Country Music USA: 50th Anniversary Edition

769 Pages·2018·39.54 MB·English

by  Bill C Malone

CoUntry
MUSIC USA
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Brad and Michele Moore
Roots Music Series
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CoUntry
MUSIC USA
Bill C. Malone & Tracey E. W. Laird
50
th
AnniversAry
edition
University of texas Press    aUstin
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Copyright © 1968 by the American Folklore Society
Copyright © 1985, 2002, 2010, 2018 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Fiftieth anniversary edition, 2018
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be
sent to:
Permissions
University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Austin, TX 78713-7819
utpress.utexas.edu/rp-form
♾ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).
LibrAry of Congress CAtALoging-in-PubLiCAtion dAtA
Names: Malone, Bill C., author. | Laird, Tracey E. W., author.
Title: Country music USA / Bill C. Malone and Tracey E. W. Laird.
Description: Fiftieth anniversary edition. | Austin : University of Texas
Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017046039| ISBN 978-1-4773-1534-7
(cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4773-1535-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 978-1-4773-1536-1 (library e-book) | ISBN 978-1-4773-1537-8
(nonlibrary e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Country music—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML3524.M34 2018 | DDC 781.6420973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046039
doi:10.7560/315347
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Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii
FOREWORD by Henry Sapoznik ix
PREFACE xiii
1. The Folk Background before Commercialism 1
2. The Early Period of Commercial Hillbilly Music 37
3. The First Country Singing Star: Jimmie Rodgers 91
4. Country Music during the Depression 111
5. The Cowboy Image and the Growth of Western Music 160
6. The War Years: The National Expansion of Country Music 208
7. The Boom Period: The Emergence of a Big Business,
1946–1953 233
8. The Development of Country-Pop Music and the
Nashville Sound 287
9. The Reinvigoration of Modern Country Music, 1960–1972 314
10. Bluegrass 380
11. Country Music, 1972–1984 433
12. Tradition and Change: Country Music, 1985–2000 489
13. A New Century 545
NOTES 573
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS 592
INDEX 679
INDEX OF S ONG TITLES 733
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Illustrations
1. Eck Robertson 28
2. Al Hopkins, John Hopkins, Tony Alderman, John Rector,
Uncle Am Stuart, and Fiddlin’ John Carson 36
3. Carson Robison 53
4. Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers 60
5. Bradley Kincaid 65
6. Vernon Dalhart 72
7. The Carter Family 77
8. Uncle Dave Macon and Dorris Macon 87
9. Jimmie Rodgers 92
10. The Callahan Brothers 131
11. The Cumberland Ridge Runners 134
12. The Blue Sky Boys 135
13. The Monroe Brothers 138
14. The Coon Creek Girls 140
15. Floyd Tillman 161
16. Carl T. Sprague 164
17. Gene Autry 169
18. The Girls of the Golden West 174
19. The Prairie Ramblers and Patsy Montana 175
20. Ernest Tubb 185
21. The Light Crust Doughboys 191
22. Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies 192
23. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys 203
24. Roy Acuff and the Louvin Brothers 222
25. Merle Travis 237
26. The Bailes Brothers 253
27. Molly O’Day and Lynn Davis 259
28. Kitty Wells 260
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viii IllustratIons
29. Hank Thompson 267
30. Lefty Frizzell 272
31. Hank Williams 281
32. Johnny Cash 297
33. Jim Reeves 304
34. George Jones 336
35. Merle Haggard 344
36. Tammy Wynette 363
37. Dolly Parton 365
38. Bill Malone and Kinky Friedman 368
39. Charley Pride 371
40. Bill Monroe 381
41. The Blue Grass Boys 385
42. Ralph and Carter Stanley 389
43. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs 390
44. Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn 448
45. Willie Nelson 466
46. Waylon Jennings 469
47. George Strait 481
48. Emmylou Harris 484
49. Ricky Skaggs 487
50. Garth Brooks 503
51. Earl Scruggs and Marty Stuart 514
52. Tim O’Brien 527
53. Bill Monroe and Doc Watson 532
54. Del McCoury Band 533
55. Alison Krauss 536
56. Rhonda Vincent 538
57. Chris Thile 540
58. New Grass Revival 541
59. Luke Bryan 546
60. Beyoncé and the Dixie Chicks 549
61. Miranda Lambert 555
62. Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood 558
63. Sturgill Simpson 563
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Foreword
Henry Sapoznik
t
he history of country music is awash in a seemingly limitless
supply of memorable “firsts”: the first commercial recording
(1922), the first broadcast of the Grand ole opry (1925), the first
singing cowboy movie (1930), among many others. But the first
book to bring together the full panoramic sweep of country music
in a well-written and closely observed unimpeachable work is in your
hands. Country Music usa originated as a dissertation penned in 1965
by thirty-one-year-old Bill C. Malone in fulfillment of his doctorate in
American History at the University of Texas, Austin.
Malone was born in 1934 on his family’s tenant farm, a lonely,
hardscrabble outpost in rural Smith County—then East Texas cot-
ton country—about twenty miles west of Tyler. Malone’s early and
easygoing ownership of the received raft of traditional music came
from his mother, Maude Owens Malone, who seamlessly rendered
offerings from church hymnody as easily as those rescued from old
songbooks and fragile, yellowed sheet music. This patchwork quilt of
repertory—rendered in a stripped-down and practical style—placed
the emerging historian of his southern folk culture immediately
into the sturdy musical continuity of the traditional transmission of
generations. Because the amenities of the Malone household differed
little from a similar farm of the mid-nineteenth century, the arrival
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