Continuing Education: Western Swing

Let's take the Hank Williams song from the last post on the subject as a baseline for the unity of country and Western music. The song dates to 1950, and it stands at something like the end of a trend in which the two genres had grown together in popular culture. Now let's look at how that baseline point was formed. The driving force was Hollywood, whose appetite for cowboy movies through the 1930s and 1940s included a developing taste for Western music. We had singing cowboys, who started off by singing traditional Western folk songs. The Sons of the Pioneers and Roy Rogers (originally together, later separate) were probably the most famous of these, from 1933. Here's a traditional Western tune.

 

 As cowboy movies continued to be popular through the 1930s and 1940s, the musical genre began to take on aspects of another genre very popular in the '40s: swing music. Here's the same group kicking up their heels a bit in a film from 1944.

 

Another band that was at the forefront of Western Swing music was Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.  I believe it's correct to ascribe the introduction of the steel guitar to them.  That first happened in 1935, when the band had already included a saxophone and other instruments more commonly found in jazz and swing music.



Now here's Bing Crosby making the point about the change that had overcome the Old West even in its music.



So this is the music that Hank Williams' alter-ego was performing.  It was a genre that had national attention and acclaim for a couple of decades.  It remained popular through the 1950s, when Westerns were still very popular in Hollywood, and even more popular on television.

Hollywood Westerns from the '50s, though, began to move away from Western Swing and back toward traditional Western music out of a desire to use the Western movie as a vehicle to present more serious films.  In Rio Grande, for example, the cavalry regimental singers return to traditional roots music in order to achieve authenticity. It is therefore ironic that the authentic Irish rebel song they picked for the Irish soldiers to sing, "The Bold Fenian Men," actually wasn't composed until the 20th century.

UPDATE:  Turns out we have a highly educated and well-connected fan of Western Swing in the Hall.  I petitioned Gringo for some favorites, and here's what he picked (see discussion).

Ida Red shows Bob and the Texas Playboys playing an old folk tune- or should we say fiddle tune.




Trouble in Mind shows what Bob Wills can do with a blues song. Al Striklin, my third hand connection to the Texas Playboys, is on the piano.




Home in San Antone is a movie clip with some good, swinging instrument solos. 



Take Me Back to Tulsa has a rare appearance of brother Luke Wills on the vocals. Tommy Duncan did most of the vocals.This is one of Bob’s best known tunes.

10 comments:

bthun said...

A conversation on Western Swing can not exclude Asleep at the Wheel.

And a C&W honorable mention has to go to this fellow, just because...

Gringo said...

Another band that was at the forefront of Western Swing music was Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

Bit of an understatement there, especially since it follows a movie clip from the Sons of the Pioneers. Like the song says,Bob Wills is Still the King. No such song was written about the Sons of the Pioneers.

Some Western Swing bands that were much more influential in the genre than the Sons of the Pioneers were
Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies and Bill Boyd and his Cowboy Ramblers, though they didn't get the Hollywood clips that the Sons of the Pioneers got. The Sons of the Pioneers were bit players in Western Swing. Hollywood clips don't change that. Forefront, my foot.

Gringo said...

I stand corrected on one point. Bill Boyd did appear in ~6 movies in the 1940s.

Grim said...

Well, that's a Waylon Jennings song, and it doesn't assert that Bob Wills is the king anywhere except the particular corner of Texas Jennings was talking about. Same with Luckenbach, Texas: everybody knows about it, but only because Waylon Jennings sang about it.

Now, Johnny Cash -- who was Waylon Jennings' roommate during an important period of their early careers -- sang about Gene Autry and played with Roy Rogers.

However, you seem to be raising a larger charge that I'd like to get you to expand upon further. My sense of the way in which Western Swing music became important was that it got picked up in Hollywood westerns and transmitted to the larger culture. That would put the Roy Rogers and Gene Autrys 'at the forefront' in terms of the music's importance to American culture. I see them as the ones driving the bus on making people aware of the form, and building its popularity.

Do you think that is not true, or just not relevant to the question of what 'at the forefront' ought to mean? In other words, do you think I have the history wrong, or are you just disputing what "at the forefront" should mean?

Gringo said...

Well, that's a Waylon Jennings song, and it doesn't assert that Bob Wills is the king anywhere except the particular corner of Texas Jennings was talking about.

Waylon Jennings was talking about ALL of Texas, not just some corner of it. Proof is in an excerpt of his lyrics.

Lord i can still remember,the way things were back then
In spite of all the hard times,i'd live it all again
To hear the Texas playboys and Tommy Duncan sing
Makes me proud to be from Texas where Bob Wills is still the king

You can hear the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville Tennessee
It's the home of country music,on that we all agree
But when you cross that ol' Red River hoss that just don't mean a thing
Cause' once you're down in Texas,Bob Wills is still the king

Well if you ain't never been there then i guess you ain't been told
That you just can't live in Texas unless you got a lot of soul
It's the home of Willie Nelson,the home of western swing
He'll be the first to tell you,Bob Wills is still the king


The whole dadgum state, not just Lukenbach. Contrary to what the lyrics may imply, Western Swing was also very big north of the Red River, in Oklahoma. Bob Wills operated out of Tulsa for a while.

Do you think that is not true, or just not relevant to the question of what 'at the forefront' ought to mean? In other words, do you think I have the history wrong, or are you just disputing what "at the forefront" should mean?
On the main, I am disputing what “at the forefront” should mean. I am focusing not on who made the music popular from Maine to California- I really don’t care- but on who created the music. It was the likes of Bob Wills and Milton Brown who combined folk songs [what the people sing- not necessarily what Pete Seeger sings.], blues, pop, and jazz into the combustible mixture that became known as Western Swing. The Sons of the Pioneers, as far as I can tell, were entirely derivative. Moreover, generally the Sons of the Pioneers did not SWING in the way that Bob or Milton’s band did. One can find exceptions to this generalization. The fiddle in the Sons of the Pioneers’ rendition of Happy Roving Cowboy definitely swings.

I would imagine movies had an effect on popularizing Western Swing, albeit often in a watered down form, throughout the country . The yodeling done here by Bill Haley and the Four Aces of Western Swing, originating in Pennsylvania, was probably inspired by movies or from the likes of the Sons of the Pioneers, as Tommy Duncan, Bob Wills’s vocalist, did very little yodeling- if any.

I have compilations of over 300 songs of Western Swing from the 30s and 40s. ONE SONG is by the Sons of the Pioneers. That pretty well sums up their importance. Those who do Western Swing today- do they look to Bob Wills or to the Sons of the Pioneers? No contest: Bob wins in a first round knockout.

Coincidentally, I have two indirect connections with Al Striklin, who was once Bob Wills’s “piano pounder.” I know a saxophone player pushing 80, who still does dance band gigs, who at one time played in a band with Al Striklin- who was a replacement player. I also knew someone who went to high school in Cleburne with Al’s son. I only found out these connections after praising Bob Wills.

Grim said...

I am focusing not on who made the music popular from Maine to California- I really don’t care- but on who created the music.

That's what I thought. We were just talking about different things.

As I was telling bthun in the comments below, this grew out of a comment made at Dad29's place on the subject of the evolution of country music in the late 1960s. He didn't know that much about it, and I wanted to sketch the history of the form, starting with Hank Williams, Sr.

Having established him as a baseline, I wanted to talk a bit about things that had been influencing country (and Western) music before him, and then go on to talk about how he was part of a transformation of country; and then talk about how the Outlaw movement changed it.

I wanted to talk about Western Swing mostly to talk about Hank Williams, in other words: I wanted to establish why he was trying to play it it in his early days (i.e., because it was a form that had achieved broad popularity and was thus a road to fame and fortune for an aspiring singer). To talk about that, you've got to talk about Hollywood, and how the music became so popular.

No insult was intended to more passionate Western Swing lovers like yourself! If you're interested in the thing itself, and not in how it became a national phenomenon, we're just after a different question right now.

I'm going to guess I own about fifty Western Swing songs myself, so you are clearly more dedicated to it. On the other hand, I've got tons of old cowboy movies around here, so it may also be that the Sons and others loom large in my mind because they continue to transmit well if you go back and watch the old films. I can kind of see how a guy from Ohio or New York would watch Roy Rogers and say, "Yeah, that's great."

Which, you know, explains Bing Crosby. The point isn't that he was a leader in Western Swing; the point is that even Bing Crosby got drawn into the act.

Grim said...

Now that said, I do love Western Swing, and I'd be glad to have the benefit of your dedication to it. If you'd like me to add some videos to the gallery, for example, I'd like to know which ones you like best.

Gringo said...

Like you said, we were talking about different things, Here are some suggestions.
Ida Red shows Bob and the Texas Playboys playing an old folk tune- or should we say fiddle tune.

Trouble in Mind shows what Bob Wills can do with a blues song. Al Striklin, my third hand connection to the Texas Playboys, is on the piano.

Home in San Antone is a movie clip with some good, swinging instrument solos.


Take Me Back to Tulsa has a rare appearance of brother Luke Wills on the vocals. Tommy Duncan did most of the vocals.This is one of Bob’s best known tunes.

Tom said...

I think Corb Lund sounds a lot like the singer in Ida Red at times.

I'm enjoying seeing it all laid out like this -- thanks, guys!

Grim said...

It's our pleasure -- mine, at least.