn of the nineteenth century, jazz in the
1920s, swing in the 1930s, bebop in the 1940s, rock 'n' roll in the 1950s, rock
in the 1960s, their derivatives punk in the 1970s and '80s and hip-hop in the
1980s and '90s, or blues and country all the way through.
In the twenty-first century, the power and joy inherent in the South's
musical diversity should encourage people to abandon an idea that dominated
the thinking of too many people in the early twentieth century, that sourhern
music flows from a pure, uniform racial and ethnic past. That presumption
has been challenged persistently by the arrival, and the popularity, of the new
musical styles of racially diverse southerners. These phenomena, however, ac-
tually represent something enduring indeed, qualities that can still be described
as distinctive, that the South is a diverse and musical culture, regardless of how
that diversity was underestimated, ignored, and denied by people with a racial
or cultural/political agenda reliant on ideas about purity. That power and joy
should also encourage people to understand that the South, the United States,
and southern music!American music are better than they would have been
without this cultural diversity.
NOTES
Introduction
1. George B. Tindall, "Mythology: A New Frontier in Southern History," in

Patrick Gerster and Nicholas Cords, eds., Myth and Southern History (Chicago: Rand
McNally, 1974), 1:1-15.
2. David Potter, "The Enigma of the South,» in The South and the Sectional
Conflict (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), 15.
Chapter 1. Folk Origins of Southern Music
1. Alan Lomax, The Folk Song; o/North America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1960), 155; John Storm Roberts, The Latin Tinge: The Impact o/Latin American Mu-
sic on the United States, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 38-39. See
Alan Lomax, Mister JeUy RoU: The Fortunes ofJeUy RoU Morton, New Orleam Creole
and "Inventor ofJazz" (New York: Pantheon, 1993).
2. Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Comciousness: Afro-American Folk
Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 6.
3. Dena J. Epstein, Sinfol Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil Wflr
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 22, 80-100. See also Charles Joyner,
Shared Traditiom: Southern History and Folk Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1999).
4. Levine, Black Culture and Black Comciousness, 194.
5. Paul Oliver, Song;tm and Saints: Wlcal Traditiom on Race Records (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), 22. See also the WPA Slave Narratives on the
broad-ranging nature of black musical preferences, especially George Rawick, The
American Slave Narratives (New York: Greenwood, 1972), part 4: 1430, 1505, 1650.
6. This is a central concern, for example, of both Eugene Genovese, RoliJordan
Roll' The World the Slaves Made (New York: Random House, 1972), and Lawrence
Levine, Black Culture and Black Comciousness.
7. Dickson D. Bruce Jr., And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk Camp-Meet-
ing Religion, 1800--45 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974),96-122.
8. George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933),31-34,408-9; Joe Dan Boyd, "Judge
Jackson: Black Giant of White Spirituals," Journal ofAmerican Folklore 83 (October-
182 Notes to Pages 10-18
December 1970): 446--51; and Boyd, "Negro Sacred Harp Songsters in Mississippi,"
Mississippi Folklore Register 5 (Fall 1971): 60-83.
9. David Evans, ''Afro-American One-Stringed Instruments," Western Folklore
29 (October 1970): 229-45.
10. Epstein, Sinfol Tunes and Spirituals, 36. Epstein has written a more com-
plete study of the instrument in "The Folk Banjo: A Documentary History,"
Ethnomusicology 19 (September 1975): 347-71. The principal challenge to the Sweeney
legend is Jay Bailey, "Historical Origin and Stylistic Development of the Five-String
Banjo," Journal ofAmerican Folklore 85 (January-March 1972): 58-65. It is quite
probable that the banjo attained national popularity through the performances of the
touring white minstrel bands. Presumably these players adopted the instrument from
black sources, but how greatly their styles of performance reflected black instrumental
patterns is open to question. According to Robert Winans, the so-called Appalachian
styles-"frailing" and "clawhammer"-"undoubtedly reflect[ed] preexisting black
performance." White blackface minstrels ventured by riverboat and other means into
the southern hills, whose residents absorbed the minstrel style of playing. Winans also
contends that "southern rural whites ... probably learned from both black musicians
and minstrel players who toured the South with minstrel shows, circuses, and medi-
cine shows." Winans, "Banjo," in Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds.,
Encyclopedia ofSouthern Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1989), 1042-43. Cecilia Conway contends that Mrican Americans introduced the
banjo and styles of playing it directly to white Appalachian dwellers in African Banjo
Echoes in Appalachia: A Study ofFolk Traditions (Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1995). See also Philip Gura and James Bollman, Americas Instrument: The
Banjo in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1999).
11. David C. Morton with Charles K. Wolfe, DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in
Early Country Music (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991), 17.
12. D.K. Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since 1898 (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1959),3-123.
13. Paul Oliver argues that cakewalks and two-steps may not have originated
on plantations, but that they were common in the large minstrel shows, Songsters and
Saints, 33.
14. See the pioneering work on square dancing by S. Foster Damon, "History
of Square Dancing," American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings (April 1952): 63-98.
15. The popularity of Shakespeare among the largely uneducated populace of
the western frontier is depicted in Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emer-
gence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990).
16. Ronald L. Davis, A History ofOpera in the American West (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 6, 20-21; Henry A. Kmen, Music in New Orleans: The
Formative ~ars, 1791-1841 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966),
229, 232-33, 245.
17. Vernon Loggins, Where the WVrd Ends: The Lifo ofLouis Moreau Gottschalk
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1958).
Notes to Pages 18-29 183
18. S. Frederick Starr, Bamboula: The Life and Times ofLouis Moreau Gottschalk
{New York: Oxford University Press, 1995),42.
19. Loggins, Where the ~rd Ends, 141
20. Starr, Bamboula, 15-16, 43. See Carl Bode, Antebellum Culture (Carbondale,
Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1959).
Chapter 2. National Discovery
1. See Earl F. Bargainheer, "TIn Pan Alley and Dixie: The South in Popular
Song," Mississippi Quarterly 30 (Fall 1977): 527-65.
2. Howard L. Sachs and Judith Rose Sachs, mzy Up North in Dixie: A Black
Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem, provides an intriguing, and ironic, dimen-
sion to the story of the song "Dixie," proposing the possibility that Emmett picked up
the song from black performers in Ohio.
3. Kmen, Music in New Orleam, 237-45; Sharon A. Sharp, "Dance, Black,"
Encyclopedia ofSouthern Culture, 149, 150.
4. Robert C. Toll, Blacking Up: TheMimtrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America
{New York: Oxford University Press, 1974),40-48.
5. Ibid., 57.
6. Wdliam W. Austin, Susanna, Jeanie, and the Old Folks at Home: The Songs of
Stephen C. Foster from His Time to Ours (New York: Macmillan, 1975), xx, 18, 123-
35, 279-80. See also Ken Emerson, Doo-Dahl Stephen Foster and the Rise ofAmerican
Popular Culture (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
7. Austin, Susanna, Jeanie, and the Old Folks at Home, xi, 293 .
8. Bill C. Malone, "William S. Hays: The Bard of Kentucky," The Register of
the Kentucky Historical Society 93 (Summer 1995): 286-307.
9. Norm Cohen produced for the John Edwards Memorial Foundation an
important recording called Mimtrels and Tunesmiths: The Commercial Roots of Early
Country Music (JEMF 109) that illustrated the nineteenth-century origins of folk and
country music. The collection, in fact, includes some recordings of minstrel units.
10. Epstein, Sinfol Tunes and Spirituals, 290.
11. An Introduction to Gospel Song (RBF Records RFS), compiled and edited by
Samuel B. Charters.
12. Dvorak, for instance, stressed the importance of "plantation melodies" in
an 1895 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine and called them "the most striking
and appealing melodies that have yet been found on this side of the water." Reprinted
in Bruce Jackson, ed., The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967),428-34.
13. Jackson, White Spirituals, 242-302.
14. Another scholarly view of more recent vintage, the "Celtic thesis" of Grady
McWhiney and Forrest McDonald, offers a different interpretation of white southern
purity. They seek to explain the South's unique culture through its derivation from
Scots, Scots-Irish, Irish, and Welsh foes of the English. Their thesis is interesting,
though their use of evidence somewhat selective. They appeal to the abiding antago-
nism of their subjects toward the Anglo-Saxon power structure of Britain, which they
say the "Celts" brought with them to the ante-bellum South. Southern purists and
nationalists have to choose between the Anglo-Saxon South or the Celtic South. They
cannot have it both ways, according to McWhiney and McDonald, although they
might want to see the same traits in southerners of Anglo-Saxon and those of Celtic
descent. See especially McWhiney's Cracker Culture: Celtic mzys in the Old South
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988).
15. Nolan Ponerfield, Last Cavalier: The Life and Times ofJohn A. Lomax (Ur-
bana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 152, 234. See also Michael Lee Masterson,
"Sounds of the Frontier: Music in Buffalo Bill's Wild West," Ph.D. dissertation, Uni-
versity of New Mexico, 1990.
16. See Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship; David Whisnant, All That
Is Native and Fine: The Politics ofCulture in an American Region (Chapel Hill: Univer-
sity of North Carolina Press, 1983),93.
17. Lunsford, who was also a lawyer, had academic as well as personal interests in
the folk songs of the southern mountains and was associated with Cecil Sharp's secretary
and panner, Maud Karpeles. Loyal Jones, Minstrel ofthe Appalachians: The Story ofBascom
Lamar Lunsford (1984; reprint, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002), 21.
18. Henry D. Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and
Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of
Nonh Carolina Press, 1978),260,261.
19. Romantics also contributed a good deal of confusion about what was indig-
enous to the mountains, promoting such things as morris dances, which were not
native to the mountains, or dulcimers, which were very rare. David E. Whisnant calls
the dulcimer "a romanticized feature of Appalachian music and culture," in "Festivals,
Folk Music," Encyclopedia ofSouthern Culture, 1011. But see Charles Joyner, who in
the same encyclopedia refers to the dulcimer as "a southern mountain folk instrument
... used ... for generations," "Dulcimer," 1055.
20. John Powell, "In the Lowlands Low," Southern Folklore Quarterly 1 (March
1937): 1-12.
21. Annabel Morris Buchanan, "The Function of a Folk Festival," ibid., 29-34;
Whisnant, All That Is Native and Fine, 13, 187, 240-43. Buchanan's racial views were
not as extreme as Powell's, by a considerable margin. Ibid., 319 n. 136.
22. The railroads, timber interests, and textile, coal, and petroleum industries
were only a few of the phenomena that were already transforming the lives and culture
of the plain people of the South in the 1930s. Archie Green has investigated some of
the music inspired by industrial innovation in "Born on Picketlines, Textile Workers'
Songs Are Woven into History," Textile Labor 22 (April 1961): 3-5; and in Only a
Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songr (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972).
Chapter 3. Early Commercialization: Ragtime, Blues, Jazz
1. Eileen Southern, The Music ofBlack Americans (New York: WW Norton,

1971),312.
2. William J. Schafer and Johannes Riedel, The Art ofRagtime (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1973), 5; Edward A. Berlin, King ofRagtime: Scott
Joplin and His Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),7-9.
3. Ragtime tempo has been a source of debate and controversy at least since
Joplin's day. He continually fretted, for instance, over the speed with which some
pianists played his and other ragtime pieces, presumably to demonstrate their ability
to get through the often-intricate melodies, and on the sheet music of some of his
compositions wrote such warnings as, "Notice! Don't play this piece fast. It is never
right to play 'rag-time' fast." Berlin, King ofRagtime, 152. Other ragtime gteats rev-
eled in speed. Eubie Blake titled one of his compositions "Tricky Fingers," which
featured a dizzying left-hand part and served him in his rivalty with another ragtime
pianist noted for the speed of his playing.
4. Schafer and Riedel, The Art ofRagtime, 19.
5. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 221.
6. Ibid., 237.
7. Samuel Charters, The Legacy of the Blues: Lives of Twelve Great Bluesmen
{New York: Da Capo, 1977),85.
8. Samuel Chatters, The Bluesmen (New York: Oak Publications, 1967),32;
Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon, 1993), ix. James
C. Cobb, The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of
Regional Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), vii, 3-5, gives an excel-
lent description of the Delta, an area running from just south of Memphis to just
north of Vicksburg and bounded on the west by the Mississippi River and on the east
by a line of bluffs running south from Tunica County to Greenwood and southwest-
erly to Vicksburg. Cobb points out that the Delta actually is the flood plain of the
Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region is bisected by U.S. Highway 61.
9. Jeff Todd Titon, Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), 29. Legendary blues researcher Mack
McCormick proposes a near-simultaneous development of the form in the Delta, the
Atlanta area, and a triangle bounded by Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, but blues
students have been frustrated for years, waiting for his work to be published.
10. Charters, The Bluesmen, 32.
11. Titon, Early Downhome Blues, 47.
12. Lomax, Land Where the Blues Began, 13.
13. See "Enigmatic Folksongs of the Southern Underworld," Current Opinion
67 (September 1919): 165-66.
14. William C. Handy, Father ofthe Blues (New York: Macmillan, 1944).
15. Ibid., 67, 72, 120-22; Oliver, Songsters and Saints, 67.
16. Chris Albertson, Bessie (New York: Stein and Day, 1972),34.
17. Perry Bradford, Born with the Blues (New York: Oak Publications, 1965), 117.
18. Albertson, Bessie, 34-36.
19. Titon, Early Downhome Blues, 23; Oliver, Songsters and Saints, 1, 8, 264,
269, 273-74.
20. Ibid., 264.
21. Ted Gioia, The History ofJazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 18.
22. Titon, Early Downhome Blues, xiii, xiv.
23. William J. Schafer, with the assistance of Richard B. Allen, Brass Bands and
New Orleans Jazz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 94.
24. Rudi Blesh, Shining Trumpets: A History ofJazz, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Da
Capo, 1976), 183-84.
25. Donald M. Marquis, In Search of Buddy Bolden (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1978).
26. Kathy J. Ogren, The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning of
Jazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989),47.
27. Al Rose, Storyvi/le, New Orleans (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
1974), 106, 123; Linda Dahl, Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of
Jazzwomen (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 13-14.
28. Bunon W Peretti, The Creation ofJazz.. Music, RAce, and Culture in Urban
America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 39-42.
29. Blesh, Shining Trumpets, 212.
30. Marquis, Buddy Bolden, 2; James Lincoln Collier,Jazz.· The American Theme
Song (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),4,277. Collier found the 1imes-
Picayune clippings in the scrapbook of pioneer jazz musician Nick LaRocca.
31. Dearborn Independent, 6, 13 August 1921.
32. Blesh, Shining Trumpets, 225.
Chapter 4. Expanding Markets: Tejano, Cajun, Hillbilly, Gospel
1. Charles K. Wolfe, Tennessee Strings: The Story ofCountry Music in Tennessee

(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977),27-54. See also Wolfe, Grand Ole
Opry: The Early Years, 1925-1935 (London: Old Time Music, 1975).
2. Joe Nick Patoski, "Little Joe," Texas Monthly. May 1978, 135.
3. Independent film and record producers Les Blank and Chris Strachwitz
collaborated on a number of ventures dealing with folk and ethnic musicians.
Strachwitz's Tejano reissues are on his own Folklyric label.
4. Barry Jean Ancelet, Jay D. Edwards, and Glen Pitre, Cajun Country Oack-
son: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), 150.
5. Lauren C. Post, Cajun Sketches (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1962), 36.
6. Houston folklorist Mack McCormick is credited with the coining of the
term Zydeco. Accordionist Clifton Chenier, from Opelousas, Louisiana, became the
most famous of all the Zydeco musicians. The best discussion of this style is Ben
Sandmel, Zydeco! (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999).
7. Barry Jean Ancelet, Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition of
South Louisiana (New York: Garland, 1994), xxii. See also Ancelet and Elemore Mor-
gan Jr., The Makers of Cajun MusiclMusiciens cadiens et creoles (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1984).
8. George B. Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945 (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), 184-218, and "The Benighted South:
Origins of a Modern Image," Virginia Quarterly Review 40 (Spring 1964): 281-94.
9. There are challenges to the theory that hillbilly music was solely a south-
ern phenomenon. See Roderick J. Roberts, "An Introduction to the Study of North-
ern Country Music," Journal of Country Music 6 Uanuary 1978): 22-29, and
Simon J. Bronner, "The Country Music Tradition in Western New York State,"
ibid., 29-60.
10. A.P. and Sara's son and daughter continued to perform for years at the
Carter Fold near the old homeplace. Carlene Carter, June's daughter through her
marriage to Carl Smith, became a well-respected country singer, as did Rosanne Cash,
Johnny's daughter from a previous marriage.
11. Wolfe, Tennessee Stringr, 52.
Chapter 5. The Great Depression and New Technologies
1. See Walker's discography in Helen Oakley Dance, Stormy Monday: The T-

Bone Walker Story (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987),253-55.
2. Ibid., xi.
3. Oliver, Songrters and Saints, 189.
4. Scott DeVeaux, The Birth ofBebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997), 26.
5. The phrase is inspired by Thomas Tippett, When Southern Labor Stirs (New
York: Cape and Smith, 1931). See also Tindall, Emergence ofthe New South, 31B-54.
6. Archie Green, notes to Sarah Ogan Gunning, Girl ofComtant Sorrow, Folk-
Legacy Records, FSA-26. This phenomenon is also discussed in R. Serge Denisoff.
Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1971), 15-37.
7. Cary Ginell, Milton Brown and the Founding of l%stern Swing (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1994), 227.
8. Charles R. Townsend, San Antonio Rose: The Lifo and Music of Bob Wills
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976).
9. Ginell, Milton Brown, 68.
10. Hear, for instance, his opening chorus on "Right or Wrong," from Septem-
ber 1936, three months after Milton Brown's fine recording of the tune, and his work
on "Bob Wills Special," recorded in April 1940.
11. See James Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie
Culture in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
Chapter 6. The Nationalization of Southern Music
1. An interesting study could be done of the Jews, Armenians, and other "mi-
nority" individuals who have contributed so vitally to the emergence of country, rhythm
and blues, and other grassroots musical forms after World War II. The ways they
threw themselves into the musical expressions of cultures not their own, often with
more enthusiasm, and even awareness, than the people who were members of the
groups that produced the music, are truly fascinating.
2. Ginell, Milton Brown, xxviii.
3. Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966),20.
4. Ibid., 102.
5. John Broven, Walking to New Orleans: The Story ofNew Orleans Rhythm and
Blues (Sussex, England: Blues Unlimited, 1974), 13-17, 64-72.
6. Dewey Phillips is mentioned so often in connection with Sam Phillips, as is the
fact that they were nor related, that "no relation to Sam" is practically pan of his last name.
7. Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise ofElvis Presley (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1994) and Careless Love: The UnmakingofFlvis Presley (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000).
8. Immediately after his death, several books appeared which purported to have
the "inside" and "hidden" story of Elvis's life. One of the most sensational is a book by
three of his ex-bodyguards-Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler-as told to
Steve Dunleavy, Elvis, What Happened? (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977). For a
review essay of this and four other such early books on Elvis, see Mark Crispin Miller,
"The King," New York Review ofBooks, 8 December 1977, 38-42.
Chapter 7. The 19605 and 19705: Rock, Gospel, Soul
1. Roben Palmer, Rock & Roll- An Unruly History (New York: Harmony Books,
1995), 32-33, 42.
2. Craig Morrison, Go Cat Go! Rockabilly Music and Its Makers (Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1996),255. Morrison points out that in one 1964 publication
the Beatles were referred to as "redcoat rockabillies." Ibid., 183.
3. The best biography of Joplin, and one that contains a wide assortment of
photographs, is Myra Friedman, Buried Alive (New York: William Morrow, 1973).
4. Stephen R. Tucker, "Rock, Southern," Encyclopedia of Southern Culture,
1027-28.
5. Michael Bane, "Hillbilly Band," Country Music, March 1977, 51.
6. Martha Hume, "Marshall Tucker at Home," Rolling Stone, 28 July 1977, 20.
7. Chet Flippo, "Getting By without the Allmans," Creem, November 1974,
34-37,75.
8. See Stephen Ray Tucker, "The Western Image in Country Music," M.A.
thesis, Southern Methodist University, 1976.
9. Tony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad TImes (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1971),94.
10. Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream
ofFreedom (New York: Harper Perennial, 1986), 1-2.
11. Ibid., 332.
12. Michael Lydon, Ray Charles: Man and Music (New York: Riverhead Books,
1998), 112-13; Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music, 50.
13. Don Rhodes, "Lest We Forget: Ray Charles Reflects," Country Music, Janu-
ary 1975, 19.
14. Arnold Shaw, The World of Soul (New York: Paperback Library Edition,
1971), 219.
15. Palmer, Rock & Roll, 81,94,97.
Chapter 8. The National Resurgence of Country Music
1. Much of this material was discussed earlier in Bill C. Malone, "Country

Music, The South, and Americanism," Mississippi Folklore Register 10 (Spring 1976):
5.wJ6.
2. Florence King, "Red Necks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Fear," Harper's,
July 1974, 30-34; Richard Goldstein, "My Country Music Problem-and Yours,"
Mademoiselle, June 1973, 114-15, 185.
3. Sheldon Hackney, "The South as a Counterculture," American Scholar 42
(Spring 1973): 283-93.
4. The term is also attributed to Grandpa Jones, but Cindy Walker says he got
the phrase from her. Bill C. Malone, interview with Cindy Walker, Mexia, Texas, 12
August 12 1976.
5. These include Muscle Shoals, Alabama; Macon, Georgia; Bogalusa, Louisi-
ana; Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Memphis, Tennessee. The Austin
story was told in Jan Reid, The Improbable Rise ofRedneck Rock (Austin, Texas: Heidel-
berg Publishers, 1974).
6. It was Townsend Miller, country music columnist for the Austin American-
Statesman, who first gave Austin the sobriquet "colony of musicians."
7. See Judson Klinger and Greg Mitchell, "Gram Finale," Crawdaddy, Octo-
ber 1976,43-58.
8. Chris Hillman, liner notes for Farther Along: The Best of the Flying Burrito
Brothers, A&M Records, 1988.
9. Palmer, Rock & Roll, 171.
10. See Sam Charters, The Country Blues (New York: Rinehart, 1959).
11. Journal ofAmerican Folklore 78 Ouly-September 1965).
12. Alan Lomax, "Bluegrass Background: Folk Music with Overdrive," Esquire,
October 1959, 108.
13. Nicholas Dawidoff. In the Country ofCountry: People and Places in American
Music (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), 212. See also Nat Hentoff, Listen to the
Stories: Nat Hentoff on Jazz and Country Music (New York: HarperCollins, 1995).
14. Waylon Jennings had a hit song in 1974, "Bob Wills Is Still the King,"
which, oddly enough, was not done in western swing style. Though it contributed to
the mystique surrounding Wills and his legendary band, the only hint of Texas Play-
boy influence is heard in a brief passage where Jennings imitates the singing of Wills's
great vocalist, Tommy Duncan, while mentioning how much he would like to be able
to hear Duncan sing again.
15. Nicholas Spitzer, "Bob Wills Is Still the King: Romantic Regionalism and
Convergent Culture in Central Texas," John Edwards Memorial Foundation Quarterly
2 (Winter 1975): 191-97.
Chapter 9. A Future in the Past
1. See Chris Strachwitz with James Nicolopulos, Lydia Mendoza: A Family

Autobiography (Houston: Acte Publico Press, 1993).
2. See Joe Nick Patoski, Selena: Como La Flor (New York: Little, Brown, 1996).
3. Ancelet, Edwards, and Pitre, Cajun Country. 161.
4. David Cantwell, "Homespun of the Brave," No Depression, Nov.lDec. 1996.
5. See Bruce Feiler, Dreaming Out Loud. See also Feiler, "Gone Country: The
Voice of Suburban America," The New Republic, February 1996, 19-24, which ar-
gued that country music was bigger than rock and that it had become the music of the
suburban U.S.; Jack Temple Kirby, The Countercultural South (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1995),71-73.
6. James c. Cobb, "Rednecks, White Socks, and Pina Coladas? Country Music
Ain't What It Used to Be ... and It Really Never Was," Southern Cultures, (Winter
1999),41-48.
7. See the newsletter l.%men in Bluegrass, edited by Murphy Henry, one of a
growing number of women banjo players. See also "Banjo Women," by Geoff and
Susan Eaker, which includes, but is not limited to, women bluegrass artists.
8. The 2001 broadcast of the Ken Burns film series Jazz and accompanying
book and soundtrack recording reintroduced the public to what is otten called America's
. "classical" music and acquainted listeners with the southern roots of the form.
Conclusion
1. Such as David Whisnant describes in All That Is Native and Fine.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Chapter 1. Folk Origins of Southern Music
Our interpretation of southern folk music has been much influenced by Alan
Lomax. His Folk Songs ofNorth America (New York: Doubleday, 1960) remains the
best one-volume collection of American folk songs and is a repository of provocative
theories about the conservatism of folk styles and their relationship to culture. A more
concentrated exposition of his theories is "Folk Song Style," American Anthropologist
61 (December 1959): 927-55. The most useful study limited exclusively to white
style is Roger Abrahams and George Foss, Anglo-American Folksong Style (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968).
The numerous studies of black folk styles generally concentrate on Mrican ori-
gins. Melville Herskovits stresses Mrican survivals among black people throughout
the Western Hemisphere in his Myth ofthe Negro Past (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958).
Richard Waterman limits his study to music but makes the same general point as
Herskovits in "Mrican Influence on the Music of the Americas," in Sol Tax, ed., Accul-
turation in the Americas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952). Works that are
more appealing to the general reader include Marshall Stearns, The Story ofJazz (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1970) and Paul Oliver, Savannah Syncopators: African
Retentiom in the Blues (New York: Stein and Day, 1970). Both writers argue that all
American black music shares traits that were retained from the Mrican experience.
John Storm Roberts reminds us, however, as Jelly Roll Morton did long ago, that
American music has also been profoundly influenced by "Spanish" styles: The Latin
Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States (1979; reprint, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Students wishing to explore a serious scholarly interest in black music should
begin with the important collection edited by Roger Abrahams and John F. Szwed,
Afro-American Folk Culture: An Annotated Bibliography ofMaterials from North, Cen-
tral and South America and the ~st Indies, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Institute for the
Study of Human Issues, 1977). The complicated question of black-white folk interac-
tion, and the degree of cultural borrowing on either side, has inspired some of the
finest American scholarship of the last two decades. Much of this work was presented
at a symposium at the University of Mississippi, and was anthologized in a volume
edited by Ted Ownby: Black and White: Cultural Interaction in the Antebellum South
Oackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993). Bill C. Malone contributed an essay
to the volume called "Blacks and Whites and the Music of the Old South," 149-70.
192 Bibliographical Notes
Neither John Blassingame nor Eugene Genovese, to cite only two examples of a large
group of historians who have grappled with the problems of a slave society, has con-
cerned himself with music as such, but both have perceptively discussed the mecha-
nisms by which black slaves preserved a sense of community: Blassingame, The Slave
Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972); and Genovese, Roll Jordan
Roll (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974). Mechal Sobel takes on a much smaller time
period, but makes a fine contribution with The World They Made Together: Black and
White Values in Eighteenth-Century Virginia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1987). Charles Joyner has devoted a lifetime of scholarship to the thesis of a
shared culture among southern whites and blacks and can be best appreciated through
his Shared Traditiom: Southern History and Folk Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1999). Dena Epstein's focus, on the other hand, is totally on music in her
impressively researched Sinfol Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil 'Mlr
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977). Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black
Comciousness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), one of the indispensable
books in black history, uses folklore and oral history as tools for perceiving black
consciousness. Levine demonstrates the continuity in black music from the slave songs
to rhythm and blues.
Although Frank Owsley and his students attempted to delineate the lives of
southern rural whites in the antebellum era (see Plain Folk of the Old South [Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1949]), no studies of poor whites are compa-
rable to what Genovese, Levine, and others have done for blacks. Readers will profit,
though, from J. Wayne Flynt, Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979); Edward L. Ayers, The Promise ofthe
New South: Lifo After Recomtruction (New York: Oxford, 1992), which has a fine
chapter on the role played by music in the lives of rural southerners after the Civil
War; Grady McWhiney, Cracker Culture: Celtic 'Mlys in the Old South (Tuscaloosa:
University of Alabama Press, 1988), which provides a good social history of plain
whites despite its belabored thesis; Ted Ownby, Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation,
and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro-
lina Press, 1990); and David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in
America (New York: Oxford, 1989), which includes a provocative discussion of the
Old World origins of southern white culture. Unfortunately, one finds nothing com-
parable to the interviews with ex-slaves collected during the Great Depression by the
Federal Writers Project: George Rawick has edited nineteen volumes under the tide
The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1972).
The Federal Writers Project, however, did compile a massive amount of material about
white farmers and workers, but it has been used only rarely, as in These Are Our Lives
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939) and Such As Us: Southern
Wlices ofthe Thirties (New York: WW Norton, 1978). When historians explore "white
culture and white consciousness," they will find a large number of ballads and folk
songs already collected and published, as well as a storehouse of field recordings in the
Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song and in other repositories.
D.K. Wilgus discusses folk song collections and collectors in Anglo-American
Folksong Scholarship since 1898 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1959).
Serious researchers should familiarize themselves with Francis James Child, The En-
glish and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Millin, 1882-98) be-
cause, for good or ill, Child left his imprint on virtually all collectors who came after
him. Tristram P. Coffin surveys and describes the Child ballads that have survived in
America in The British Traditional Ballad in North America, rev. ed. (Philadelphia:
American Folklore Society, 1963), while G. Malcolm Laws Jr., concentrates on other
types of British survivals in American Balladry from British Broadsides (Philadelphia:
American Folklore Society, 1957) and on indigenous American products in Native
American Balladry (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1964). Of course, the
indispensable introductions to folksong collecting in the Southern Appalachians are
Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp, English Folksongs from the Southern Appala-
chians (New York: G.P' Putnam's Sons, 1917) and Emma Bell Miles, Spirit of the
Mountains (1905; reprint, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975).
Sociocultural studies of southern rural whites (yeomen and nonslaveholders)
may be lacking, but religious investigations are not. Two of the great nineteenth-
century molders of musical repertoire and style, the camp meeting and the shape-note
singing school, have inspired extensive scholarship. Charles A. Johnson, The Frontier
Camp Meeting: Religious Harvest TIme (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press,
1955), and Bernard Weisberger, They Gathered at the River: The Story of the Great
Revivalists and Their Impact upon Religion in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1958),
can still be read with great profit, but the most significant study of the early-nineteenth
century revivals in the South is John Boles, The Great Revival 1787-1805: The Ori-
gins ofthe Southern Evangelical Mind (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1972).
Both Boles and Dickson Bruce Jr., in his And They All Sang Hallelujah: Plain-Folk
Camp Meeting Religion, 1800-1845 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974),
see the revivals as appealing essentially to the poorer classes of the South. Bruce's book
describes the camp meeting songs as important sources for understanding the world-
rejection philosophy of the "plain people." His conclusions should be compared with
those ofJames C. Downey, "The Music of American Revivalism" (Ph.D. diss., Tulane
University, 1968), a study that deserves to be better known.
All works on southern shape-note music have drawn from George Pullen Jackson's
ground-breaking study White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (Chapel Hill: Univer-
sity of North Carolina Press, 1933). Although Jackson was indifferent if not hostile to
secular rural music, and even to other types of religious folk music, he made many
acute observations about urban-rural antagonisms that are still relevant to an under-
standing of southern music. Jackson's conclusions about shape-note singers, writers,
and publishers have been amplified and extended by several scholars. Joe Dan Boyd
found the tradition alive in some black communities, as he reports in "Judge Jackson:
Black Giant of White Spirituals," Journal ofAmerican Folklore 83 (October-December
1970): 446-51; and in "Negro Sacred Harp Songsters in Mississippi," Mississippi
Folklore Register 5 (Fall 1971): 60-83. Harry Eskew concentrates on the area of first
shape-note activity in the South in "Shape-Note Hymnody in the Shenandoah Valley,
1816-1860" (Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1966); Rachel Augusta Harley writes
about the first southern shape-note publisher in "Ananias Davisson: Southern Tunebook
Compiler" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1972); and Charles Linwood Ellington
discusses the most famous songbook to emerge from the shape-note movement in
"The Sacred Harp Tradition of the South: Its Origin and Evolution" (Ph.D. diss.,
Florida State University, 1969). Buell Cobb takes a much more extensive look, though,
in The Sacred Harp and Its Music (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978).
The most neglected area of southern religious music is that dealing with the
Holiness-Pentecostal-Sanctified movement. As a folk phenomenon of itinerant preach-
ers and musicians who left few written or published recollections of their work, the
movement is difficult to document through conventional historical methods. It will
require researchers skilled in oral history and folklore to recreate this important musi-
cal tradition. Studies of both white and black music make constant allusions to its
influence, but no scholar has made a major effort to document the relationship. A
good beginning that makes a few suggestive comments about music is Robert Mapes
Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making ofAmerican Pentecostalism (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1979). Paul Oliver talks about some of the black Sanc-
tified singers who appeared on commercial recordings in Songsters and Saints: Vocal
Traditions on Race Records (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
Folk interchanges among art and popular music in the nineteenth century and
earlier have not been much studied. The presence in folklore of popular-derived forms,
as well as of songs and dances from cultivated sources, is well recognized, but just how
such music moved into the possession of the folk is not quite so clear. The roles played
in this process by itinerant musicians and traveling shows in the nineteenth century
will be discussed in the bibliographic notes for the next chapter. Here we will only
suggest that the phenomenon is very old (see Carl Bridenbaugh, Vexed and Troubled
Englishmen, 1590-1642 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1968)), and evidence of
it can be found in studies of dance masters and concert musicians, traveling actors,
equestrian shows, circuses, and puppet shows.
For the purposes of this book, we have found O.G. Sonneck, Early Concert-Lift
in America (Leipzig: Breitkopf and Hartel, 1907), to be the indispensable source for
high-art music in the early period. For a study of the music of an individual city no
work has surpassed that of Henry Kmen, Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years,
1791-1841 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966). Both he and Ronald
Davis, who included New Orleans in his purview in A History ofOpera in the Ameri-
can west (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), allude to the pervasive inter-
est in opera among all the social classes in the city. The most celebrated product of the
New Orleans antebellum musical scene, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, recorded his ob-
servations of the United States during his concert tours: Notes ofa Pianist (Philadel-
phia: J.B. Lippincott, 1881). His principal biography, however, is S. Frederick Starr,
Bamboula: The Lift and limes ofLouis Moreau Gottschalk (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1995). Much can still be learned from Vernon Loggins, Where the WOrd
Ends: The Lift ofLouis M. Gottschalk (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1958), which shows Gottschalk's indebtedness to the folk resources around him. Al-
though Loggins does not stress it, Gottschalk may also have absorbed material from
the popular traveling shows that came to the city, or from people who heard the music
of the shows. Carl Bode, in Antebellum Culture (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Uni-
versity Press, 1959), and Lawrence Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence ofCul-
tural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), show that
the boundaries between folk and popular culture were vety thin.
Chapter 2. National Discovery
The literature of black-face minstrelsy is extensive, although little of it deals with the
phenomenon's effects on southern musicians. Carl Wittke, Tambo and Bones (Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1930), remains a solid factual history of minstrelsy.
Edward leRoy Rice, Monarchs ofMinstrelsy (New York: Kenny, 1911), is a mine of
biographical information by an ex-minstrel entertainer. Constance Rourke, American
Humor (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), is the best analysis of the kind of comedy
projected by the minstrel shows. The standard interpretation of minstrelsy is Robert
C. Toll, Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1974), which comments perceptively on the folk origins of
minstrel material and shows how the form contributed to racial stereotyping in the
United States. Toll's On with the Show: The First Century ofShow Business in America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976) also treats minstrelsy but within the frame-
work of a larger survey of American entertainment. Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface
Minstrelsy and the American W0rking Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),
explores the minstrel show as a setting in which white feelings about African Ameri-
cans, both fascination and aversion, were played out.
Very few biographies of nineteenth-century popular musicians exist, but Hans
Nathan, Dan Emmett and the Rise ofEarly Negro Minstrelsy (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1962), is a fine study of the supposed composer of "Dixie" and
other enduring songs. Howard L. Sacks and Judith Rose Sacks, however, have cast
doubt on Emmett's authorship of the famous southern song in way Up North in
Dixie: A Black Family's Claim to the Confederate Anthem (Washington: Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1993). Considerable attention has been devoted to Stephen Foster.
John Tasker Howard, Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour, rev. ed. (New York: Crowell,
1962), is an admiring biography written by a man with a high-art perspective. Of
major importance are William W. Austin, Susanna, Jeanie, and the Old Folks at Home:
The Songs ofStephen C Foster from His TIme to Ours (New York: Macmillan, 1975),
and Ken Emerson, Doo-Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise ofAmerican Popular Culture
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), which strip much of the romantic claptrap
away from Foster and place his music in the context of Anglo-American popular song
and hymnody. While the New York popular music scene in the Gay Nineties is the
central concern of Edward B. Marks, They All Sang (New York: Viking Press, 1934),
Marks saw some of his songs, such as "Mother Was a Lady," become standards in the
repertories of southern singers. This is a delightful memoir that deserves to be reissued.
Bill C. Malone's short account of William S. Hays, in The Register ofthe Ken-
tucky Historical Society, "William S. Hays: The Bard of Kentucky, " 93 (Summer 1995):
286-307, is the only available study of this important songwriter, but his songs still
endure in the popular culture of the South. Folklorists have seldom mentioned his
name, even while printing his songs. Pop music historian Sigmund Spaeth made a few
comments about Hays in A History ofPopular Music in America (New York: Random
House, 1948) and quotes some of his songs there and in his witty Read 'em and weep
(New York: Doubleday, Page, 1926) and weep Some More My Lady (New York:
Doubleday, Page, 1927), two of the few collections of nineteenth-century sentimental
songs available. Nicholas E. Tawa writes extensively on the popular music of the nine-
teenth century, but has not delved into the music's survival in folk culture: Sweet Songs
for Gentle Americans: The Parlor Song in America, 1790-1860 (Bowling Green, Ohio:
Popular Press, 1980), and The ~y to Tin Pan Alley: American Popular Song, 1866-
1910 (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991).
The study of the popular song as both a reflector and shaper of public attitudes
is still in its infancy. Earl Bargainneer, "Tin Pan Alley: The South in Popular Song,"
Mississippi Quarterly 30 (Fall 1977): 527-65, has discussed the fascination that
songwriters have felt for the South. His essay, however, provides only a listing of
songs. Now someone needs to seize upon Bargainneer's insights and explore more
deeply the effects that pop songwriters have exerted on the shaping of popular con-
ceptions of the. South. Jack Temple Kirby, in Media-Made Dixie (Baton Rouge: Loui-
siana State University Press, 1978), comments on country music's South-molding
role but neglects the larger and crucial pop music scene.
Many writers have commented on the presence of nineteenth-century pop songs
in the repertories of twentieth-century folk and country musicians. Norman Cohen
has centered directly on the subject in "Tin Pan Alley's Contributions to Folk Music,"
western Folklore 29 (I970): 9-20. An indication that at least some folklorists are be-
ginning to overcome the prejudice against the parlor songs is Bill Ellis, "The Blind
Girl and the Rhetoric of Sentimental Heroism," Journal ofAmerican Folklore 91 (April-
June 1978): 657-74, one of the first studies to treat such material without scorn or
condescension.
Future students who are interested in pre-radio popular music and the complex
manner in which it moved into the possession of the southern folk should be aware of
the vast copyright holdings of the Library of Congress and of the collections of sheet
music, pocket songsters, and related material in the New York Public Library, at Brown
University, and in other repositories. Magazines and newspapers often contained song
pages. The Dallas Semi- weekly Farm News, for instance, contained a "young people's
page" that printed song lyrics at the request of correspondents. With piano rolls, cyl-
inder recordings, and the various kinds of printed musical material available, rural
and small-town southerners had ample exposure to the nation's popular music.
. Books about minstrelsy demonstrate one important way that popular music
forms ventured even into some of the more remote backcountry regions of the South.
Studies of other traveling shows will provide additional hints. Carl Bode, The Ameri-
can Lyceum (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), and Joseph E. Gould, The
Chautauqua Movement (New York: State University of New York Press, 1961), discuss
two of the more high-toned purveyors of culture, while Gilbert Douglas, American
Vaudeville (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), and Albert F. Mclean Jr., American
Vaudeville as Ritual (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965), discuss the most
popular form of organized show business in the early twentieth century. Country
people saw vaudeville routines when they went to the city, but a type of vaudeville
came to the villages in the form of the tent repertoire shows. At least two published
studies survey the world of the tent-rep shows. One was written by a man who played
a prominent role in their dissemination: Neil E. Schaffner, with Vance Johnson, The
Fabulous Toby and Me (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968). The other is
William Lawrence Slout, Theatre in a Tent (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green
Popular Press, 1972). Other studies of the phenomenon include: Larry Clark, "Toby
Shows: A Form of American Popular Theatre" (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois
Press, 1963); Robert Dean Klassen, "The Tent-Repertoire Theatre: A Rural American
Institution" (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1979); and Sherwood Snyder
III, "The Toby Shows" (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1966). Despite the
ubiquity of the medicine show in rural America, surprisingly little has been written
about it. The best study thus far is Brooks McNamara, Step Right Up: An Illustrated
History o/the Medicine Show (Garden City, N .Y.: Doubleday, 1976). McNamara found
much material in issues of Billboard magazine, a source that other scholars have insuf-
ficiently utilized.
To investigate the discovery of black music in the late nineteenth century one
should go directly to the publications that introduced the material to the literate
northern public. Bruce Jackson, ed., The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth-Century
Periodicals (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967), contains reprints of the most
relevant journal articles dealing with the subject. Of course, the real awakening of
interest in the spirituals began with William Francis Allen, Charles P. Ware, and Lucy
M. Garrison, Slave Songs o/the United States (New York: A. Simpson, 1867). Dena
Epstein, in Sinfol Tunes and Spirituals, has commented on the book's reception and on
its formative influence on folk scholarship. J .B.T. Marsh, The Story 0/the Jubilee Sing-
ers with Their Songs (Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1880), is an old study of the pio-
neering black group, but it has been joined by Andrew Ward, Dark Midnight When I
Rise: The Story o/the Fisk Jubilee Singers (New York: Amistad, 2000). The vogue for the
spirituals that followed the tours of the Jubilee Singers is discussed by several writers,
most notably Eileen Southern in The Music o/Black Americans: A History (New York:
w.w. Norton, 1971) and Gilbert Chase in Americas Music from the Pilgrims to the
Present, 2d rev. ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966). Our own information has
come principally from such music journals as Etude, Musical Quarterly. and Musical
Observer.
There has been no adequate study of the turn-of-the-century vogue for musical
nationalism or of its relationship to folk music. The interested student would be well
advised to explore the "high-art" music journals mentioned above in addition to other
contemporary popular and scholarly journals where people such as John Powell some-
times expressed their opinions. D.K Wilgus, Anglo-American Folksong Scholarship since
1898, provides the best discussion of the motivations that underlay the collecting
exploits of American folklorists, Anglo-Saxonist or otherwise. John A. Lomax, Cow-
boy Songr and Other Frontier Ballads (New York: Sturgis and Walton, 1910), is still the
indispensable introduction to that genre, but the conclusions of this book should be
balanced with those of John White, Git Along, Little Dogies: Songr and Songmakers of
the American west (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), which has done much
to divest cowboy song scholarship of the myths of anonymous or communal origins.
Nolan Porterfield has given us the best 'biography ofJohn Lomax: Last Cavalier: The
Life and Times ofJohn A. Lomax (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996). Ben-
jamin Filene delves into the cultural and ideological underpinnings of the search for
folk music in Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
Sources of the preoccupation with the southern mountains are discussed most
perceptively in Henry Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and
Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 18~1920 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1978). David E. Whisnant explores the roles played by "cul_
tural interventionists" (ballad collectors, settlement school teachers, and festival en-
trepreneurs) in shaping public perceptions of Appalachia in All That Is Native and
Fine: The Politics ofCulture in an American Region (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1984). These discussions can be supplemented by material delineated
in Robert F. Munn, The Southern Appalachians: A Bibliography and Guitle to Studies
(Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1961).
Very little attention has been devoted to the first urban folk movement, the
vogue for the concert singing of folk songs that flourished in the World War I period
and in the early 1920s. Jon G. Smith contributed a very fine essay on his grand-
mother, Ethel Park Richardson, in theJEMF Quarterly, "She Kept On a-Goin': Ethel
Park Richardson," 13 (Autumn 1977): 105-15, but very few scholars have dug exten-
sively into the music journals and other periodical literature to track down informa-
tion on the singers of folk songs and costume recitalists.
Chapter 3. Early Commercialization: Ragtime, Blues, Jazz
Eileen Southern, The Music ofBlack Americans, is the only general survey of Mrican-
American music in all its ramifications and is richly detailed and documented. Com-
prehensive accounts of ragtime include William J. Schaefer and Johannes Riedel, The
Art ofRagtime (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973), Rudi Blesh and
Harriet Janis, They All Played Ragtime, 4th ed. (New York: Oak Publications, 1971),
and Edward A. Berlin, J(jng ofRagtime: Scott Joplin and His Era (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1994). The transition made by Mrican Americans from black-face
minstrelsy to an independent expression of show business is discussed in Tom Fletcher,
100 ~an of the Negro in Show Business (New York: Burdge, 1954), a detailed but
undisciplined account. James Weldon Johnson, in Black Manhattan (New York: Knopf,
1930), discusses the black show-business scene in New York in the 1890s and tells the
story of some southern musicians, such as himself and his brother J. Rosamond.
The American people's awakening consciousness of the blues in the early years
of the twentieth century is discussed by the man who was largely responsible for it:
William C. Handy, Father ofthe Blues: An Autobiography (New York: Macmillan, 1941).
In Born with the Blues (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1973), Perry Bradford dis-
cusses his role in the discovery of Mamie Smith and in the recording industry's deci-
sion to exploit the blues.
Blues has attracted a great wealth of scholarship, much of the best by English
fans and collectors. Derrick Stewart-Baxter, for example, in Ma Rainey and the Classic
Blues Singers (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), provides a good introduction to the
style of blues first presented to the American public. At least three biographies of
Bessie Smith are available: Paul Oliver, Bessie Smith (London: Cassell, 1959); Carman
Moore, Somebody's Angel Child: The Story ofBessie Smith (New York: Crowell, 1969);
and Chris Albertson, Bessie (New York: Stein and Day, 1972). We have found the
Albertson book the most helpful.
Samuel Charters's fine work The Country Blues (New York: Rinehart, 1959) was
not only the first study of that genre; it virtually defined it. In that book and in The
Bluesmen (New York: Oak Publications, 1967) Charters relates the musicians to their
sociocultural contexts, a method that regrettably is not always followed by other mu-
sic historians. Paul Oliver's studies of the blues, from the Mrican roots through the era
of recording, have been of generally high quality; Blues Fell This Morning (London:
Cassell, 1960) and The Story ofthe Blues (New York: Barrie, 1969) are excellent analy-
ses as are Oliver's notes to the Columbia anthology, The Story ofthe Blues, Columbia
G30008 (intended as a supplement to the book of the same name). JeffTiton, Early
Downhome Blues: A Musical and CulturalAnalysis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1977), is an impressive multidisciplinary treatment of the blues. William Ferris Jr.,
Bluesfrom the Delta (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978), is an excellent study of
the formative Mississippi blues scene that also has a useful annotated bibliography
and discography that are relevant to the larger blues picture. The overall context of
blues development in the Mississippi Delta is discussed in two excellent books: Alan
Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon, 1993) and James C.
Cobb, The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots ofRegional
Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Among the small number of biographies of early country bluesmen, two are of
high quality: David Evans, TommyJohnson (London: Studio Vista, 1971), and John
Fahey, Charley Patton (London: Studio Vista, 1970). Unfortunately, there is no biog-
raphy of Blind Lemon Jefferson and no full-scale study of the important Texas blues
scene. Mack McCormick, one of the most knowledgeable of all the blues scholars and
a folklorist of the highest competence, has long been conducting research on Texas
blues music. But until his research assumes the form of a book, we will have to be
content with the occasional record liner notes that carty a McCormick byline. Allan
Turner provided an assessment of McCormick's work in "History As Close As a Turn-
table," Jim Harris, ed., Features and Fillers: TexasJournalists on Texas Folklore (Denton:
University of North Texas Press, 1999), 124-36.
Blues music is susceptible to varying interpretations. Lawrence Levine, for ex-
ample, in Black Culture and Black Consciousness, sees in blues singing a simultaneous
expression of a personalized, individualistic ethos and an urge to retain the old com-
munal roots. LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), in Blues People: Negro Music in White America
(New York: Morrow, 1963), interprets the music in the context of black nationalism.
Tony Russell, on the other hand, sees a vigorous cultural interchange between Mrican
Americans and whites in Blacks, Whites, and Blues (New York: Stein and Day, 1970).
The literature on jazz is voluminous. No definitive bibliography is available,
but Alan P. Merriam and Robert J. Branford made a good start in A Bibliography of
Jazz (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1954) as did Robert George Reisner,
The Literature ofJazz: A Selective Bibliography (New York: New York Public Library,
1959). These accounts have been updated and superseded by Geoffrey C. Ward and
Ken Burns, Jazz: A History ofAmerica's Music (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), the
comprehensive compendium to Burns's television documentary of the art form. The
bibliography compiled by Frank lirro in Ja= A History (New York: w.w. Norton,
1977), can also be consulted with great profit. There are several good book-length
studies of jazz, including Rudi Blesh, Shining Trumpets: A History ofJazz, 4th ed.
(London: Cassell, 1958); Barry Ulanov, A History ofJazz in America (New York: Vi-
king Press, 1955); Rex Harris,Jazz, 5th ed. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books,
1957); Marshall Stearns, The Story ofJazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970);
Ted Gioia, The History ofJazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Kathy J.
Ogren, The Jazz Revolution: Twenties America and the Meaning ofJazz (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989); Burton W. Peretti, The Creation ofJazz: Music, Race,
and Culture in Urban America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); James
Lincoln Collier, Jazz: The American Theme Song (New York: Oxford University Press,
1993); and Gary Giddens, Visiom ofJa=: The First Century (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1998).
Among the biographies and autobiographies of jazz personalities the most im-
portant are Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll' The Fortunes ofJelly Roll Morton (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973); Louis Armstrong's own story,
Satchmo: My Lifo in New Orleam (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954); Larry Gara, The
Baby Dodds Story (Los Angeles: Contemporary, 1959); James Lincoln Collier, Louis
Armstrong: An American Genius (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); John
Chilton, Sidney Bechet: The Wizard ofJazz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987);
and Don Marquis's superb piece of detective work on "the first man of jazz," In Search
ofBuddy Bolden (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978) .
Despite endless speculation, the era of New Orleans music that preceded the
first jazz recordings in 1917 is a murky period bathed in romance. No one has really
done the kind of digging necessary to document the pre-1900 origins of jazz in the
city. Henry Kmen told the story down to 1841 in Music in New Orleam, but his death
in 1978 cut short the efforts that he had begun for the later period. William J. Schaefer
has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of early jazz history in Brass
Bands and New Orleam Jazz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977).
Schaefer was assisted in his efforts by Richard B. Allen, the learned former curator of
the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University, one of the most im-
pressive repositories of jazz lore in the United States. Al Rose, in Storyville, New Or-
leans (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1974), provides an illuminating account
of early ragtime and jazz musicians in the city and puts the relationship between the
emerging music and the red-light district in the proper perspective. As previously
noted, Marquis's book on Buddy Bolden fills in some of the missing gaps between the
marching bands and the early recordings, and Harry O. Brunn, The Story ofthe Origi-
nal DixielandJazz Band (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1960), com-
ments on the oft-neglected contributions of white musicians to the developing art
form while discussing the band of young white musicians who put the first jazz sounds
on records. The inquiring reader would find it instructive to compare Brunn's white-
oriented interpretation of jazz origins with the black perspective of someone such as
Rudi Blesh.
Chapter 4. Expanding Markets: Tejano. Cajun. Hillbilly, Gospel

Compared to the abundant material available on blues and jazz, the publications de-
voted to country and other rural-derived white musical forms are recent and sparse.
No bibliographies of country music, for example, are analogous to those available for
blues and jazz, but Bill C. Malone, Country Music, USA, rev. ed. (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2002), and Don~ Get Ahove Your Raisin': Country Music and the Southern
WOrking Class (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002) are good places to begin.
Two important repositories for country and other grass-roots forms of music
have come into existence since the 1950s: the Southern Folk Life Collection at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, built around the archives of the Australian
collector John Edwards, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nash-
ville. The Southern Folk Life Collection no longer publishes the JEMF Quarterly, but
the Country Music Foundation issues a magazine called the Journal ofCountry Music.
This journal, along with Old Time Music, published by Tony Russell in England,
Devils Box, a fiddle-oriented journal edited by Bill Harrison in Huntsville, Ala-
bama, and Old- Time Herald, published and edited by Alice Gerrard in Durham,
North Carolina, offer students of early country music ample outlets for scholarly or
popular inquiries.
Before the dawning of academic interest, research and writing on country mu-
sic were generally confined to dedicated fans and collectors who wrote for fan dub
journals, song magazines, or collectors' newsletters. Occasionally, an in-house publi-
cation appeared, such as George D. Hay, A Story of the Grand Ole Opry (Nashville:
George D. Hay, 1953), or, even more rarely, a relative's loving memoir of a musician
such as Carrie Rodgers, My Husband, Jimmie Rodgers (1935; reprint, with an intro-
duction by Nolan Porterfield, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995). The first
book-length work devoted to country music came from a fan in 1961. Linnell Gen-
try, A History and Encyclopedia of Country, W?stern, and Gospel Music (Nashville:
McQuiddy Press, 1961), is an anthology of essays on country music extracted from
magazines and a collection of biographical sketches compiled from questionnaires. It
was republished by the Clairmont Corporation in Nashville in 1969 and is still a
useful and oft-quoted compendium of material.
The earliest scholarly interest in country music was inspired by the urban folk
revival of the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the stimulating sparks actually oc-
curred a few years earlier, in 1952, with the issuance of the Folkways recording, An-
thology ofAmerican Folk Music, FA 2951-2953. The six long-playing records included
hillbilly, Cajun, gospel, and country blues recordings made between 1927 and 1933
taken from the private collection of Harry Smith. Packaged under the respectable
label of "folk music,» the anthology introduced grass-roots music to an urban audi-
ence that had never heard it before. Happily for contemporary listeners, the collection
has been re-released on CDs by the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1965 the Journal ofAmerican Folklore, after decades of neglect, devoted an
entire issue, 78 Guly-September 1965) to early country music. The "Hillbilly Issue,»
as it was called, contained important essays on the history of country music and
pointed the way toward further research. A few years later Wfstern Folklore published
an issue, 30 Guly 1971), called the JEMF issue, on the sources and resources of coun-
try music.
Robert Shelton was not an academician, but as folk music editor of the New
York TImes during the urban folk enthusiasm he became quite aware of the relation-
ship between commercial country music and folk music. The result was The Country
Music Story (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), an entertaining survey of country mu-
sic history marked by a vast array of photographs gathered by Burt Goldblatt.
Bill C. Malone's Country Music, USA was based on his doctoral dissertation
written at the University of Texas in 1965. The book was the first full-scale scholarly
treatment of the subject and was, in fact, the basis for much of Shelton's work. Like
Gentry's book, Malone's was the product of a southern country boy who wrote from
within the culture that he discussed.
Archie Green, in contrast, came to country music from a preoccupation with
labor lore. His search for labor-related materials led him naturally to phonograph
recordings, and that in turn led to an exhaustive interest in all types of grass-roots
music found on commercial recordings, radio transcriptions, song folios, and so forth.
Green, Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Song; (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1972), is distinguished not only by its coverage of coal-mining songs,
but also by the exhaustive knowledge it reflects of early hillbilly music. Like all of
Green's work, it is indispensable.
The 1970s saw a proliferation of works on country music. Of special relevance
to the early period of recording history are Douglas B. Green, Country Roots: The
Origins of Country Music (New York: Hawthorn, 1976), an informal but fact-filled
survey of country music history, and Charles Wolfe, Grand Ole Opry: The Early ~aN,
1925-1935 (London: Old Time Music, 1975), and Tennessee String;: The Story of
Country Music in Tennessee (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977). Wolfe's
history of the Opry has been revised and enlarged as A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth
ofthe Grand Ole Opry (Nashville: The Country Music Foundation Press and Vanderbilt
University Press, 1999). Wolfe's work can also be found in numerous journals and on
liner notes of phonograph recordings and CDs; he is easily the best scholar now work-
ing in the field of early commercial country music.
Biographies of early country performers are not plentiful, but a few are quite
good. Regrettably, nothing in country music is comparable to the series of blues-

oriented books edited by Paul Oliver for Studio Vista in London, but the University
of Illinois Press with its Music in American Life Series is rapidly filling much of the
gap. One of the University of Illinois publications, Stars of Country Music, contains
essays on some of the early performers: Walter Haden on Vernon Dalhart, Charles
Wolfe on Uncle Dave Macon, John Atkins on the Carter Family, D.K. Wilgus on
Bradley Kincaid, Chris Comber and Mike Paris on Jimmie Rodgers, and Norman
Cohen on an assemblage of performers he calls "early pioneers." The Comber and
Paris essay was extracted from their subsequently published book on the life and ca-
reer of Jimmie Rodgers: Jimmie the Kid (London: Eddison Press, 1976). All work on
Rodgers, however, has been surpassed by Nolan Porterfield, Jimmie Rodgers (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1979), the definitive work on the Singing Brakeman and
an invaluable interpretation of the early commercial period of country music. Rodgers's
fellow pioneers the Carter Family are chronicled in Mark Zwonitzer and Charles
Hirshberg's Will YtJu Miss Me When 1m Gone? The Carter Fami~ and Their Legacy in
American Music (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002).
The literature on white gospel music is much sparser than that on country
music, and the gospel "industry" has been much slower than the country industry to
recognize the need for historical documentation. Ottis J. Knippers, Whos Who among
Southern Singers and Composers (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.: J.D. Vaughan, 1937), is a good
introduction to the gospel personnel of the early commercial period, but it is rare and
out of print. Mrs. J .R. Baxter and Videt Polk produced a similar work, Gospel Song
Writers Biography (Dallas: Stamps-Baxter Music Company, 1971), but it contains little
information on the quartets. Jo Lee Fleming, "James D. Vaughan, Music Publisher"
(S.M.D. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1972) is a first-rate work that deserves to
be better known and is almost the only scholarly piece available on the post-1920
gospel period. Lois Blackwell, The Wings of the Dove: The Story of Gospel Music in
America (Norfolk, Va.: Donning Co., 1978), was the first real attempt at a historical
overview of the music, but it had only 154 pages of text, about 30 of which are
devoted to the 1920s. James Goff's Close Harmony: A History ofSouthern Gospel (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) is the source that all music students
should consult.
Cajun and Chicano styles of music have been similarly neglected by writers and
researchers. The preservation and documentation of Cajun culture were given a de-
cided boost, though, with the establishment in 1974 of the Center for Acadian and
Creole Folklore at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette. A number
of academic theses have shed some light on Cajun culture, but say little about the
music. Nicholas Spitzer contributed an impressive essay, "Cajuns and Creoles: The
French Gulf Coast," in Allen Tullos, ed., Long Journey Home: Folklife in the South
(Chapel Hill, N. c.: Southern Exposure, 1977), 140-55. Lauren C. Post's Cajun Sketches
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1962) was a valuable introduction to
Cajun history and culture, but it can be supplemented by Pierre Daigle, Tears, Love,
and Laughter: The Story ofthe Acadians (Church Point, La.: Acadian Publishing Enter-
prise, 1972), which contains a number of good biographical sketches and vignettes of
Cajun musicians, and by William Faulkner Rushton, The Cajuns: From Acadia to
Louisiana (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1979). Another useful, short introduc-
tion to Cajun music can be found in Acadiana Profile, 4 (October-November 1974):
4-7, written by Revon Reed, a leading authority on Cajun music. The best academic
studies of Cajun culture and music are Barry Jean Ancelet and E1emore Morgan Jr.,
The Makers of Cajun MusiclMusiciens cadiens et creoles (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1984); Ancelet, Jay D. Edwards, and Glen Pitre, Cajun Country Oackson: Uni-
versity Press of Mississippi, 1991); Ancelet, Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French
Oral Tradition ofSouth Louisiana (New York: Garland, 1994); and Ann Savoy, Cajun
Music: A Reflection of a People (Eunice, La.: Bluebird Press, 1984). Pre-commercial
Cajun music can be samplc-d on an album produced for the Louisiana Folklore Soci-
ety, Folksongs of the Louisiana Acadians, collected, edited, and annotated by Harry
Oster. The best aural introductions to early recorded Cajun music are found on a
series of records produced and edited by Chris Strachwitz on the Old-TImey label
(especially vol. 1, First Recordings, the 1920s, and vol. 5, The Early lears, 1928-1938).
Tejano music is as old as any other form of American folk music, and its record-
ing came about as early (i.e., in the mid-I920s) as any Anglo genre. Nevertheless, few
published discussions or academic treatises of the genre exist. Two good discussions of
its folk roots, however, are Americo Paredes, A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of
the Lower Border (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975) and Paredes, With His
Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1958). The best academic study of the commercial extensions of Texas-Mexican mu-
sic is Manuel Pena, Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History ofa Working-Class Music (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1985). Beginning students or devotees of Chicano music
should listen to a series of albums produced by Chris Strachwitz on his Folklyric label,
reviewed in the JEMF Quarterly issue mentioned above. These volumes, entitled Texas-
Mexican Border Music and accompanied by brochures and discographies, are the prod-
ucts of Strachwitz's own indefatigable collecting of old 78-rpm records in the Chicano
communities of the Southwest. Without his labors, students of American folk music
would be infinitely poorer.
Chapter 5. The Great Depression and New Technologies
The Great Depression was a crucial period for American music, when folk simplicity
began to give way to greater commercial awareness, but little has been done to treat
the era's music in a comprehensive manner. Bob Coltman, in ''Across the Chasm:
How the Depression Changed Country Music," Old Time Music 23 (Winter 1976-
1977): 6-12, follows a line of inquiry that should be instructive for students of other
types of music.
The history of Mexican border broadcasting has been well told by Gene Fowler
and Bill Crawford in Border Radio (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1987). Two books
discuss the man who inaugurated border radio programming: Gerald Carson, The
Roguish World of Dr. Brinkley (New York: Rinehart, 1960), and R Alton Lee, The
Bizarre Careers ofJohn R. Brinkley (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002).
Ed Kahn analyzes the roles the X-stations played in the dissemination of folk music in
"International Relations, Dr. Brinkley, and Hillbilly Music," JEMF Quarterly 9, pt. 2
(Summer 1973): 47-55. Another great purveyor of country music in the 1930s is
discussed by Pat Ahrens in "The Role of the Crazy Water Crystals Company in Pro-
moting Hillbilly Music," JEMF Quarterly 6 (Autumn 1970): 107-9.
Students of both country music and the blues often focus on one end or the
other of the historical period of their subjects, concentrating on the early quasi-folk
period of the 1920s or on the modern era of commercial growth, thereby neglecting
the imponant interim period. Ivan M. Tribe, however, is an exception. His area of
concentration has been the 1930s and' 40s, and his prolific research, based principally
on interviews, has borne fruit in many articles in such magazines as Bluegrass Unlim-
ited and Old lime Music and in his books Mountaineer Jamboree: Country Music in
~st Virginia (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984) and The Stonemans: An
Appalachian Family and the Music That Shaped Their Lives (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1993).
A few publications convey the feeling of what it was like to be a country musi-
cian during a period of hard times. My Husband. Jimmie Rodgers and a very rare ac-
count of Bob Wills, Ruth Sheldon, Hubbin'It: The Life of Bob Wills (1938; reprint,
Nashville: Country Music Foundation Press, 1995), both treat their subjects during
the Depression years. In 1977 the Country Music Foundation Press published the
posthumous autobiography of Alton Delmore of the influential Delmore Brothers
duet: Alton Delmore, Truth Is Stranger than Publicity (Nashville: Country Music Foun-
dation Press, 1977). Edited by Charles K. Wolfe, the book recreates the atmosphere of
hillbilly barnstorming during the 1930s and subsequent decades, as the Delmore Broth-
ers became one of the most popular acts in country music.
The best account of black gospel music during the 1930s is Tony Heilbut's
pioneering The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1971). It is actually a general survey of the total black gospel scene and is
marked by the enthusiasm and affection of a devoted fan. Heilbut's discussion of
Georgia Tom Dorsey is perceptive, but it has been superseded by Michael W. Harris,
Rise of Gospel Blues: The Music of Thomas Andrew Dorsey in the Urban Church (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1992). Bernice Johnson Reagon edited a collection of
vignettes and analyses of Dorsey and five other black gospel composers, ~11 Under-
stand It Better By and By (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992). James
Goff's book, Close Harmony, has good material on white gospel music activities dur-
ing the 1930s. The previously mentioned books by Ottis Knippers and Mrs. l.R.
Baxter make useful references to musicians who performed during the Depression
years, and two books on the Blackwood Brothers discuss the experiences of struggling
quartets during that era: Kree Jack Racine, Above AU: The Blackwood Brothers Quartet
(Memphis: Jarodoce Publications,I967), and James Blackwood, with Dan Martin,
The James Blackwood Story (Monroeville, Pa.: Whitaker House, 1975). Scattered ar-
ticles on Albert Brumley have appeared, including Bill C. Malone, ''Albert E. Brumley:
Folk Composer," Bluegrass Unlimited. 21 (July 1986): 69-77.
Books have been written on the various cultural projects of the Works Progress
Administration, and some scholars have used the material collected by the govern-
ment-sponsored researchers. But no one has attempted to draw together in one study
the disparate ventures in the folk music field undertaken by the w.P.A. or by other
agencies such as the Resettlement Administration. One can envision a doctoral disser-
tation assaying "folk music and the federal government."
Samplings of songs about the Depression can be found in several good sources.
The New Lost City Ramblers recorded an influential album, Son'; ofthe Depression,
Folkways FH5264, which contained selections taken mainly from commercial hill-
billy recordings. No similar utilization of commercial blues or gospel music has been
undertaken, but Lawrence Levine includes a valuable discussion of black Depression
material in Black Culture and Black Consciousness, and Lawrence Gellert collected a
vast amount of noncommercial folk material in the 1930s, much of the best of which
is recorded on Negro Songs ofProtest, Rounder 4004.
The awakening of southern labor is discussed by Thomas Tippett, When South-
ern labor Stirs (New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, 1931); George B.
Tindall, The Emergence ofthe New South, 1913-1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1967); and most vividly by Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A His-
tory of the American W0rker, 1920-33 (Boston: Houghton, Mifllin, 1960). Liston
Pope, Millhands and Preachers: A Study ofGastonia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1942), provides a cultural explanation of the floundering of radical union-
ism in the South, but the best analysis of the difficulties encountered by unions in the
region is found in Jacquelyn Dowd Hall and others, Like a Family: The Making ofa
Southern Cotton Mill W0rM (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987).
Archie Green concentrates more directly on the music of the textile workers in "Born
on Picketlines, Textile Workers' Songs Are Woven into History," Textile labor 21
(April 1961): 3-5; in his notes to the Dorsey Dixon record album Babies in the Mill,
Testament T-3301; and in "Dorsey Dixon: Minstrel of the Mills," Sing Out: The Folk
Song Magazine, July 1966, 10-13. John Greenway has a short section on the minstrel
of Gastonia, Ella May Wiggins, in American Folksongs ofProtest (Philadelphia: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1953), but the reader can get a better inkling of Wiggins's
emergence as a labor martyr in articles contemporaneous with her death: Jessie Uoyd,
"Ella May, Murdered, Lives in Her Songs of Class Strife," Daily W0rker, 20 September
1929; and Margaret Larkin, "Story of Ella May," New Masses, November 1929.
Coal-mining songs that wound up on commercial hillbilly recordings are the
subjects of Archie Green's Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs, but in
the notes to Sara Ogan Gunning, Girl ofConstant Sorrow, Folk-Legacy FSA-26, Green
takes as his topic the songs of a woman who was an active participant in the labor
conflicts of eastern Kentucky. His remarks about the mating of northern radical rhetoric
and southern conservative balladry have often been quoted. Gunning's half-sister,
Aunt Molly Jackson, one of the most famous of the southern protest singers, has been
memorialized in an entire issue of Kentucky Folklore Record 7 (October-December
1961), and in Shelly Romalis, Pistol Packin' Mama: Aunt Molly Jackson and the Politics
ofFolksong (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). Samples of her singing style
can be heard on Aunt Molly Jackson, Rounder 1002, a collection of songs originally
recorded for the Library of Congress in 1939. Her story, as well as that of the other
balladeers who struggled for economic justice in the eastern Kentucky coal fields, is
discussed by John Hevener in Which Side Are YtJu On? The Harlan County Coal Min-
ers, 1931-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002).
Other regions of southern economic turmoil have also interested scholars, but
few writers have concentrated on the music that arose from them. The Southern
Tenant Fatmers Union Papers in the Southern Historical Collection at the University
of North Catolina have been explored by several writers, but no one has really dug
through them to determine the role that music played in the union's organizing ef-
fons. Likewise, insufficient effort has been expended to interview surviving union
members who may have some recollections of musical activities, although John
Greenway did discuss John Handcox, a leading STFU poet, in American Folksongs of
Protest.
Sound analyses of the Dust Bowl migration and of its effects on California
society include Walter S. Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration (Westpon,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973); Jacqueline Gordon Sherman, "The Oklahomans in
California during the Depression Decade, 1931-1941" (Ph.D. diss., University of
California, Los Angeles, 1970), and James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust
Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (New York: Oxford University Press,
1989). All students of Okie music should draw, like Stein, Sherman, and Gregory did,
upon the music collection of Charles Todd and Roben Sonkin, now deposited in the
Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song. Todd and Sonkin wrote a short account of
their field research in "Ballads of the Okies," New YtJrk TImes Magazine (17 November
1940), 6-7, 18. The important California country music scene has found its best
chronicler in Gerald W. Haslam, WOrkin'Man Blues: Country Music in California
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
The poet of the Okies, Woody Guthrie, has been much written about, but
often from a romanticized, polemical, or distorted perspective. John Greenway's writ-
ings on Guthrie, in American Folksongs ofProtest and in both populat and academic
publications such as the obituary in the Journal ofAmerican Folklore 81 (January-
Match 1969): 62-64, ate generally both admiring and sensible. Joe Klein wrote the
most complete account of the Okie balladee~, WOody Guthrie: A Life (New York: Knopf,
1980), but the most accurate and unbiased Guthrie scholar, though in sympathy with
his subject, was Richard A Reuss, who compiled A WOody Guthrie Bibliography (New
York: Guthrie Children's Trust Fund, 1968) and has wrinen the most balanced assess-
ment of the man in "Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition," Journal ofAmerican
Folklore 83 (July-September 1970): 273-304. R. Serge Denisoff has done most to
explain the relationship between southern protest singers and northern radical activ-
ists, as well as the urban folk music movement that resulted from this fusion, in "The
Proletarian Renascence: The Folkness of the Ideological Folk," Journal ofAmerican
Folklore 82 (January-Match 1969): 51-65, and in more extended fashion in Great
Day Coming: Folk Music and the American Left (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1971). Jerome L. Rodnitzky's purview is even larger in Minstrels of the Dawn: The
Folk-Protest Singer as a Cultural Hero (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1971). Huddie "Leadbelly"
Ledbetter was more than a protest singer, but he played a crucial role in bringing folk
music to the East Coast during the Depression years. His story has been well told by
Charles Wolfe and Kip Lomeli, The Lifo and Legend of Leadbelly (New York:
HarperCollins, 1992).
Despite the revival of western swing in the 1970s, little published material,
scholarly or otherwise, has been expended on the genre. In fact, Ruth Sheldon's .1938
biography of Bob Wills, Hubbin' It, was about the only kind of work outside of
collectors's and fan club journals available until 1976 when Wills's piano player, AI
Stricklin, along with Jon McConal, contributed My }ears with Bob Wills (San An-
tonio: Naylor Company, 1976), and Charles Townsend completed his biography of
Wills. Townsend's San Antonio Rose: The Lifo and Music ofBob Wills (Urbana: Univer-
sity of Illinois Press, 1976) is a fascinating account of the man who dominated the
country music of the Southwest during the 1930s and who has left his imprint on
thousands of musicians who came after him. His companion in the making of West-
ern Swing has been ably discussed by Cary Ginell, Milton Brown and the Founding of
Western Swing (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). No substantial study ofW
Lee O'Daniei has yet appeared, although Seth McKay's outdated W. Lee ODaniel and
Texas Politics, 1938-1942 (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1944) is a useful source of
information.
Those other dynamic forms of "westem" country music-honky-tonk and sing-
ing cowboy-have also had few chroniclers. Except for scattered references to the
music in popular magazines, Malone's doctoral dissertation of 1965 and the book
that proceeded from it, Country Music, USA, and his essay in The Encyclopedia of
Country Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) contain the only extended
discussions of the honky-tonk style.
The music of the singing cowboys has received a much fuller literary treatment
than that extended to honky-tonk musicians. Douglas B. Green has written the de-
finitive history of the genre, Singing in the Saddle: The History ofthe Singing Cowboy
(Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002). His essay on Gene Autry in Stars of
Country Music is a competent assessment of the first great singing cowboy's career by
someone who later embarked on his own career singing western music, as "Ranger
Doug" with Riders in the Sky. Autry was stingy with interviews, and, therefore, much
of his story was alwa~ out of the reach of researchers. An indication that he may have
been waiting to tell his own story came in 1978 when Autry, with the assistance of
Mickey Herskowitz, published an autobiography called Back in the Saddle Again (Gar-
den City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978).
Another great singing cowboy, Tex Ritter, is the subject of an affectionate biog-
raphy by country singer and cowboy actor Johnny Bond: The Tex Ritter Story (New
York: Chappell, 1976). Despite his very close personal and business associations with
Ritter, Bond writes a reasonably objective, and always entertaining, account of
"America's Most Beloved Cowboy." Until the appearance of Douglas B. Green's gen-
eral study, the best account of the singing cowboy's effect on American popular cul-
ture and country music was Stephen Ray Tucker, "The Western Image in Country
Music" (MA thesis, Southern Methodist University, 1976).
Chapter 6. The Nationalization of Southern Music
Although World War II was a watershed in the social history of the United States,
writers on American music have devoted little attention specifically to the period
from 1941 to 1945. Malone's Country Music, USA, however, explores the relationship
between the war and the music's international expansion. All writers on rhythm and
blues comment on the black migration nonhward, but few make references to the
changed consciousness that the war promoted among African Americans. The one
writer who has explored the full ramifications of the black exodus to the Nonh is
Nicholas Lemann, in his brilliant The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and
How It Changed America (New York: Knopf, 1991).
The best discussions ofsouthern white migration to the Nonh are Lewis Killian,
White Southerners (New York: Random House, 1970), and Chad Berry, Southern
Migrants, Northern Exiles (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). These studies
explore the total social ramifications of the move made by white southerners to places
such as Chicago, Detroit, Akron, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Now someone needs to
explore the consequences of the migrations made by rural southerners into the cities
of their own region. Pete Daniel has provided an excellent exposition of this demo-
graphic transformation in Lost Revolutions: The South in the 1950s (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of Nonh Carolina Press, 2000).
The national burgeoning of country music spawned new "stars," some of whom
have inspired biographical accounts. Townsend's biography of Bob Wills recreates
much of the atmosphere of wanime America, and Elizabeth Schlappi, in Roy Acuff,
the Smoky Mountain Boy (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing, 1978), explains how Acuff
managed to become the symbol of American country music around the world. Ernest
Tubb, the man who took the Texas honky-tonk style to the Grand Ole Opry, receives
a full, sympathetic biographical treatment in Ronnie Pugh, Ernest Tubb: The Texas
Troubadour (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996). Hank Williams, another singer
whose career began during the war years but who did not attain superstardom until
the early 1950s, has inspired four competent biographies: Roger M. Williams, Sing a
Sad Song: The Life of Hank Williams (1970; reprint, Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 198 I); Chet Flippo, J0ur Cheatin' Heart: A Biography ofHank Williams (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 198 I); Colin Escott, with George Merritt and William
MacEwen, Hank Williams: The Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994); and Bill
Koon, Hank Williams, So Lonesome Oackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002).
The evolution of the blues into an aggressive, electrified, urban art form came
at the end of the 1930s and during the war years. The story of the emergence of
rhythm and blues has generally been buried in music periodicals or in larger works
devoted to the development of soul or rock 'n' roll. Too often, rhythm and blues is
treated merely as the precursor of more modern forms of black music and is insuffi-
ciently valued for its own sake. Arnold Shaw's The World ofSoul (New York: Paperback
Library, 1971), however, provides a good discussion of rhythm and blues, though in
the context of a larger historical discussion of black music. In Honkers and Shouters:
The Golden ~ar.r ofRhythm and Blues (New York: Macmillan, 1978), Shaw concen-
trates more directly on the important decades of the 1940s and '50s. Both books are
highly detailed accounts by a man who was a long-time producer of r&b records.
Tony Glover, a white musician who did much to introduce blues music to
young white audiences, wrote a good short overview of rhythm and blues: "R & B,"
Sing Out, May 1965,7-13. The most brilliant study of the modern blues, though,
and one that should serve as a model for the study of other forms of music, is Charles
Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago: Universiry of Chicago Press, 1966). Keil contributes an
appendix designed to help the reader/ listener distinguish among the varied sryles of
the blues and discusses some of the major blues singers such as Bobby Blue Bland and
B.B. King.
Other good discussions of B.B. King can be found in Arnold Shaw's two books
and especially in a two-part article by Pete Welding, "B.B. King: The Mississippi
Giant," Downbeat, 5 October 1978 and 19 October 1978. The second installment
contains material on T-Bone Walker who, despite his pathbreaking importance, had
little ofsubstance devoted to him until the publication of Helen Oakley Dance, Stormy
Monday: The T-Bone Walker Story (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Universiry Press,
1987). Muddy Waters, one of the prime forces behind the transition of the Delta
blues into urban blues, is the subject of several excellent studies, including Jim Rooney,
Bossmen: BillMonroeandMuddy Waters (New York: Dial Press, 1971); Robert Palmer,
"Muddy Waters: The Delta Son Never Sets," Rolling Stone, 5 October 1978, 53-56;
Sandra B. Tooze, Muddy Waters: The Mojo Man (Toronto, Ontario: ECW Press, 1997);
and Robert Gordon, Can't Be Satisfied: The Lifo and TImes of Muddy Waters (New
York: Lirtle, Brown, 2002). Charles Shaar Murray evaluates the most important re-
cent apostle of the blues ill Boogie Man: The Adventures ofJohn Lee Hooker in the
American Twentieth Century (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), while Ruth Brown,
with Andrew Yule, tells her own story in Miss Rhythm: An Autobiography ofRuth Brown,
Rhythm and Blues Legend (New York: Da Capo Press, 1999). John Collis, The Story of
Chess Records (New York: Bloomsbury, 1998), traces the connections between blues
and rock 'n' roll. Among Les Blank's many fine documentary films treating southern
culture and music, The Blues Accordin' to Lightin' Hopkins is especially telling.
All of the general histories of rock ' n' roll include information on Elvis Presley
and the other southern rockabillies. The most complete histories are Carl Belz, The
Story of Rock (New York: Oxford Universiry Press, 1969), and Charles Gillett, The
Sound ofthe City: The Rise ofRock 'n'Roll (New York: Dell, 1972). The most entertain-
ing book on the subject is the coffee table-sryle volume produced by Rolling Stone
magazine: Jim Miller, ed., The Rolling Stone Illustrated History ofRock and Roll (New
York: Random House, 1976). The important contributions made by New Orleans
musicians, mostly black, to rock 'n' roll are discussed in John Broven, Walking to New
Orleans: The Story ofNew Orleans Rhythm and Blues (Sussex, England: Blues Unlim-
ited, 1974). Shane K. Bernard tells the story of other Louisiana musicians in Swamp
Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues Oackson: Universiry Press of Mississippi,
1996).
Numerous scattered articles and a few books comment on individual rockabillies.
Among the best are Chet Flippo, "The Buddy Holly Story," Rolling Stone, 21 Septem-
ber 1978,49-51; Dennis E. Hensley's interview with Carl Perkins in Guitar Player,
March 1975, 18, 39-40; and Nick Tosches's biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire:
The Jerry Lee Lewis Story (New York: Delacorte, 1982). Lewis is one of the artists
considered in an interesting comparative study by Stephen R. Tucker, "Pentecostalism
and Popular Culture in the South: A Study of Four Musicians," Journal of Popular
Culture 16 (Winter 1982): 68-80. Collectively, many of the rockabillies are discussed
by Colin Escott and Martin Hawkins, Good Rockin' Tonight: Sun Records and the Birth
ofRock 'n'Roll (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991); Nick Tosches, "Rockabilly," in
The Illustrated History of Country Music, ed. Patrick Carr (New York: Country Music
Magazine Press, 1979); and John Pugh, "The Rise and Fall of Sun Records," Country
Music, November 1973, 26-32. But the best general surveys are Craig Morrison, Go
Cat Go! Rockabilly Music and Its Makers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996),
and Michael T. Benrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2000).
The literature on Elvis Presley is vast and proliferating. Peter Guralnick's two-
volume biography of Presley is one of the best studies ever written about any popular
musician: Last Train to Memphis: The Rise ofElvis Presley (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994)
and Careless Love: The Unmaking ofElvis Presley (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000). Jerry
Hopkins, Elvis: A Biography (New York: Warner Books, 1972), is still worth consult-
ing. A shorter interpretation makes up part of Greil Marcus, Mystery Train: Images of
America in Rock 'n'Roll (1975; reprint, New York: Penguin, 1997), a brilliant and
critically acclaimed attempt to say something about the flawed American promise
through the lives and careers of a few blues and rock 'ri roll entertainers. A side of Elvis
that was generally kept hidden from the public is presented in Red and Sonny West and
Dave Hebler, as told to Steve Dunleavy, Elvis, What Happened? (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1977). For a review of this and other Elvis-inspired material, see Mark Crispin
Miller, "The King," New l11rk &view ofBooks, 8 December 1977, 38-42.
Chapter 7. The 1960s and 1970s: Rock, Gospel, Soul
Aside from listening to the music, one can best comprehend modern rock culture by
reading the magazines devoted to the phenomenon. As Richard Robinson and Andy
Zwerling note in The Rock Scene (New York: Pyramid Books, 1971), where a long list
of English and American rock periodicals appears, rock music has been a graveyard
for magazines. Of those that endured for any length of time, Creem, Crawdaddy. and
Rolling Stone presented the widest coverage of music. Rolling Stone has also had pre-
tensions of being a journal of politics and ideas, and its lengthy essays and interviews
are not solely concerned with music. Many of its best articles have been anthologized
in The Rolling Stone Record Review and The Rolling Stone Rock 'n' Roll Reader. Another
excellent anthology of articles taken from a wide variety of publications is Jonathan
Eisen, ed., The Age of Rock: Sounds of the American Cultural Revolution (New York:
Random House, 1969).
Among the general histories or interpretations of rock, each of the three men-
tioned earlier by Belz, Gillett, and Marcus has information that helps to illuminate
rock '0 roll's evolution to rock, as do Robert Palmer, Rock & Roll: An Unruly History
(New York: Harmony Books, 1995); Richard Meltzer, The Aesthetics of Rock (New
York: Something Else Press, 1970); Stephanie Spinner, Rock is Beautifol: An Anthology
ofAmerican Lyrics, 1953-1968 (New York: Dell, 1970); and Stewart Goldstein and
Alan Jacobson, Oldies But Goodies: The Rock 17' Roll ~an (New York: Mason/Charter,
1977). None of these books has much to say about the Macon Sound or the southern
rockers of the 1970s. Janis Joplin, however, has inspired at least three or four books,
the best being Myra Friedman's Buried Alive (New York: Morrow, 1973).
Tony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound, is the best general reference for postwar black
gospel music, but Alan Young contributed a wealth of information about other sing-
ers who sang outside the national limelight: WOke Me Up This Morning: Black Gospel
Singm and the Gospel Life Oackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997). James
Goff presents the best survey of the white gospel scene, but no one should overlook
William C. Marrin's winy and provocative assessment of white gospel music in the
early 1970s: "At the Corner of Glory Avenue and Hallelujah Street," Harper's, January
1972, 95-99. Biographies and autobiographies of any gospel singers are scarce, but
something can be learned about Mahalia Jackson in Jules Schwerin, Got To Tell It:
Mahalia jackson, Queen ofGospel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Laurraine
Goreau, just Mahalia Baby (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1975); or in Mahalia's autobi-
ography, Movin' On Up (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1966). James Blackwood has
told his own story, with the assistance of Dan Martin, in The james Blackwood Story
(Monroeville, Pa.: Whitaker House, 1975), and has been the subject of a biography
by Kree Jack Racine: Above All: The Blackwood Brothm Quartet (Memphis: Jarodoce
Publications, 1967). Another useful autobiography is John Daniel Sumner, Gospel
Music Is My Life (Nashville: Impact Books, 1971).
The commercial burgeoning of soul music in the mid-I960s, along with the
emergence of the Black Power movement, provoked extensive media coverage and
popular writing. Along with the material carried in such major music publications as
Billboard, Cashbox, Melody Maker, and Rolling Stone, one can find an extensive num-
ber of articles and a few biographies such as Michael Lydon, Ray Charles: Man and
Music (New York: Riverhead Books, 1998), on soul entertainers in the popular press.
James Brown, for example, received lengthy treatment in Time, 1 April 1966; Newsweek,
1 July 1968; and Look, 18 February 1969.
Books discussing soul music exclusively or in part include Ian Hoare, The Soul
Book (New York: Dell, 1975); David Morse, Motown and the Arrival ofBlack Music
(London: Studio Vista, 1971); Phyl Garland, The Sound of Soul (Chicago: Regnery,
1969); Arnold Shaw's two books, The WOrld of Soul and Honkm and Shoutm; and
Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream ofFree-
dom (New York: Harper Perennial, 1986).
Chapter 8. The National Resurgence of Country Music
Country music's commercial resurgence in the 1960s and '70s was the context for a
rash of publications, both scholarly and popular. The joint role played by the Grand
Ole Opry and its owner, the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, in
promoting Nashville's growth as a music center is discussed by Richard A. Peterson in
"Single-Industry Firm to Conglomerate Synergistics: Alternative Strategies for Selling
Insurance and Country Music," in James Blumstein and Benjamin Walter, eds., Growing
Metropolis: Aspects ofDevelopment in Nashville (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press,
1975), 341-57.
Country music's identification with conservative politics was another factor
that promoted media, journalistic, and scholarly interest. Florence King, in "Red Necks,
White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Fear," Harper's, July 1974, 30-34, and Richard
Goldstein, "My Country Music Problem-and Yours," Mademoiselle, June 1973, 114-
15, 185, saw only ominous implications in country music's burgeoning popularity.
On the other hand, Paul DiMaggio, Richard A. Peterson, and Jack Esco Jr. presented
a more balanced picture of the music's political stance in "Country Music: Ballad of
the Silent Majority," in R Serge Denisoff and Richard A. Peterson, eds., The Sounds of
Social Change (Chicago: Rand McNally; 1972),38-55.
In the multitude of magazine articles that accompanied country music's suc-
cess, wtiters generally treated the art form seriously and with little of the sarcasm or
condescension it had formerly received. Seldom does one encounter a title such as
"Thar's Gold in Them Thar Hillbillies." Among the better magazine issues dealing
with country music are Newsweek, 18 June 1973; TIme, 5 May 1974; and Newsweek,
14 August 1978.
Such country entertainers as Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Eddy Arnold, Glen
Campbell, and Dolly Parton have received book-length treatment, but the best is
Loretta Lynn's autobiography, written with the aid of George Vecsey, Coal Miner's
Daughter (New York: Warner Books, 1976). A movie based on the book and starring
Cissy Spacek was released in 1980 to generally favorable reviews.
Several good general histories or interpretations of country music have appeared
since the 1970s. Inspired by the rising political conservatism of that decade, Paul
Hemphill wrote a widely known book that stressed the music's working-folks' image
in The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1970). The wide-ranging cultural critic Nick Tosches contributed a book at the end of
that decade that has stood the test of time: Country: The Biggest Music in America
(New York: Stein and Day, 1977). Jack Hurst, Nashville's Grand Ole Opry (New York:
Abrams, 1975), is a lavishly illustrated, coffee table treatment of that institution.
Dorothy Horstman, Sing lOur Heart Out, Country Boy, 3d ed. (Nashville: Country
Music Foundation Press, 1996), is the most unusual, and in many ways one of the
best books on country music. It is a collection of songs arranged by category-songs
of home, prison songs, cowboy songs, etc.-and introduced by commentary, often by
the composers themselves, about why each song was written.
A few short articles and reviews in the rock journals assessed the careers of
Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers, but the only extended essay is that by
Judson Klinger and Greg Mitchell: "Gram Finale," Crawdaddy. October 1976,43-
58. Ben Fong-Torres, however, has written a good biography of the star-crossed coun-
try rock pioneer, Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons, rev. ed. (New
York: Pocket Books, 1998). The fullest discussion of Austin music is Jan Reid, The
Improbable Rise ofRedneck Rock (Austin: Heidelberg Publishers, 1974). Michael Bane
also discusses some of the Austin country singers in The OutlAws (New York: Country
Music Magazine Press, 1978).
The urban folk revival is documented in the various magazines that promoted
the phenomenon, most notably Sing Out, Broadside, and Little Sandy Review, and in
the liner notes that accompanied the recordings. Oscar Brand, The Ballad Mongers:
Rise ofthe Modern Folk Song (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1962), is a good over-
view of the subject, while R. Serge Denisoff provides analyses of the movement's left-
wing origins and contemporary significance in Great Day Coming: Folk Music and the
American Left (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971). The best history and inter-
pretation of the revival is Robert Cantwell's excellent cultural study, When we were
Good: The Folk Revival (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1996). Neil
Rosenberg reminds readers that folk revivals have been recurrent in the United States,
in Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined (Urbana: University of Illi-
nois Press, 1993). Peter D. Goldsmith examines the role played by one enterprising
folk music entrepreneur: Making People's Music: Moe Asch and Folkways Records (Wash-
ington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998).
Bluegrass has inspired several good articles and books. Alan Lomax did much
to make the music intellectually respectable with "Bluegrass Background: Folk Music
with Overdrive," Esquire, October 1959, 103-9. But L. Mayne Smith, "An Introduc-
tion to Bluegrass," Journal ofAmerican Folklore 78 Guly-September 1965): 245-56;
and Neil V. Rosenberg, "From Sound to Style: The Emergence of Bluegrass," Journal
ofAmerican Folklore 80 (April-June 1967): 143-50, were the first scholarly accounts.
Bob Artis wrote a good but now outdated history, Bluegrass (New York: Hawthorn
Books, 1975), that has been surpassed by Robert Cantwell's interpretive study, Blue-
grass Breakdown: The Making ofthe Old Southern Sound (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1984); Tom Piazza, True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin
(Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1999); Neil Rosenberg's comprehensive sur-
vey, Bluegrass: A History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press); Richard D. Smith's
balanced biography, Can't lOu Hear Me Callin': The Life ofBill Monroe, Father ofBlue-
grass (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000); John Wright, Traveling the High mzy Home: Ralph
Stanley and the World of Traditional Bluegrass Music (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1993); and Tom Ewing, The Bill Monroe Reader (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2001).
Chapter 9. A Future in the Past
To understand the enduring American fascination with the South, and the ways in
which the region continues to affect the tone and quality of national life, the reader
might begin with John Egerton, The Americanization ofDixie: The Southernization of
America (New York: Harper's Magazine Press, 1974); Dan T. Carter, The Politics of
Rage: George mzllace, The Origins ofthe New Conservatism, and the Transformation of
American Politics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995); Jack Temple Kirby, The
Countercultural South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995); and Peter

Applebome, Dixie Rising: How the South is Shaping American Mllues, Politics, and Cul-
ture (New York: Times Books, 1996).
The Internet has enhanced the availability of information on current southern-
born and southern-oriented musicians. Virtually every musician has an "official" website
or one that is maintained by dedicated fans. Such journals as Rolling Stone, Downbeat,
Blues Unlimited, Country Music magazine, Old-Time Herald, Journal of Country Music,
Bluegrass Unlimited, and No Depression chronicle the activities of most musicians and
singers who have any kind of relationship to southern culture, either real or imagined.
Students and fans of Cajun music should consult anything written by Barry
Jean Ancelet, especially Musiciens cadiens et Creoles/The Makers of Cajun Music (Aus-
tin: University of Texas Press, 1984). The music made by French-speaking "Creoles"
in Louisiana has been competendy described by Ben Sandmel, with photographs by
Rick Olivier, Zydeco Uackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999), and by Michael
Tisserand, The Kingdom ofZydeco (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1998).
The best general account of the contemporary New Orleans musical scene is
Jason Berry, Jonathan Foose, and Tad Jones, Up From the Cradle ofJazz: New Orleans
Music Since World ~r II (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986). Much can also
be learned from JeffHannusch, I Hear ~u Knockin': The Sound ofNew Orleans Rhythm
and Blues (Ville Platte, La.: 1985). The biweekly magazine, ~velength, published in
New Orleans, has surveyed local music events and people since 1980. The city's best-
known recent musical product, Wynton Marsalis, has written two books, Sweet Swing
Blues on the Road (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998) and Jazz in the Bitter-
sweet Blues of Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2001). He was also featured
prominendy in Ken Burns's television documentary about jazz, and in the book that
accompanied the series, Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, Jazz: A History ofAmerica's
Music (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000).
The entire realm of African-American music in the contemporary United States
is described and evaluated by Craig Werner, A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race and
the Soul ofAmerica (New York: Plume, 1999). Kevin K Gaines, Uplifting the Race:
Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: Univer-
sity of North Carolina Press, 1996), focuses on the role of music, among other an
forms, in the evolution of racial politics in the U.S.
Tejano and other varieties of music produced by Spanish-speaking southerners
are discussed by Ramiro Burr, The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican
Music (New York: Billboard Books, 1999). Manuel Pefia, however, is the leading scholar
ofTex-Mex styles. His books include Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History ofa Working-
Class Music (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985); Mexican American Orquesta:
Music, Culture, and the Dialectic of Conflict (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999);
and Musica Tejana: The Cultural Economy ofArtistic Transformation (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 1999). Much can be learned about the early recording
ofTejano performers in Chris Strachwitz with James Nicolopulos, Lydia Mendoza: A
Family Autobiography (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1993), and Yolonda Broyles-
Gonzalez, Lydia Mendoza's Life in Music/La Histona de Lydia Mendoza {New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001). The burgeoning of this musical industry can be dis-
cerned in the life story of its first superstar by Joe Nick Patoski, Selena: Como La Flor
(New York: Little, Brown, 1996). See also Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., Tex-Mex Music
in the Twentieth Century (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002).
The best guides to contemporary country music include Paul Kingsbury, ed.,
The Encyclopedia o/Country Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Nicholas
Dawidoff, In the Country 0/ Country: People and Places in American Lifo (New York:
Pantheon Books, 1997); Bruce Feiler, Dreaming Out Loud: Garth Brooks, WJnonna
Judd, Wade Hayes and the Changing Face o/Nashville (New York: Avon Books, 1998);
Cunis W. Ellison, Country Music Culture: From Hard Ttmes to Heaven Oackson: Uni-
versity Press of Mississippi, 1995); Mary A. Bufwack and Roben K. Oermann, Find-
ing Her WJice: The Saga ofWomen in Country Music (New York: Crown, 1993); Laurence
Leamer, Three Chords and the Truth: Hope, Heartbreak, and Changing Fortunes in Nash-
ville (New York: HarperCollins, 1997); Melton A. Mclaurin and Richard A. Peterson,
eds., You Wrote My Lifo: Themes in Country Music (Philadelphia: Gordon and Breach,
1992); Cecelia Tichi, High Lonesome: The American Culture o/Country Music (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); and James C. Cobb, "Rednecks,
White Socks, and Pina Coladas? Country Music Ain't What It Used to Be...And It
Really Never Was," Southern Cultures, Winter 1999,41-48.
The broad and largely undefinable world of "alternative country" music is the
subject of David Goodman, Modern Twang: An Alternative Country Music Guide and
Directory (Nashville: Dowling Press, 1999), and the wonderful and all-inclusive jour-
nal, No Depression, edited by Grant Alden and Peter Blackstock and published in
Seattle. The best of the alternative musicians, along with a wide array of other stylists,
can be seen and heard on the widely syndicated television show Austin City Limits. Its
story has been told by Clifford Endres, Austin City Limits (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1987), and John T. Davis, Austin City Limits: 25 ~ar.s 0/American Music (New
York: Billboard Books, 2000). A story that needs to be told is that of the rise and
transformation of what began in 1983 as The Nashville Network. Its popularity as a
cable 1V purveyor of mainstream country music, some mild variants of it, and gen-
eral programming intended to appeal to southern audiences, its acquisition by MlV
and move to New York in 2000, and reorientation as The National Network reflect in
many ways the themes of this book.
SUGGESTED LISTENING
The following list of suggested recordings is confined to anthologies of original re-

cordings. A listing of recordings by individual artists would get out of hand very
quickly, as would a list of revival albums and boxed sets, though a few bear mention.
The soundtrack from the film 0 Brother, Where Art Thou? helped bring southern
music---especially bluegrass, blues, and gospel-to a wide audience. Director Joel
Coen called the film a "valentine" to southern music. Produced by T-Bone Burnett,
the soundtrack was released by Mercury Records/UMG Recordings. Another inter-
esting companion soundtrack-which some reviewers have nicknamed "0 Sister,
Where Art Thou?"-is Songcatcher, based on the loose film ponrayal of Olive Dame
Campbell's and Cecil Sharp's forays into the collecting of Appalachian music, musical
direction by David Mansfield, CD issued by Vanguard. A number of record labels
associated with southern or southern-derived music have produced or inspired their
own boxed sets, such as Chess Blues, Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-1974 (Uni/Chess
Records), the CompleteStax-WlltSingles 1959-1968 (WealAtlantic), and the Sun Records
Collection (WealRhino). Many southern musicians and genres, even labels, have been
honored with tribute albums featuring covers of original songs. Many of these are
interesting reinterpretations of southern music. We hope, however, that interested
listeners will be moved to search out the groups and solo acts that appear on the
anthologies listed below.
Notices and reviews of CDs made by individual performers can be found on
Amazon.com and other internet websites or in Billboard magazine, Downbeat, Oid
Time Herald, No Depression, and other music journals. One of the most interesting,
and often quirky, sources of vintage and recent recorded southern music is the annual
Southern Sampler CD made available by the Oxford American magazine from Oxford,
Mississippi. The best outlets for old-time music of varying descriptions are County
Sales in Floyd, Virginia, Old Homestead Records in Brighton, Michigan, and Down
Home Records in EI Cerrito, California, each of which has a website. Additionally,
the Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Center sells individual recordings
to the public from its collection that began with a donation of four hundred discs by
Victor Records in 1926.
Our intention has been to list only those collections that are on CD and still in
print, but given the evanescence of contemporary recordings, we cannot guarantee
that the material will still be available when the revised edition of this book appears.
We wish to thank Ben Sandmel, Ramiro Burr, Charles Chamberlain, and Gene Hyde
for their suggestions.
218 Suggested Listening
1. Sounds ofthe South: A Musical Journey .from the Georgia Sea Islands to the Mississippi
Delta. Four compact discs featuring 105 performances found originally on seven
LPs. Recorded in the field in 1959 and 1960 by Alan Lomax. Forty-page booklet.
2. Anthology ofAmerican Folk Music. Smithsonian Folkways. Edited by Harry Smith.
Eighty-four selections on six compact discs. Originally recorded on LPs in 1952.
3. Crossroads: Southern Routes, Music ofthe American South. Smithsonian Folkways. A
CD-ROM with sixteen songs sampling music from the blues, southern rock,
New Orleans brass band, Cajun, gospel, R&B, Tex-Mex, and country traditions,
maps, interview excerpts, and other features about southern music and culture.
4. Classic Country Music. Smithsonian Recordings. Four CDs of music extending
from the 1920s through the 1980s, organized and edited by Bill Malone.
5. Roots 'n' Blues: The Retrospective, 1925-1950. Columbia/Legacy. 107 blues, hill-
billy, gospel, and western swing songs.
6. Appalachian Stomp: Bluegrass Classics. Rhino. An anthology of most of the leading
bluegrass bands.
7. Appalachian Stomp: More Bluegrass Favorites. Rhino. Similar to the above.
8. White Country Blues, 1926-1938: A Lighter Shade ofBlue. Columbia/Legacy. Forty-
eight songs on two CDs.
9. Back in the Saddle Again: American Cowboy Songs. New World Records. Twenty-
eight songs on two CDs.
10. OKeh western Swing. CBS Records. Twenty-eight songs on one CD, featuring the
Texas Playboys as well as some of the influential but less well-known bands.
11. Altamont: Black Stringband Music from the Library of Congress. Rounder. A re-
minder of how much African Americans contributed to a style usually thought
tobe the province only of southern whites.
12. From Where I Stand: The Black Experience in Country Music. Warner Brothers.
Three CDs produced through the auspices of the Country Music Foundation.
Also a surprise, especially for listeners who previously thought that the only
African-American forays into country music were made by Charlie Pride and,
occasionally, by Ray Charles.
13. Testify: The Gospel Box. Rhino. Fifty songs recorded by assorted Mrican-American
gospel singers from about 1935 to the 1990s.
14. How Can I Keep From Singing: Early American Rural Religious Music.from the
1920s and 1930s. Vols. 1 and 2. Yazoo.
15. The HalfAin't Never Been Told: Early American Rural Religious Music. Vols. 1 and
2. Yazoo.
16. Wade in the ~ter. Folkways. Four-CD set of African American religious music.
Edited by Bernice Johnson Reagon as a companion to the NPR television series.
17. Jubilation! Great Gospel Performances. Vol. 1, Black Gospel. Rhino.
Suggested Listening 219
18. Jubilation! Great Gospel Performances. Vol. 3, Country Gospel. Rhino.

19. Yonder Comes the Blues. Document. Mrican-Arnerican blues anthology.
20. Country Blues. Document. Two discs.
21. Sony Music 100 ~ar.r: Soundtrack for a Century. Twenty-six CDs of songs recorded
during the twentieth century, mostly on Columbia and subsidiaries. Jazz, pop,
rock '0 roll, country, blues. Accompanied by a huge book written by various
experts. Obviously, not all of the included performers are southerners.
22. A Treasury ofLibrary ofCongress Field Recordin!}. Rounder. Thirty songs recorded
between 1934 and 1946.
23. The Alan Lomax Collection Sampler. Rounder. Thirty-eight recordings from around
the world, along with a Seventy-two-page booklet.
24. Rounder has also issued several CDs, collectively called Southern Journey, which
sample Lomax's enormous cache of field recordings.
25. Tejano Picante: Tex-Mex Classics. Rhino. Eighteen-song sampler of such perform-
ers as Flaco Jimenez, Steve Jordan, Little Joe, Mazz, La Mafia, and Ruben Ramos.
26. Tex-Mex Fiesta. Ace. Anthology from Arhoolie vaults. Twenty-two songs by Flaco
Jimenez, Lydia Mendoza, Santiago Jimenez, Narciso Martinez, and others.
27. Taquachito Nights: Conjunto Music from South Texas. Smithsonian/Folkways.
28. Conjunto: Tex-Mexican Border Music. Vol. 3. Rounder.
29. Cajun Classics: The Kin!} ofCajun. Ace. Twenty-four songs by Dewey Balfa, Nathan
Abshire, Belton Richard, Doc Guidry, Vin Bruce, and others.
30. Cajun: Abbeville Breakdown, 1929-39. Sony/Columbia.
31. Cajun and Creole Music: The Lomax Recordings. Vols. 1 and 2. Rounder.
32. Jai Ete Au Bal (I Went to the Dance). Vols. 1 and 2. Arhoolie. Cajun and Zydeco.
33. Le Gran Mamou: A Cajun Music Anthology. Vol. 1; Raise Your Window: A Cajun
Music Anthology, vol. 2; Gran Prairie: A Cajun Music Anthology, vol. 3. Country
Music Foundation.
34. Music from the Zydeco Kingdom. Rounder. Companion CD to the book Kingdom
ofZydeco, recorded in 2000.
35. 15 Louisiana Zydeco Classics. Arhoolie.
36. Crescent City Soul EMI. Four CDs. Rhythm and blues from New Orleans.
37. From Spirituals to Swing. 3 voIs. Vanguard. Produced by John Hammond.
38. Creole Kin!} ofNew Orleans. Specialty. Rhythm and Blues.
39. New Orleans Jazz. Arhoolie.
40. Jazz the World Forgot. VoIs. 1 and 2. Yazoo.
41. Jazz: The Story ofAmerica's Music. Sony/Columbia. Ninety-four songs on five
CDs. Companion to the Ken Burns film.
220 Suggested Listening
42. Visiom ofJazz: A Musical Journey. Blue Note. Thirty-eight songs on two CDs.
Selected and annotated by jazz scholar Gary Giddins.
43. From Swing to Bebop. Jazz History. 762 songs on ten CDs.
44. Vocalists and Jazz. Jazz History. Ten CDs.
45. Swing Time! 1925-1955. Legacy. Sixty-six songs on three CDs.
46. Columbia Jazz Masterpieces. Series depicting the music by decades.
INDEX
Aberbach, Julian, 92 Anderson, Marian, 28

accordion, 61, 156 Animals, the. 100, 108
"Achy Breaky Hem,» 170 "Annie Had a Baby." 10 1
Acuff-Rose, 93 Anthology ofAmerican Folk Music, 146, 178
Acuff, Roy, 74, 94-95, 96, 147 Apollo Records. 99
Aeolian Hall, 55 Appalachian romanticism, ix-x. 30-38. 150
Mrican roots of southern music, 3, 5-6,7, Ardoin, Amade, 62
10,21 Arhoolie Records, 92. 157
''Ain't That a Shame," 101 Aristocrat Records, 99
"Alabama," 110 "Arkansas Traveler," 11
Alabama (musical group), 168 Armadillo World Headquarters (Austin).
Aladdin Records, 99 138. 140
Alan Fontenot's Club (Metairie, La.), 159 Armstrong, Daniel Louis. 49. 53. 55, 56
Alexander, Alger "Texas," 44, 50 Armstrong. Lil Hardin. 56
"Alexander's Ragtime Band," 41 Arnold, Eddy. 94. 95. 131
Alka-Seltzer, 74 Arnold, Jimmie, 162-63
"All Coons Look Alike to Me," 41 Arrested Development. 174
Allen, Rex, 87 Ashley, Clarence, 146
Allman Brothers Band, rhe. 112, 114, 115 Ashlock. Jesse. 85
Allman, Duane, 112, 170 Askew, Reubin. III
Allman, Gregg, 112 Asleep at the Wheel, 153, 164. 169, 178
"Allons a Lafayette." 61 Atkins, Chet, 130-131
alternative country music, 162-63, 172-73 Atlanta Rhythm Section, the, 113
Alvin Crow and His Pleasant Valley Boys. Austin City Limits. 153, 156. 163
153 Austin (Texas), musical influences, 140-42,
"Amazing Grace," 7 153
Amazing Rhythm Aces, the, 113 Autry. Gene, 87, 102
"America Is My Home," 127 "Away Down upon the Old Plantation," 26
American Banjo Scruggs Style, 148 Axton, Estelle. 125
American Federation of Musicians, 93
American Folklore Society, 29 Baez. Joan, 33, 81. 159. 178
American Mountain Songs, (Richardson), 32 "Baggage Coach Ahead," 24
American Society of Composers, Authors, Bailey. DeFord. 13
and Publishers, 93 Baker, Lavern. 101
American Songbag, The, (Sandburg), 33 Balfa Brothers, rhe. 146. 160
"Amor Prohibido," 158 Balfa, Christine. 160
Ancelet, Barry Jean, 159, 160 Balfa, Dewey, 159, 160
Anderson, John, 169 Balfa Toujours. 160
222 Index
"Ballad of the Easy Rider," 154 Blake, Norman, x, 146

balladry, 6-7, 14,29-38,60, 6-Wi5 Bland, Bobby Blue, 101
Ballard, Hank, 101 Bland, James, 24, 25
Ball, Marcia, 102, 141, 161 "The Blind Child," 24
"Bamboula," 18 Bliss, P.P., 2
"Le Bananier," 18 "The Blood That Stained the Old Rugged
Bandy, Moe, 152 Cross," 118
banjo, 2, 10-11, 25, 147--48, 182n. 10 "Blueberry Hill," 102
"The Banjo," 18 Bluebird Records, 71
Baraka, Amiri, 127 "Blue Eyed Elaine," 95
"Barbara, Allen," 32 bluegrass, 25, 129, 147--49, 170-71, 177
Bare, Bobby, 138 Blue Grass Boys, the, 147
barn dances (radio), 58-59, 64 bluegrass festivals, 149-50
Barnum, Phineas T., 16 "Blue Moon of Kentucky," 103
Bartlen, Eugene, 69 blues, 41-51, 56-57, 74-76, 98-102, 146
Basie, Count, 75 "Blue Suede Shoes," 104
Batiste family, 161 "Bob Wills Is Still the King," 189n. 14
Baxter, Gordon, 130 Bob Wills's Original Texas Playboys, 153
Baxter, J.R., 69 "Bob Wills Special," 187n. 10
"Beans and Cornbread," 101 Boggs, Dock, 146
Beatles, the, 100, 105, 108, II 0, 115 Bolden, Charles "Buddy," 52-53
Beausoleil, 159, 160 Bond, Johnny, 87 .
bebop, 75 BookerT. and the MGs, 125
Bechet, Sidney, 55 Boone, Pat, 102
"Behind Closed Doors," 139 "Born to Lose," 91
Beneke, Gordon "Tex," 3, 82 "Borrowed Angel," 152
Bennett, Tony, 96 Bottle Rockers, the, 173
Benson, Ray, 162, 164 Bradford, Alex, 119
Berry, Chuck, 96, 102, 108 Bradford, Perry, 44, 46, 47
"Bidi Bidi Born Born," 158 Bradley, Dale, 171
Big Easy, The, 159 Brando, Marlon, 98
Big Sandy and the Fly-Right Boys, 172 Brasfield, Rod, 26, 95
Bijou Theatre (Nashville), 48 BR5--49, 172
Bikel. Theodore, 33 "Breadline Blues," 80
Billboard, 88 Brinkley, J.R., 73
"The Birmingham Jail," 31, 36 British invasion, 108-9, 116
''A Bit of Soul," 125 British roots of southern music, 3, 5, 7, II,
Black, Bill, 103 30-32,33-34,35,6-Wi5
"Black, Brown, and White," 80 Broadcast Music Inc., 93
Blackmer's (New Orleans), 2 Brock, Dwight, 69, 78
"Black Mountain Rag," 147 Brockway, Howard, 32
Black Swan, 47 Broken Spoke (Austin), 141
Blackwell, Scrapper, 75 Brooks, Garth, 170
Blackwood Brothers, the, 121-122 Broonzy, Big Bill, 80
Blackwood, James, 121 Brown, Clarence "Gatemouth," 12
Blackwood, R.W, 122 Browne, Cooder, 153
Blake, Eubie, 41, 185n. 3 Brown, H. Rap., 127
Index 223
Brown, James, 76, 126-28 "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," 24

Brownlow, Archie, 76 Carson, Fiddling John, 63
Brown, Marty, 169, 172 Carson, Martha, 120
Brown, Milton, 83, 84, 153, 187n. 10 Carter, Anna, 78, 117
Brown, Roy, 10 1 Carter, A.P., 66
Brown, Ruth, 101 Carter, Carlene, 187
Brown's Dixieland Jass Band, 54 Carter, D.P., 78
Brownskin Band, 53 Carter Family, the, 65-66, 73
Brown, Tom, 54 Carter Fold, 187n. 10
Brumley, Albert, 9, 79, 82 Carter, Jim, 78
Bruner, Cliff, 85, 86 Carter, Jimmy, 111-12, 113, 155
"Bruno Richard Hauptmann," 65 Carter, Maybelle, 66, 97, 147
Brunswick Records, 47 Carter, Rose, 78
Buchanan, Annabel Morris, 36 Carter, Sara, 66
Buckle Busters, the, 25 Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, 165
Buckwheat Zydeco, 159, 160 Cash,Johnn~66, 120, 138, 142, 143
Buena Vista Social Club, 157 Cash, Roseanne, 167, 187n. 10
Buffalo Springfield, 144 Cathedral Quartet, the, 122
Bull, Ole, 13, 16 "Celtic thesis," 183n. 14
Bumpers, Dale, III Cetera, Peter, 174
Burleigh, Harry, 28 Charioteers, the, 76
Burnett, T-Bone, x Charles, Ray, 76, 124-25, 128
Burrus Mill and Elevator Co., 83 Charlie Daniels Band, the, 112, 113, 115
"Bury Me beneath the Willow," 34 Charters, Samuel, 146
Bush, George H.W., 155 Chavez, Cesar, 166
Bush, Johnny, 151 Chavis, Boo Zoo, 160
Byrds, 110, 143, 144 Chenier, Cleveland, 160
Chenier, Clifton, 62, 160
"Cabin in the Valley of the Pines," 79 Chess Records, 99
Caesar, Shirley, 118, 120, 174 "Chestnut Mare," 144
Cage, Butch, 12 Chicago Defender, 47
Cain's Academy of Dancing (Tulsa), 84 Child, Francis James, 29, 31, 32; ballads,
Cajun music, 61-63, 85-86, 146, 159-60 32,34
"Caldonia," 101 Childre, Lew, 26
Caldwell, Toy, 114 Choates, Harry, 62
Callahan Brothers, the, 73 "Choo, Choo Ch'Boogie," 101
Campbell, Glen, 131 Choral-Music, 9
Campbell, John c., 31 Christian, Charlie, 57, 75, 98-99
Campbell, Luther, 174 Chuck Wagon Gang, the, 73, 78, 116-17
Campbell, Olive Dame, 31 Chu/as Fronteras, 60
"Camptown Races," 18 Civil War, 2
Canales, Laura, 158 Clapton, Eric, 162, 164
Cannon's Jug Stompers, 50 Clara Ward Singers, the, 119
Capricorn Records, 112 Clark, Roy, 26
Carpenter, Mary Chapin, 165, 166-67 Clements, Vassar, 147
Carpetbaggers, the, 172 Cleveland, James, 120
Carr, Leroy, 51, 75 Cliburn, Van, 3
224 Index
Clifton, Bill, 149 "Crazy Blues," 47-48, 59

Cline, Patsy, 97, 135, 141 Crazy Hillbillies, the, 74
Clooney, Rosemary, 96, 97 Crazy Mountaineers, the, 74
"Close Every Honky Tonk," 152 Crazy Water Crystals, 73-74
Clovers, the, 10 1 Cream, 108
Coal Minn-s Daughtn-, 135 Creech, "Papa" John, 12
Cold Mountain (Frazier), 162 Creedence Clearwater Revival, 110
Cole, Bob, 46 Creole Jazz Band, the, 55
Cole, Nat "King," 57, 88, 124 Crickets, the, 106
Coleman County Cowboys, the, 153 Crosby, Bing, 88
Collins, Floyd, 65 Crosby, David, 144
Collins, Judy, 33 Crosby, Fanny, 2
Collins, Sam, 43 Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young), 144, 145
Columbia Records, 46, 47, 93 Crossing, The, 162
"Come Sundown," 138 Crouch, Andrae, 119
Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Crudup, Arthur "Big Boy," 103
Airmen, 140 Crump, Edward Hull "Boss," 45
"Como La Flor," 158 Cullom, Jim, 173
Congo Square (New Orleans), 18 Cyrus, Billy Ray, 170
Conlee, John 152
Consolers, the, 117, 118 Dacus, William E. "Smoky," 85
Contemporary Christian music, 174, 175 "Daddy and Home," 67
"Conversation with Death," x, 118 Daddy Stovepipe, 49-50
Cooder, Ry, 157, 162 DaH"an, Ted, 83, 86
Cooke,Sam,76,120 Daigrepont, Bruce, 160
coon songs, 41, 46 Dallas, musical associations, 50
Copas, Uoyd "Cowboy," 95 "Dance with Me, Henry," 96
Copland, Aaron, 35 dancing, 7, 10, 11-12, 14-15,21,26,39-
CorritWs, 60 40,52,58,61,64,75,82,83,85,86,
"Cotton Mill Colic," 80 109, 170
country blues, 49-50,51, 146 Daniels, Charlie, 113, 114, 11 5, 154
Country Gentlemen, the, 149 Dara,Olu, 174, 178
country music, 94-97, 125, 129-54, 162- Darbone, Luderin, 86, 160
63, 166-70, 171-73; political and Davis, Gussie, 24
patriotic associations, 132-35, 137-38. Davis, Jimmie, 87, 88, 117, 120
&~ also hillbilly music Davis, Mac, 131
Country Music Association, 129, 130, 169 Davis, Quint, 102
Country Music Hall of Fame, 94 Dean, Eddie, 87
Country Music Television, 168 Dean, James, 98
country rock, 142--44, 145 Dearborn Independent, 55
cowboy and western imagery, 29-30, 82, "The Death of Floyd Collins," 65
86-87, 115-16, 140, 141, 153 Decca Records, 71, 93
CowbflJ Songs and Othn- Fronti~r Bali4ds Del Abe Cafe (Chicago), 34
(Lomax) 29-30 Deluxe Records, 99
Crary, Dan, 146 DeMent, Iris, 164-66, 172
"Crazy," 141 Derailers, the, 172
Crazy Barn Dance, 74 Dett, Nathaniel, 28
Index 225
Dexter, AI, 86 "Eighth of January," 11

Diana Ross and the Supremes, 123 81 Theatre (Atlanta), 48
Dickens, Hazel, 81, 82, 164, 172 Eiland, EO., 69
"Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby," x "E1 Paso," 87
Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, the, 59 "E1 Rancho Grande," 83
Dirty Dozen, the, 164 "Elvira," 121
"Dixie," 20, 23 Ely, Joe, 172
Dixie Chicks, the, 167 Emmett, Dan, 2, 20, 22, 23
Dixie Hummingbirds, the, 76, 120 Emmons, Buddy, 151
Dixieland Jass Band, the. See The Original English and Scottish PopulAr BaIJads (Child), 32
Dixieland Jazz Band English Dancing Master, The, (Playford), 15
"Dixieland Jazz Band One-Step," 54 English Folk Songs from the Southern
Dodds, Johnny, 55, 56 Appalachians (Sharp and Campbell), 31
Dodds, Warren "Baby," 53 "The Entettainer," 40
Dohon, Edwin, 160 Escovedo, Alejandro, 171
Domino, Antoine "Fats," 76, 96, 101-2, 106 Estevan, Gloria, 156
"Don't Anyone Make Love at Home event songs, 65
Anymore?" 152 Everly Brothers, the, 105, 144
"Don't Be a Drop-Out," 127
"Don't Drive Your Mother Away," 118 "Faded Love," 85
Dopsie, Rockin', 160 Fairfield Four, the, 76, 117
Dorsey. Thomas "Georgia Tom," 9,75,77, 118 Faith, Percy, 119
Dorsey, Tommy and Jimmy, 82 Falcon, Cleoma Breaux, 61
"Down Hearted Blues," 48 Falcon, Joseph, 61
Down Home Music, 92 Farrar, Jay, 173
"Down Yonder," 147 "Farther Along," 70, 118
Drake, Pete, 151 "The Fatal Wedding," 64
"Dreaming of a Little Cabin," 79 "The Fate of Edward Hickman," 65
Dr. John, 161 "Father, Dear Father," 23
Duarte, Chris, 171 Federated Women's Music Clubs of
Duke Records, 99 America, 36
Dukes, West, 45 Fender, Freddy (Huerta, Baldemer), 61,
dulcimer, 184n. 19 135, 156, 157
Duncan, Tommy, 85, 189n. 14 Fender guitars, 99
Dunn, Bob, 83, 85 Festivals Acadiens (Lafayette, La.), 160
Durang, John, 15 fiddle, 11-13,61,62,82,83,85, 151, 163
"Durang's Hornpipe," 15 "Fightin' Side of Me," 132-33
Durham, Eddie, 75 Fisk Jubilee Singers, the, 1,2-3,26-27,33
Dvocik,Anton, 22-23,28, 183n. 12 Fisk University (Tennessee), 27
Dyer-Bennett, Richard, 33 Fitzgerald, Ella, 57
"The Dying Girl's Message," 24 Five Blind Boys, the, 76, 120
Dylan, Bob, 33, 67, 81, 131, 143, 145 Flatt and Scruggs, 148
Flatt, Lester, 148
Eagles, the, 143, 145 Fleck, Bela, 171
Earle, Steve, 81, 165, 166, 172, 178 Flores, Rosie, 158
Easy Instructor. The, 8 Florida Boys, the, 121
Edwards, Don, 87, 169 Florida Playboys, the, 125
226 Index
Flying Burrito Brothers, the, 143 Gillespie, John Birks "Dizzy," 57

Fogerty, John, 162, 163-64 Gilley, Mickey, 105
Foley, Clyde Julian "Red," 74, 94-95, 120 Gilmore, Jimmie Dale, 166, 172
folk music, urban interpreters, 33, 35, 81, Gimble, Johnny, 85, 151
Ill, 132, 145-46, 148 "Girl from the Nonh Country," 143
Ford, Benny ("Duke of Paducah"), 26 "Give the World a Smile," 69
Ford, Henry, 39, 64 Glover, Tony, 178
Ford, "Tennessee" Ernie, 77, 120 "Go and Say Goodbye," 144
"Forever and Ever, Amen," 168 "Go Down, Moses," 26
"For the Good limes," 138 "Goin' Home," 28
"For What It's Worth," 144 Golden West Cowboys, 95
Foster, George "Pops," 53 "Goodbye EarI,"167
Foster, Stephen, 20, 22-23, 28 Goodman, Howard, 175
Four Ac.es, the, 85-86 Goodman, Vestal, 175
"Four Walls," 131 "Good Rocking Tonight," 101
Fox, John, Jr., 30 Gosdin, Vern, 169
Fox, Oscar, 32, 35 gospel music, 67-70, 75-80, 116--22, 123,
"Frankie and Johnny," 31 124-25, 174-75, 176
Franklin, Aretha, 76, 123-24, 128 Gospel Music Association, 121
Franklin, c.L., 124 Gospel Singers Convention, 77
Frazier, Dallas, 121 "Got My Own Thing Now," 173
Freakwater, 173 Gottschalk, Louis Moreau, 17-19,27
Freddie Slack and His Orchestra, 75 "Grandfather's Clock," 23
Frieda and the Firedogs, 141 Grand Ole Opry, 13, 25, 59, 74, 88, 94-95,
Frolic Theatre (Birmingham), 48 96, 103, 125, 131, 132, 147
Fromholz, Steve, 140-41 Grant, Amy, 174
From th~ New World (Dvocik), 28 Grass Is Blue, Th~, 171
Fruit Jar Drinkers, the, 25 Great American Country (cable network), 168
Frummox, 140-41 "The Great Speckled Bird," 94
Fulks, Robbie, 172 Green, AI, 120, 128
Funk, Joseph, 9, 68 Green, Lloyd, 151
"Funny How lime Slips Away," 141-42 "Green Onions," 125
Greenwood, Lee, 155
Gaither, Bill 174-75 Griffin, Bessie, 119
Garland, Jim, 80 Griffith, Nanci, 140, 141, 166, 172, 178
Gates, J.M., 124 Guillory, Queen Ida, 160
Gayle, Crystal, 135 Guion, David, 35
Geer, Will, 81 guitar, 10,42,43,72, 75, 85, 98-99, 102,
General Phonograph Co., 46 112, 146, 148, 151, 170
Gennett Records, 47, 55 Guthrie, Woodrow Wilson "Woody," 81,
Georgia Minstrels, the, 24 132, 145, 164
"Georgia on My Mind," 125 Guy, Buddy, 164
Gershwin, George, 55
Gibbons, Billy, 115 Hackberry Ramblers, the, 86, 160
Gibbs, Georgia, 96 Haggard, Merle, 67, 132-33, 144, 152-53,
Gibson, Orville, 10 154
Gill, Vince, 174 "Half as Much," 96
Index 227
Hall, J.R., 73 Hinojosa, TIsh, 141, 165, 172

Hall, Raymond E., 67 "Hobo Bill's Last Ride," 67
Ham, Bill, 115 Hofner, Adolph, 85
Hamblen, Stuart, 120 Hogan, Ernest, 41
Hampton Institute, 27 Hokum Boys, the, 75, 77
Hampton, Lionel, 75 "Hold That Woodpile Down," 25
Hancock, Wayne, 162, 172 Holly, Charles "Buddy," 105-6, 108
Handcox, John, 80 "Home on the Range," 35
Handy, William c., 25, 44--46, 49 "Honky Tonk Blues," 86
Haney, Carlton, 149 honky-tonk music, 86, 87, 95, 150-52
Haney's Big House (Ferriday, La.), 105 Hooker, John Lee, 98, 164
"Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life," 152 Hootie and the Blowfish, 171-72
Happy Goodman Family, the, 121 Hopkins, AI, 25, 63
Hargrove, Linda, 139 Hopkins, Lightnin', 50, 98
Harlan County. U.S.A., 82 Hot Five and Hot Seven, 56
"Harlem Blues," 47 "Houseful of Soul," 125
Harlem Frolics, 49 House, Son, 43
Harris, Emmylou, x, 135, 144, 165, 169 Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnen), 100
Harris, Rebert H., 76 Humbard, Rex, 122
Hartford Music Co., 69, 179 "Hunters of Kentucky," 15
"Have You Talked to the Man Upstairs," Hurt, Mississippi John, 7, 43, 146
122
Hawaiian guitar style, 10 "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow," ix, x
Hayes, Isaac, 125 "I'd Rather Have Jesus," 118
Hayes, Roland, 28 "I Feel Like a Woman," 168
Hays, Will S., 2, 23-24 "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again," 70
Hazeldine, 173 "If I Could Only Win Your Love," 144
Hearne, Bill and Bonnie, 140, 141 "If We Never Meet Again," 79
"Hee Haw," 26 "I Gotta God," 124
"Hell among the Yearlings," 11 "I Gotta Woman," 124
"He'll Have to Go," 131 "I Hate You," 152
"Hello Wall," 142 "I Just Started Hating Cheating Songs
Henderson, Fletcher, 49,56,57 Today," 152
Herbert, Victor, 93 "I'll Fly Away," x, 9, 79
Hernandez, Little Joe, 60 ''I'll Meet You in the Morning," 79
Hess, Jake, 120, 175 ''I'll Overcome Some Day," 77
"He Thinks He'll Keep Her," 166 "I'll Remember You, Love, in My Prayers,"
Hi-Flyers, the, 83 23
high-art music, 3, 13-14, 16-19,27,31, ''I'll Twine 'mid the Ringlets," 64
35-37,41,51 Imperial Orchestra, 53
Highwaymen, the, 142 "I'm Waiting for My Child to Come
Hill and Range Publishers, 92 Home," 118
Hillbillies, the, 63 Indigo Girls, the, 171
"Hillbilly Heart Throb" (radio program), 32 Ink Spots, the, 98
hillbilly music, 63-67, 71, 73-74, 86, 94, insurgent country, 173
129, 130, 146 "In the Good Old Days When TImes Were
Hillman, Chris, 143-44 Bad," 137
228 Index
"Is There Life Out There?" 167 "Jordan Am a Hard Road to Travel," 22, 23, 25
"It's Tight like That," 77 Jordan, Louis, 88, 101
"It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Journal ofAmmcan Folklore "hillbilly issue,"
Angels," 97 146
Ives, Burl, 33 jukeboxes, 92, 93
"I Wanna Grow Up to Be a Politician," 144 "Just Get Up and Close the Door," 139
Jackson, Alan, 169 KABF (Little Rock), 172

Jackson, Aunt Molly, 80, 81, 82, 145 Kahn, Si, 81, 178
Jackson, Mahalia, 77, 118-19 Karpeles, Maud, 31
Jackson, Papa Charlie, 50 Kazee, Buell, 146
Jackson, Tony, 53 "Keep On Smilin'," 113
Jackson, Wanda, 158 Kemp, Wayne, 152
James, Harry, 82 Kennedy, John F., 133, 145
James, Skip, 43 Kentucky Folk Songs (Wyman and
Jamup and Honey, 25 Brockway), 32
Jason and the Scorchers, 173 Keppard, Freddie, 53
jazz, 17,29,49,51-57,75, 161, 173 Kerrville Folk Festival (Texas), 163
Jazz and Heritage Festival (New Orleans), Kersands, Billy, 25
159, 163 Kershaw, Doug, 135
Jazz (Burns), 190n. 8 KFVD (Los Angeles), 81
Jefferson, Blind Lemon, 43, 44, 50-51, 99 Kieffer, Aldine, 9
Jeffries, Herb, 87 Killian, AI, 75
Jenkins, Dewitt "Snuffy," 148 "Kind Woman," 144
Jennings, Waylon, 134, 140, 142, 189n. 14 King, B.B. (Riley B.), 75, 100-1, 164
Jess, Grace Wood, 32, 33 "Kingdom Coming," 23
Jeter, Claude, 76 King, James, 171
Jethro Tull, 113 King, Mattin Luther, Jr., death of, 119, 127,
"Jim Crow," 20 128
Jimenez, Flaco, 60, 156 King, Pee Wee, 95
Jimenez, Santiago, 157 King Records, 99
"John Henry," 65 Kingston Trio, the, 145
Johnson, Blind Willie, 43, 50 "Kitty Wells," 34
Johnson, Bunk, 53 Klezmer music, 156
Johnson, James Weldon, 46 Knight, Marie, 119
Johnson, J. Rosamond, 46 KOKE (Austin), 140
Johnson, Lonnie, 50, 57,75,98 Krauss, Alison, x, 171
Johnson, Lyndon, 133 Kristofferson, Kris, 138-39, 142
Johnson, Robett,44, 100 KVOO (Tulsa), 84
Johnson, Tommy, 43
John ~sky Harding, 131 La Familia Mendoza, 60
"Jole Blon," 62 Lafleur, Mayuse, 61
Jones, Coley, 50 Laine, Frankie, 96
Jones, George, 137, 144, 150-51 Laine, Papa Jack, 52
Jones, Marshall Louis "Grandpa," 26, 146 La Mafia, 158
Joplin, Janis, 110-11, 138, 145 Lamb's Club (Chicago), 54
Joplin, Scott, 39, 40-41, 45 Lane, William Henry ("Master Juba"), 21
Index 229
LaRocca, Dominic James "Nick," 54 Lunsford, Bascom Lamar, 33, 184n. 17

"The Lass of Roch Royal," 14 Lyles, Bill, 122
"The Last Hope," 18 Lynch, Clair, 171
Latin American roots of southern music, 5 Lynn, Loretta, 97, 135-36
"Lawdy Miss Clawdy," 101 Lynn, Moone~ 136
Lawson, Doyle, 171 Lynyrd Skynyrd, 112, 114
Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter), 7, 50
"Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," 68 McAuliffe, Leon, 83, 85
leDoux, Chris, 169 McCall, Darrell, 151
Led Zeppelin, 108 McCarn, David, 80
Lejeune, Louis Vinesse, 159 McCoury, Del, 171
Letellier, Francois, 17 McCrimmon, Dan, 140-41
"The Letter Edged in Black," 24 McCutcheon, John, 81, 178
"Letter to Mom," 165--66 McEntire, Reba, 167
Lewis, Furry, 146 McGhee, Dennis, 62
Lewis, Jerry Lee, 104-5, 108, 129 McMurtry, James, 166
Lewis, Laurie, 171 Macon, "Uncle" Dave, 11,25,26,59,65
Library of Congress, 33, 100 McPhatter, Clyde, 10 1
Light Crust Doughboys, the, 83, 85 McVea, Jack, 75
Lincoln Gardens Cafe (Chicago), 55 Maddox, Rose, 97
Lind, Jenny, 13, 16, 17 "Made in Harlem," 46
Lipscomb, Mance, 7 Madonna, 61
"Listen to the Mockingbird," 2, 23, 26 Mahara's Minstrels, 25, 45
Little Feat, 162 "Maiden's Prayer," 85
Little Joe Hernandez y la Familia, 157 "Mal Hombre," 60
Little, Little Jack, 69 "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,"
"Little Log Cabin in the Lane," 24, 63 101
"Little Matty Groves," 34 "Mama's Opry," 165
Little Richard (Penniman), 101-2, 108, 126 Manassas (Stephen Stills group), 144
"The Little Rosewood Casket," 24, 34 mandolin, 147
"Livery Stable Blues," 54 Mandrell, Barbara, 168
Lomax, Alan, 148 Maple Leaf Bar (New Orleans), 159, 161
Lomax, John A., 29, 32, 62, 100 "Maple Leaf Rag," 41
"Lonely Tombs," 118 Marable, Fate, 56
"Lone Star Beer and Bob Wills' Music," 153 Mardi Gras Indians, 164
"Lorena," 2 Marsalis, Branford, 161
Los Dinos, 158 Marsalis, Ellis, 161
''The Lost Chord," 69 Marsalis, Wynton, 3, 161
Louisiana Hayride, the, 96, 103 Marshall Tucker Band, the, 112, 113, 114,
Louvin Brothers, the, 144 115, 143
Loveless, Patty, 167 Martin, c.P., 10
"Lovesick Blues," 96 Martinez, Narciso, 157
Lovett, Lyle, 141 Martin, Janis, 158
Lowery, Bill 112 Martin, Jimmy, 147
Lucas, Sam, 25 Martin, Mary, 3
"Luckenbach, Texas," 142 Martin, Sallie, 77
Ludlow, Noah, 15 Mason, Lowell, 27-28
230 Index
Matassa, Cosimo, 102 "Mr. Spaceman," 144

Matheney, Pat, 173 Mulate's (New Orleans), 159
Mattea, Kathy, 167 Mullican, Moon, 62, 86
Mayfield, Curtis, 128 Mull, J. Bazzel, 117
"Me and Bobby McGee," 138 "Murder on Music Row," 169
Meaux, Huey, 110, 112 Murfree, Mary Noailles (Charles Craddock),
"Memphis Blues," 45 30
Memphis, musical influences, 45, 125-26 Murphey, Michael Martin, 87, 140, 141,
Memphis Recording Service, 102 169
Mendoza, Lydia, 60, 157 Muscle Shoals (Alabama), studio commu-
Mercer, Johnny, 3 nity, 112, 128
Meters, the, 161, 164 Musical Brownies, the, 83, 92
"Mexican Love Songs," 139 "My Little Home in Tennessee," 24
Meyer, Augie, 156 "My Rough and Rowdy Ways," 67
Michaul's (New Orleans), 159
Mickey Gilley's (Pasadena, Tex.), 170 Nash, Graham, 144
Mid-City Bowling Lanes (New Orleans), 161 Nashville, 59, 130-32
"Mid the Green Fields of Virginia," 24 Nashville Bluegrass Band, the, 171
Miller, Buddy and Julie, 172 Nashville Network, The, 168,216
Miller, Emmett, 84 Nashville Rebels (Outlaws), the,142
Miller, Glenn, 82 Nashville Skyline, 131, 143
Miller, Roger, 131, 138 "Nashville Sound," 131
Mills Brothers, the, 98 National Gospel Singers Convention, 77
Milsap, Ronnie, 152 National Miners Union, 80
minsttelsy,2, 11, 18,20-23,24-26,41,45,48 National Textile Workers' Union, 80
missionaries, 7, 8, 26, 30-31 Navaira, Emilio, 158
Mississippi Delta and blues styles, 43, 44, Negro Waif's Home for Boys, 56
50, 185n. 8 Nelson, Willie, 134, 138, 141-42, 153, 166
Mitchell, Guy, 96 neo-traditionalism in country music, 144,
M.M. Cole, 93 145-46, 167, 169
"Molly, Darling," 23 Neville Brothers, the, 102, 161, 164
Monarchs ofMinstrtlsy (Rice), 21 Neville family, 161
"Money Honey," 101 New Grass Revival, the, 171
Monk, Thelonius, 57 New Orleans, 51-54, 102, 159, 160-62,
Monroe, Bill, 95, 103, 104, 147, 148, 171 164
Montana, Patsy, 97 Newpon Folk Festival (Louisiana), 159
Montgomery, Melba, 135 New South ideology, 111-12
Mooney, Ralph, 151 Nickel Creek, 171
"Moonlight and Skies," 67 "Night Life," 142
Moore, Scotry, 103 "Ninety Nine Year Blues," 67
Moore, Thomas, 22 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the, 146-47
Morris, Lynn, 171 Nix, Hoyle, 152
Morton, "Jelly Roll" (Ferdinand LeMenthe), Nixon, Richard, 106, 132, 133
5,53,55 "Nobody's Darling on Earth," 23
"Mother, the Queen of My Hean," 67 "No Depression in Heaven," 173
Motown, 123, 126, 128 North Carolina Ramblers, the, 25
"Mr. Bojangles," 141 North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the, 35
Index 231
Oak Ridge Boys, the, 117, 120-21 Parker, Colonel Tom, 104
Oberlin College (Ohio), 27 Parsons, Gram (Cecil Ingram Connors),
O'Brien, TIm, 162, 178 14~, 173
o Brother, Where Art Thou? ix-x, 170 Parton, Dolly, 97, 135, 136-37, 171
Ochs, Phil, 81 "Pass Me By," 152
O'Daniel, W. Lee "Pappy," 83 Patti, Sandi, 174
O'Day, Molly, 97 Patton, Charley, 43, 50
Ogan, Sara, 80 "Peace in the Valley," 9, 77, 120
"Oh Death." See "Conversation with Death" Peacock Records, 99
"Ohio," 110 Pearl, Minnie (Sarah Ophelia Colley), 95
Okeh Records, 46, 47, 50 Peer, Ralph, 63, 66, 69
"Okie from Muskogee," 132, 154 Perez, Manuel, 53
"Oklahoma Hills," 81 Perkins, AI, 144
Old Cornmeal, 21 Perkins, Carl, 104
"Old Dan Tucker," 22, 23 "Pero Hay Que Triste," 60
"The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Peter, Paul, and Mary, 159
Going to Crow," 63 Phases and Stages, 142
Old 97s, the, 173 "Philadelphia Lawyer," 81
Old- Time Herald, 178 Phillips, Dewey, 103-4, 188n. 6
"Old Zip Coon," 22 Phillips, Sam, 102, 103-4, 125, 188n. 6
Oliver, Joseph "King," 55, 56 Piano, 39-40, 69, 75-76, 77, 78, 102, 105
Olympia Band, the, 53 Pickard Family, the, 73
Olympics, Atlanta Summer, 1996, 159 Pieces ofthe Sky, 144
"On a Hill Far Away (The Old Rugged Pilgrim, The, 162
Cross)," 2 "Pistol Packin' Mama," 86, 91
"One Mint Julep," 101 Plata, Chris, 156
"On the Dixie Bee Line," 65 "Please, Please, Please," 127
"Open the Door, Richard," 10 1 "Please Say You Will," 40
opera, 16-17 Poole, Charlie, 25
Orbison, Roy, 104 pop music, 130
Original Creole Band, the, 53 Porter, David, 125
Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the, 54, 55 Powell, John, 35, 36, 38
Ory, Kid, 53, 56 Prairie Home Companion, A, 163
Osborne Brothers, the, 148 "Precious Lord," 9, 77, 119
Oslin, K T., 167 "Precious Memories," 70
Outlaws (Nashville Rebels), the, 142 Preservation Hall (New Orleans), 161
"Over the Garden Wall," 64 Presley, Elvis, 77, 102-4, 106, 108, 120
"Over the Waves," 11 Price, Leontyne, 3
Owens, Buck, 144, 151 Price, Lloyd, 10 1
Owens, Texas Ruby, 97 Price, Ray, 138, 142, 151, 152
Oxford, Vernon, 152 Price, Sam, 50
Pride, Charley, 135
Pace, Henry, 47 Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco, 74
Page, Patti, 96, 97 Professor Longhair (Henry Roeland Byrd),
Paisley, Brad, 169 101-2
Palace Theatre (Memphis), 48 progressive county music, 138, 139-41
Paramount, 47,50 protest music, 80-82, 164, 165-66
232 Index
publishers, music, 2, 9, 39, 41, 68-69, 77- 48-49,67-70,73,75-80, lOS, 116-

78,79,92,93 22,123,124-25,174-75,176
Pugh, lola, 118 REM,171
Pugh, Sullivan, 118 Reno, Don, 148
"Put My little Shoes Away," 64 "Respect," 124
"Put Some Drive in Your Country," 169-70 R.E. Winsett Co., 9-10
Rhapsody in Blur, 55
"Quality lime,» 166 rhythm and blues, 75-76,98-99, 100,
Quintanilla, Abraham, 158 101-2, lOS, 113, 123, 124, 126, 127,
Quintanilla, Selena, 60, 61, 158 128
Rice, Thomas D. "Daddy," 20, 21
Rabbit Foot Minstrels, the, 25 Rice, Tony, 146
"race" music, 47, 71, 75 Richardson, Ethel Park, 32
Radiators, the, 161 Richard, Zachary, 160
radio, 47, 58-59, 64, 71, 72-74, 88, 92, 93, Rich, Charlie, 104, 139
98, 103-4, no, 140, 149, 160, 163, Rickett's Hornpipe," 15
167, 172 Ricketts, John Bill, 15
Raelets, the, 125 Riders in the Sky, 87, 169
~ime,28,39-41,56, 75, 185n.3 Riders of the Purple Sage, the, 87
"Ragtime Annie," 41 "Right or Wrong," 187n. 10
Rainey, Gertrude "Ma," 25, 48, 177 Riley, Steve, 160
Raitt, Bonnie, 164 Rimes, Leanne, 167
Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Rinehart, Cowboy Slim, 73
Boys, 118 "Rise When the Rooster Crows," 25
"Rambling Man," 112 Ritchie, Jean, 37
Ramsey, Willis Alan, 140, 141 Ritter, Woodward Maurice "Tex," 33, 87
Rank and File, 171 Rivets, Johnny, 110
rap music, 174 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 74
Rayne-Bo Ramblers, the, 86 Robert E L~~ Songstn-, 2
RCA Victor. ~~ Victor Talking Machine Robertson, Alexander Campbell "Eck," 63
Co. Robertson, Robbie, 162, 163-64
Reagan, Ronald, 155 Robeson, Paul, 28
Rebirth (jazz band), 164 Robinson, Smokey, 128
recording industry, developments in, 47, rockabilly, 75, 95-96, 103-6, lSI, 158
58,59,60,62,63,71,72,74-75,84, Rockabil/y Filly, 158
92-94,96,98-104,123,130-32, "Rock About My Sara Jane," 25
149 Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, 67
Redbone, Leon, 67 rock music, 108-16, 132, lSI, 170
Red Clay Ramblers, the, 178 rock 'n' roll, 75, 95-96, 97, 98, 100-07,
Redding, Otis, 126, 128 108-9, 129, 131. S~~ also rock music
&d H~aded Strangn-, 142 and southern rock
"Red, Hot, and Blue" (radio program), 103 Rodgers, Jesse, 73
Reece, Florence, 80 Rodgers, Jimmie, 65, 66-67,84,95, 134
Reed, Blind Alfred, 65 Rodriguez, Johnny, 61, 135, 139, 152
Reed, Jerry, 112 Rogers, Roy, 87
Reeves, Jim, 131 Rolling Stones, the, 100, 108, lIS, 161
religious music, 2, 7-10, 26-29, 35, 41, 42, "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms," 150
Index 233
"Rollin' Stone," 100 Simien, Terrance, 159

Romaine, Anne, 81 singing schools, 8, 9, 67-68
Ronstadt, Linda, 60, 143, 156-57 "The Sinking of the liranic," 65
Root, George F., 2 Sir Douglas Quintet, the, 110
"Rose Colored Glasses," 152 "Sir Patrick Spens," 14
Rose, Fred, 87 "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay," 126
Rosie Flores, 158 Skaggs, Ricky, 169, 171
"Rounded Up in Glory," 32 Skillet Lickers, the, 25
Royal, Billy Joe, 112 "Skip to My Lou," 18
Rucker, Darius, 171 slave culture, 5-6,7, 12, 13, 14,21
Ruebush, J.H., 9 Slave Songs ofthe United States, 26
Ruebush-Kielfer Co., 9 "Sleep, Baby, Sleep," 67
Russell Sage Foundation, 31 Smiley, Red, 148
Smith, Bessie, 25, 48-49, 84, 118, 119
Sacred Harp (White), 8 Smith, Clarence, 48
Sahm, Doug, 110, 141, 156, 157 Smith, Kate, 3
"Sailor's Hornpipe," 15 Smith, Mamie, 46-48, 59
Saint Cecilia Society, 3, 13 Smith, Slim, 80
St. Cyr, Johnny, 53, 56 Smith, Sol, 15
"St. Louis Blues," 45-46, 49, 83 Smith, Whispering Jack, 69
"Salty Dog Blues," 150 Snider, Marion, 78
"San Antonio Rose," 85, 88, 91 Snug Harbor (New Orleans), 161
Sandburg, Carl, 33 Soap Creek Saloon (Austin), 141
Sankey, Ira, 2 Soileau, Leo, 61-62, 85-86
"La Savanne," 18 "Soldier's Joy," 11
Savoy Records, 99 "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You," 81
Schiller's Cafe (Chicago), 54 "Something Doing," 40
Scott, James, 41 "Something in the Rain," 166
Scruggs, Earl, 25, 147-48 Songcatcher, ix
Sea Level, 1 13 "Song of the South," 168
Second Great Awakening, 7-8 Songs from the Mountain, 162
Seeger, Mike, 148 songsters, 6-7, 43
Seeger, Pete, 33, 81, 148 Sons of the Pioneers, the, 87
Seldom Scene, the, 149, 171 Sons of the San Joaquin, 87, 169
Sensational Nightingales, the, 76 Son Volt, 173
settlement schools, 30-32, 37 soul music, 122-28
"Sexy Lady," 139 Soul Stirrers, the, 120
"Shake, Rattle, and Roll," 101 "Southern Man," 110
"Shall We Gather at the River," 2 Southern Music (publishing company), 93
shape-note singing, 8-10, 67-68, 79 southern rock, 109, 110, 112-15, 116
Shapiro and Bernstein, 39 southern romanticism, ix-x, 20, 22-24, 29-
Sharp, Cecil, 33-35 38,64-65,79,112,133-34,150,
Shaw, Artie, 84 162-65, 168-69, 172, 176-79, 184n.
"She's About a Mover," 110 19. See abo Appalachian romanticism
Shore, Dinah, 3 Southern Soul, 162
Showalter, A.J., 68 Southern Tenant Farmers Union, 80
"Silent Night," 119 South, Joe, 112
234 Index
"The South's Gonna Do It Again," 115 Superior Band, 53

Sparks, Larry, 149 Swaggart, Jimmie, 105
Specialty Records, 99 Swan Silvertones, the, 76, 120
Split Rail (Austin), 141 Sweeney, Joel Walker, 2, 10,21
Sprague, Carl, 37 "Sweet Allalee," 26
Springsteen, Bruce, 162, 64 "Sweet Georgia Brown," 83
Squirrel Nut Zippers, the, 173-75 Swtttheart ofthe ROMo, 143
Stamps All-Star Quartet, 69 "Sweet Home, Alabama," 114
Stamps-Baxter Co., 69, 78 swing bands, 82, 83, 84
Stamps, Frank, 69 swing music revival, 173-74
Stamps Quartet, the, 73, 78, 121, 175
Stamps, Virgil 0., 69, 78 "Take Me Back to Tulsa," 85
"Stand by Me," 9, 77 "Take Your Burdens to the Lord (Leave It
"Stand by Your Man," 138 There"), 9, 77
Stanley Brothers, the, 148 "Talking Dust Bowl Blues," 81
Stanley, Ralph, x, 171, 172 Talley, James, 81
Stark, John, 41 Taos to Tennessee, 166
Statesmen, the, 120 "Teach Your Children," 144
Stader Brothers, the, 120, 121 Teagarden, Jack, 82
Stax Records, 128 Teagarden, Norma, 82
Steagall, Red, 87, 153, 169 Tejano music, 59-61, 156-58
steel guitar, 83, 85, 151 television, 13 I, 163, 168-69
Stevens, Ray, 112 "Tennessee Waltz," 96
Stewart, Gary, 151, 169 Terkel, Studs, 119
Stewart, Jim, 125 Texas, blues styles, 44, 50, 185n. 9
Stills, Stephen, 143, 144 Texas Playboys, the, 84-85, 153, 164, 169,
Still, William Grant, 28 189n. 14. See also Bob Wills's Original
Stoneman, Ernest, 37 Texas Playboys
"Stormy Monday," 100 Texas Tornadoes, the, 61,110,155
Story, Sidney, 53 "Texas Trilogy," 141
Storyvilk, 164, 167 Tharpe, Sister Rosetta, 98, 119
Storyville (New Orleans), 51, 53, 56 "That's All Right, Mama," 103
Strachwitz, Chris, 92, 157 "That Thing Called Love," 46
Strait, George, 169 Theatre Owners Booking Association, 48
"Strange Things Happening Every Day," "There's a Land That Is Fairer (Sweet By and
119 By)," 2
Street, Mel, 152 "These Hills," 166
Stringfellow, Lamar, 35-36 Thibodeaux, Gladius, 159
Stuarr, Marty, 162, 169 "Third Rate Romance," 113
Suite .from the Southtrn Mountains .38 Special, 113
(Stringfellow), 36 "This Little Girl of Mine," 124
Sullivan Family, the, 116, 118 "This Little Light of Mine," 124
Sumner, J.D. 121, 175 "This Land Is Your Land," 81
"Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down," 138 Thomas, Edna, 33
"Sunflower Slow Drag," 40 Thomas, Irma, 161
Sunny Ozuna and the Sunliters, 157 Thomas, "Ragtime" Henry, 7, 50
Sun Record Co., 102, 103 Thomas, Suzanne, 171
Index 235
Thompson, Hank, 97, 152 Vincent, Rhonda. 171

Threadgill's (Austin), 111 Virginian, The (Wister), 30
TIerney, Louis, 85
TIllman, Floyd, 86 "Wabash Cannon Ball." 94
TIndley, Charles H., 9, 77 Waco Brothers, the, 173
TIn Pan Alley, 2, 3, 39, 46 Wade, Norman, 152
TIpitina's (New Orleans), 159, 161 Wagoner, Porter, 136, 151
"Tom Dooley," 145 "Waiting for a Train," 67
"Tonight" (television program), 105 Wakely, Jimmie, 87
Toups, Wayne, 160 Walden, Phil, 112, 113
Toussaint, Allen, 102 Walker, Billy, 142
Travis, Merle, 147 Walker, Cindy, 87, 139
Travis, Randy, 168, 169 Walker, Frank, 48
Travolta, John, 170 Walker, Jerry Jeff, 141
Trtemonisha, 41 Walker, Lawrence, 62
"Tricky Fingers," 185n. 3 Walker, "T-Bone" (Aaron), 50, 75-76, 98-
Trio Co., 69 100
Tritt, Travis, 169-70 "Walking the Floor over You," 95
Tubb,Ern~t,86,87, 95,96 Wallace, George, 114
Tucker, Tanya, 135 "Wall in Washington," 166
"Turkey in the Straw," 35 Wanderers, the, 85
Turner, Joe, 101 Ward, Clara, 124
"Turn Your Radio On," 9 Washington, D.C., musical influenc~, 149
Turpin, Tom, 41 "Wasteland of the Free," 166
Tuskegee Institute (Alabama), 27 Waters, Muddy (McKinley Morganfield),
Twain, Shania, 168 98,100
"Tweedle Dee," 101 Warson, Arthel "Doc," 146-47, 164
Tweedy, Jeff. 173 Watson, Dale, 162, 172
Twitty, Conway, 104, 129, 139 Watson. Gene. 151. 169
2 Live Crew, 174 Watson. Mark, 146
Tyminski, Dan, x Watts, Isaac, 7
WBAP (Fort Worth), 58, 88
Uncle Tupelo, 143, 172, 173 WDIA (Memphis), 100
"Under the Bamboo Tree," 46 Weiss, Julius, 40
"Under Your Spell Again," 144 Welch, Gillian, x, 172, 178
"Up above My Head," 119 Weller, Freddy, 139
Urban Cowboy, 170 Wells, Kitty (Muriel Deason), 97, 135
"We'll Understand It Better By and By," 77,
Van Zandt, Town~, 140, 166 118
Van Zant, Donnie, 113 Wendy Bagwell and His Sunlighters, 116
Van Zant, Ronnie, 113, 114 "We Parted by the Riverside," 23
Vaughan, Jam~ D., 68 Werlein's (New Orleans), 2
Vaughan Publishing Co., 68 "We Shall Overcome," 77
Vee Jay Records, 99 w~tern swing, 62, 82-86, 87, 152-54, 169
Venice Pier (Los Angel~), 94 W~t, Hedy, 81
Victor Talking Machine Co.• 46. 47. 71. 93 "The W~t Side of Town," 166
videos, music. 168-69 Wet Willie, 113
236 Index
Whalen, Katherine, 174, 178 Womack, Lee Ann, 167

Wheeler, Billy Edd, 81 WORD, Inc., 174
"What'd I Say," 125 Work, Henry Clay, 23
"Which Side Are You On?" 80 "Working Man's Blues," 132
Whiskeytown, 173 Workman, Nimrod, 81
"Whispering Hope," 23 "Work with Me, Annie," 10 1
White, Clarence, 146 World's Fair, 1984, 159
White, George, 27 WORT (Madison), 172
Whiteman, Paul, 55, 82 "The Wreck of the 1256," 65
White, Josh, 50 Wright, Johnny, 97
White, Tony Joe, 112 WSB (Atlanta), 58, 63
White Top Mountain Folk Festival WSM (Nashville), 58, 59, 94
(Virginia), 36-37 WSM Barn Dance, 59
Whitley, Keith, 169 WWOZ (New Orleans), 172
"Whole Lot of Shaking Going On," 105 WWVA (Wheeling), 88
"Who'll Turn Out the Lights," 152 Wyman, Elaine, 32, 33
"Why Me, Lord," 139 Wynette, Tammy, 135, 137-38
"The Wife of Usher's Well," 14, 34
Wiggins, Ella May, 80, 81 XEAW (Mexico), 73
Wilco, 173 XEG (Mexico), 73
"The Wild Side of Life," 97, 152 XENT (Mexico), 73
"Wildwood Flower," 64 XEPN (Mexico), 73
Williams, Ben, 25 XERA (Mexico), 73
Williams, Clarence, 53 XERF (Mexico), 66, 73
Williams, Hank, Jr., 162, 170 X-stations, 66, 72-73, 88
Williams, Hank, Ill, 162, 172
Williams, Hiram King "Hank," 95-97, 131, Yardbirds, the, 108
138 "Yellow Dog Blues," 45
Williams, Linda, 171 "Yellow Rose of Texas," 26
Williams, Lucinda, 164-65, 178 Yoakam, Dwight, 167, 169
Williams, Miller, 165 "You Are My Sunshine," x, 91
Williams, Robin and Linda, 163 "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down," 46
Wills, Bob, 83-85, 86, 87, 88, 152-53, Young, Faron, 142
187n. 10, 189n. 14 Young, Lester, 57
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken," 66 Young, Marl, 75
WiD the Circle Be Unbroken, 146-47 Young, Neil, 110, 114, 143, 144
Wilson, Cassandra, 174, 178 Young, Steve, 162, 166
Winner, Septimus, 23 "You've Never Been This Far Before," 139
Winsett, R.E., 68-69
Winter, Edgar, 110 Zion Harmonizers, the, 76, 164
Winter, Johnny, 110 Zydeco, 62, 159-60, 186n.6
Wiseman, Lulu Belle, 97 Zydeco Festival (Plaisance, La.), 160
Wiseman, Mac, 148 "Zydeco Sont Pas Sale," 62
WOAN (Tennessee), 68 ZZTop, 115-16

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University of Kentucky

Cultural History History

Southern Music/American Music

BILL C. MALONE AND DAVID STRICKLIN

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

Copyright © 1979 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Member of the Association of

Preface to the Revised Edition IX

[llustratiom follow page 116

least brief consideration to the social, economic, and political influences on

The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Kenton Adler, Ramiro

FOLK ORIGINS OF SOUTHERN MUSIC

Intimately linked to work and worship, and marked by improvisation, an

touring white song-and-dance artists, who came to the South as blackface

there was no immediate explosion of interest in spirituals, either by musicians

something approximating the New England middle-class ideal. The settle-

of a number of folk communities in the United States, both mountain and

times assisted by Woodward Maurice Ritter from Murvaul, Texas, appropri-

cially to fashion an outsider's version of a national musical culture, southern

RAGTIME, BLUES, JAZZ

as more reputable establishments, of St. Louis, Chicago, and Sedalia, Mis-

Ragtime's challenge to Anglo-Saxon supremacy and the genteel music tradi-

can Americans. Emancipation brought a new freedom to articulate grievances

Louis Blues," which Handy wrote in September 1914, inspired by memories

Downhome blues reminded African Americans of their humble, rural origins,

the grease-dripping doughnut," although some writers ofletters to the paper's

TEJANO, CAJUN, HILLBILLY, GOSPEL

The decade of the 1920s witnessed the first full-scale commercialization of

traditions, drew instrumentation and stylistic innovation from encounters with

"Cajuns began to show signs of learning to better negotiate the American

1920s, a decade characterized by national progress and social change. 8 In the

Tennessee, by a crew of Victor recording engineers directed by Ralph Peer.

Another expression of the white grassroots mind that underwent commercial-

circulated songbooks in Dayton, Tennessee, site of the Scopes trial in 1925.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

southern grassroots music forms, the inexorable force of technological inno-

tion of radio broadcasting, using extremely high-powered transmitters to send

was ballyhooed as a curative for a wide array of ailments, Crazy Water,Crystals

tets. Although the publishing houses no longer monopolized the control of

singers. A quartet could expect warm hospitality, a sumptuous meal at the

While this otherworldly message was consoling to many southerners during

semblance of cowboy costume and called themselves something such as "Tex,"

World War II wrought revolutionary changes in the social structure of both

was supported by numerous guest artists and two well,..known comedians,

spond skeptically to Walker's own claim to such a connection, but it seems

at large. Their visibility as concert performers and their prominence on the

THE 19605 AND 19705

influence electronics returned to popular music with a vengeance, coming at

been, her slightly plump physical appearance and awkward self-consciousness

promise of sectional healing and a reunited nation, intensified the feeling of

tude and underlying acceptance of violence. According to Stephen R. Tucker,

West-longhorn steers, buffalo, vultures, and rattlesnakes-all before a Texas

Right. Albert Brumley was

resumed recording in 1946, and her third record, "Move On Up a Little

hard-charging, hand-clapping gospel songs to the accompaniment of electric,