The Encyclopedia of Country Music: The Ultimate Guide to the Music

665 Pages·1998·83.91 MB·English

by  The Country Music Foundation

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
Country Music
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tHE eNCYCLOPEDIA OF
cOUNTRY mUSIC
The Ultimate Guide to the Music
Compiled by the staff of the Country Music Hall of Fame
and Museum
Edited by Paul Kingsbury
with the assistance of Laura Garrard, Daniel Cooper, and John Rumble
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXJORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Copyright © 1998 by the Country Music Foundation
First published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 1998
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 2004
ISBN 978-0-19-517608-7
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the cloth edition as follows:
The encyclopedia of country music: the ultimate guide to the music/
compiled by the staff of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum;
edited by Paul Kingsbury with the assistance of
Laura Garrard, Daniel Cooper, and John Rumble.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-19-511671-2
1. Country music—Encyclopedias. I. Kingsbury, Paul.
II. Garrard, Laura. III. Cooper, Daniel (Daniel C.). IV. Rumble, John.
ML102.C7E54 1998 781.642'03—dc21 97-51362
Permission to reproduce the following material is gratefully acknowledged:
'You Are My Sunshine" by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell.
Copyright © 1940 by Peer International Corporation.
Copyright renewed. International copyright secured.
Used by permission.
"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams.
Copyright © 1949 (Renewed)Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. and Hiriam Music.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014
3 5 7 9 8 6 42
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Forewordk Emmyloyu Harris vii
Introduction ix
Acknowledgments xiii
The Entries, A-Z 3
Essay Articles
The Look of Country: The Colorful History of Country Music Costuming
Holly George-Warren 125
The Folk and Popular Roots of Country Music Norm Cohen 188
The Gospel Truth: Christianity and Country Music Bill C. Malone 218
Extra! Read All About It!: The Literature of Country Music Nolan Porterfield 312
Country Music as Music Bill Evans 364
The Center of Music City: Nashville's Music Row John Lomax III 385
The Talking Machine: How Records Shaped Country Music Colin Escott 465
It All Begins with a Song: A Brief History of Country Songwriting
Walter Carter 522
The South and Country Music Bill C. Malone 529
From Schoolhouses to Arenas: A History of Country Music Touring
Ronnie Pugh 556
Color Section: The Sound Seen Follows page 274
Appendices
Country Music's All-Time Best-Selling Albums 609
The ASCAP Most Performed Country Song of the Year Awards 614
Country's Share of the U.S. Recorded Music Market 615
Full-time Country Radio Stations in the U.S.A. 615
BMFs Most Performed Country Song of the Year Awards 616
Grand Ole Opry Members and the Dates They Joined the Show's Cast 616
Country Music Hall of Fame Members and Their Years of Election 617
CONTENTS • vi
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame 617
Grammy Awards Related to Country Music 618
Country Music Association (CMA) Awards 623
Academy of Country Music Awards 625
Music City News/TNN Awards 629
Contributors 632
FOREWORD
I first became acquainted with the Country Music Foundation in the mid-1970s, when Bill
Ivey, the CMF's director at that time, made me a tape of 1950s and 1960s recordings by
the Louvin Brothers that he thought I might like. I hadn't asked him to make that tape,
but he was right—I did like the songs. A lot. Ira and Charlie Louvin were not just exquisite
harmony singers, they were also masterful songwriters whose songs are still being record-
ed to this day.
Through that little courtesy, I gradually came to find out that the Country Music
Foundation is one of America's great natural resources. In addition to operating the
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (probably the premier music museum in the
world), the CMF's staff oversee a massive archive of country music recordings, pho-
tographs, films, and publications. They're collecting country music today so that our
grandchildren—and their grandchildren—will know why we love it so, where it came
from, and what country music tells us about ourselves.
The people who work for the CMF really care about country music. All of it—from the
oldest old-time fiddle tunes on up to what's happening on Nashville's Music Row right
now. I've learned a lot from those folks. And just as with that first tape, they're still pass-
ing that passion and knowledge on.
This encyclopedia represents the culmination of several years of hard work and dedica-
tion. As with everything they do, the staff of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
have put this book together with a genuine love and concern for the music. They've
brought in experts from all over to make this encyclopedia the best it can be. It's truly a
labor of love, and I'm proud to be associated with it.
I hope you find that it brings you a little closer to the music you love and leads you
down paths that bring more music into your life.
—EMMYLOU HARRIS
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INTRODUCTION
What is country music?
That is a question fans, performers, and businesspeople have been asking and debat-
ing, in one form or another, for most of the twentieth century. Many styles of music now
fall under the broad rubric known as country music: old-time, honky-tonk, western
swing, Cajun, bluegrass, rockabilly, country-pop, country-rock, folk-country, new tradi-
tionalism, hot country, and even insurgent or alternative country. The reason that coun-
try music exists as such a catchall category of music can be found in the music's com-
mercial origins.
Country music came into being as a genre of music in the early 1920s when record
companies began seeking new audiences to sell recordings to. Since the turn of the
twentieth century, record companies had been made in the big city and catered to big-
city tastes with the marching tunes of John Philip Sousa, the arias of Enrico Caruso, the
hammy show tunes of Al Jolson, and the orchestral jazz of Paul Whiteman. When radio
became a commercial reality in 1920, the new entertainment medium immediately cut
into sales of record companies, especially in the cities, where radio stations first thrived.
The reason was simple economics. After the initial investment in a radio set, to listen to
a radio was free, of course. Records, on the other hand, cost at least 75 cents apiece,
sometimes as much as $1.25.
It was time for record companies to find new niche markets, and they found them
quickly in two previously underserved and unexploited markets: black audiences and
rural white audiences. To reach black record buyers, the record companies sought out
black blues and jazz performers to make "race records," as they were then called. For
their rural white counterparts, the record companies sought genuine rustic talent in the
hills and hollows of the rural Southeast: fiddlers, stringbands, singers of old folk ballads,
gospel quartets. These sorts of performers and their music became the foundation of
what has come to be known as country music. In the beginning, though, this white rural
music was known by many different names as the record companies struggled to define
the new and lucrative market they had discovered, labeling their new series variously
Old Time Tunes (OKeh Records), Old Time Melodies of the Sunny South (Victor), Spe-
cial Records for Southern States (Vocalion), Familiar Tunes (Columbia), and finally and
most typically, Hillbilly Music. Somehow the audiences found the music and responded.
The first country music "hit" was Fiddlin' John Carson's "The Little Old Log Cabin
in the Lane" b/w "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow," released in
July 1923 by OKeh Records. By early 1925, country music had its first million seller with
Vernon Dalhart's recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97" b/w "The Prisoner's Song"
for Victor Records. It has been said that by the early 1930s it was commonplace in gen-
eral stores across the South to hear this familiar refrain: "Let me have a pound of but-
ter, a dozen eggs, and the latest Jimmie Rodgers record."
But even if businessmen in a way "created" country music by identifying various
strains of rural music and getting them to their rightful audience, they never complete-
ly controlled it. Because it was music, after all, it had meaning for its audience far
beyond whatever the businessmen had ever intended. Music can be sold like a com-
modity (like breakfast cereal), but it is never merely consumed, and it is appreciated in
an entirely different way than a simple disposable commodity.
As musicians and fans grew accustomed to the idea of hillbilly music, they began