Western swing is an innovative, free-wheeling yet complex instrumental amalgam drawn from blues, jazz and Dixieland syncopations and harmonies. Central to the style is an emphasis on instrumental solos, often involving the transposition of jazz-style horn parts to fiddle, guitar and steel guitar. It is indicative of western swing’s sophistication that Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, the ...
The popularity of jazz hit a peak after the Depression years of 1929–33. By the end of 1934, huge numbers were tuning in to the NBC Radio series Let’s Dance, which broadcast performances by The Xavier Cugat, Kel Murray and Benny Goodman Orchestras. Goodman’s orchestra in particular caught on with the public and created a demand for live ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1930s–40s) Louise Massey And The Westerners are largely forgotten today, but in their heyday, this was one of the most successful western acts in the USA. Polished, versatile and influential, they boasted a smooth sound that obscured their origins as rural musicians under their fiddling father Henry’s tutelage in New Mexico. The band included ...
(Vocal group, 1958–present) 1963’s ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ came close to topping the UK chart, and it was to be one of the first examples of Merseybeat to enter the US Top 30. After a soundalike follow-up, ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’, peaked at a domestic No. 11, further hits were sporadic, though 1964’s ‘You’re No Good’ was ...
‘Breakout’, 1987 A Top 10 hit in the UK, and the group’s only US Top 10 hit, ‘Breakout’ also went so far as to earn the group two Grammy Awards – for Best New Artist and Best New Pop Vocal Performance By A Group Or Duo. Subsequent album and single releases were acclaimed hits in some circles, though ...
From its roots, country music has been associated with simplicity – in melody, in subject-matter and in instrumentation, and it is this that has perhaps ensured its longevity. However, all good musicians make their craft look simple, and the history of country music is packed with virtuosos, from the pioneering banjoist Earl Scruggs, through ...
Acoustic Guitar Throughout its history, the guitar has – perhaps more than any other instrument – managed to bridge the gap between the often disconnected worlds of classical, folk and popular music. Its roots go back to Babylonian times; by the 1500s it was prevalent in Spain, and is still sometimes called the Spanish guitar. Medieval versions – ...
Country music has been euphemistically called ‘white man’s blues’ or ‘the poetry of the common man’. While both descriptions have elements of truth, neither is quite accurate. It is, in fact, a broad, nebulous, over-reaching category with no exact boundaries or parameters. Over the decades country music has grown to encompass a greatly varied assortment of ...
(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1916–2000) Adolph Hofner successfully combined the musical heritage of his Texas-Czech youth with hillbilly, pop and swing influences in a career that stretched from the mid-1930s to the late 1990s, with his steel guitar-playing brother Emil (nicknamed ‘Bash’) at his side throughout. Equally influenced by Milton Brown and Bing Crosby, Hofner was ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1970s–present) The most impressive and most successful of the western-swing revival bands was co-founded by a couple of hippies from the Philadelphia suburbs. Ray Benson (vocals, guitar, b. 1951) and Reuben ‘Lucky Oceans’ Gosfield (pedal steel guitar, b. 1951) fell in love with the records of Bob Wills and formed the band in 1969, ...
(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1910–77) Bill Boyd led one of the most prolific and important western-swing groups, The Cowboy Ramblers. A guitarist, Boyd and brother Jim (1914–93), a bassist and guitarist who also became an important figure, were reared in Greenville, Texas and began their careers in nearby Dallas in the early 1930s. Boyd signed ...
William John Clifton Haley was born on 6 July 1925 in Highland Park, Detroit, and raised near Chester, Pennsylvania. His parents were both musical, and he got his first proper guitar when he was 13. Even though he was blind in one eye and shy about his disability (he later tried to distract from it with his ...
Observers who saw him in his prime have likened the charisma of the ‘king of western swing’ Bob Wills to that of latter-day superstars such as Elvis and The Beatles. The Texas fiddler, with his trademark high-pitched folk hollers and jivey, medicine-show asides, was an irresistible force of nature. Although he was, in the earliest days of ...
(Bandleader, fiddle, 1905–75) Between 1929 and 1931 Bob Wills assembled his first western-swing band, The Light Crust Doughboys, later rechristened The Texas Playboys. By 1940, with its hit single ‘New San Antonio Rose’, it was filling concert halls across the country. The band’s biggest hit, ‘New Spanish Two Step’, spent 16 weeks at No. 1. ...
(Vocals, yodels, 1925–97) Although she might only be a footnote in country-music history, Arkansas-born Carolina Cotton was a prolific entertainer in the West Coast’s post-war era. Known as the ‘Yodelling Blonde Bombshell’, she first gained attention working with Spade Cooley’s Orchestra, then furthered her western-swing association by touring with both Hank Penny’s and Bob Wills’ bands. She ...
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