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From: Robert
Date: December 16, 2002
Tough question, no exact answer. It would seem that the same tune might be considered either as honky-tonk or as western swing, perhaps being categorized by the style the one recording it was best known for. Overall, It seems the following might apply:
Western Swing is primarily dance music. It is usually more light-hearted and deals with everyday situations, often about lost-loves, new loves, and mostly avoids singing about infidelity, etc. The music is as much the center of attention as the singer himself. You can take a sad song (e.g. Faded Love, Bubbles In My Beer) and lay a beat to it and dance. Western Swing music also frequently calls on a larger variety of instruments, solos by different band members, and allows for improvisation much more so than honky-tonk music. Western Swing music is jazzier, with more sophisticated arrangements than honky-tonk music.
Honky-Tonk music seems to lean more toward the cry-in-your-beer, hard luck, life's problems, getting drunk, wife cheated on me, pickup truck's broke, sad music that is often okay for listening to, but not really danceable. The main instruments in honky-tonk are usually more limited to guitar, steel guitar and maybe a fiddle or drums. The music is pretty much played the same way every time. I would say that a good western swing band is more versatile than most honky-tonk groups.
I've never really heard a true definition of how the music would be categorized, but that's my observations. Anybody else want to describe it?