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From: Buddy McPeters
Date: December 16, 2002
Interesting discussion. I have thought about this for years too. I don't believe that Western Swing started out as 'country' music at all. I personally believe what was considered 'country' per se was the type of music being played in the Appalachians, which was more Hillbilly, Folk and Blue Grass. In Texas on the other hand, what's considered the cradle of civilization in regards to Western Swing, the musical origins were hardly Hillbilly. The basic primary instruments they had in common were mainly the fiddle and the guitar. The emphasis is certainly different from what became Western Swing fiddle music which was Texas frontier or 'plains' fiddle music consisting of a 'western' breakdown style. It was called 'western' because it was geographically west and it had all of the charm and mystique of the old west which included an emphasis in music more depending on rhythm. Maybe it was all of the horses they rode loping across the plains, who have a certain gait, cantor or gallop. There is a definite rhythm to Texas style fiddle music and the rhythm is in the way the notes are bowed. It's evident in East Texas Serenaders fiddler 'Lefty' Hugging Williams' style and most certainly Bob Wills- not to mention Harry Choates who was and still is the undisputed king of the Cajun fiddlers. The rhythm is the distinguishing factor.
The traditional fiddle music east of Appalachia is nothing like Texas fiddling. It lacks rhythm altogether. Bob Wills music had a definite influence on the music of Nashville that was commonly played on WSM and the Grand Old Opry soon after the original instrumental version of San Antonio Rose became popular. Wills may have gathered a dozen horns to influence others in his Western Swing style, but underneath it all was his fiddle melodies like Maiden's Prayer, San Antonio Rose, and Faded Love that had the most impact. Wills fiddle melodies were certainly handed down, most from his family, and they displayed his own thumbprint with each revision which was infected with the Blues music he was so enamored with. He was also affected by Jazz which certainly wasn't restricted to Kansas City, but was very prominent in Texas. Jazz and Blues infiltrated Bob's music even in his own performances of his family's traditional melodies. Though Bob wasn't a 'Jazz' musician in the truest sense of the word, he was affected by it rhythmically speaking and particularly the Blues expression in his approach. His use of Blues and Swing are other distinguishing factors.
Of all the genres and styles of music birthed in America Hillbilly, Folk and Blue Grass are the least affected by the Black's music beginning with their Blues and later with their Jazz and Swing. Whether it was a racial issue, I cannot say- I don't really think our forum is a good place for that discussion. I have my own opinions about it. Race maybe. Religion and Politics are other possible reasons. Perhaps they were all strange bedfellows in the mix that marked their determination to keep Black music out of their beloved Appalachian Hillbilly music. The Hillbillies in Appalachia rejected Black music influences until it was inevitable that they too would soon absorb all of the great Blues based idioms that had infected American popular musics, genres and styles on a National scale. Wills certainly had an effect on them in this aspect as well as later greats who depended on Black music idioms like Rhythm and Blues including Elvis Presley.
If it wasn't for Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys with their Western Swing instrumentation replete with brass and reeds, twin electric guitars and steels, heavy drums with Blues based Jazz inflections, that Nashville wouldn't be what it is today. They'd still be in overalls playing simple 'Hillbilly' melodies with straws in their mouths, dripping snuff down their chins. Their music would still be Carter Family and Roy Acuff. Jimmie Rodgers certainly influenced change with his Blues oriented, Jazz influenced music even recording with the Carter's. After Rodger's death in 1933, the torch was passed to Bob Wills who rocked the boat with his Texas born independence, his incorporation of all of the idioms found in Western Swing and especially his insistence on having Monte Mountjoy's drums on stage in plain view on the Opry stage in 1944. Wills style, instrumentation, band configurations and arrangements and even the way they dressed had a profound effect on Nashville. Sure there were others who were 'disturbers' like Ernest Tubb who brought the 1st electric guitar to the Opry and Pee Wee King who brought the 1st horn, a trumpet, there as well. Both of these men and their bands had something in common: They were influenced profoundly by Bob Wills. Hank Williams said that he patterned his band and music after Bob Wills both in copying his post war string band including the way his Drifting Cowboys dressed.
The immediate post war years 'Countryfied' Western Swing. After Bob broke up his legendary 22 piece Big Band he formed in CA and he sized it down to a small string band which became the standard thereafter. Spade Cooley on the other hand tried to maintain the BIG band size but he got further away from the Jazz side of Western Swing with each passing day. To begin with his style was slick and over-produced. The fiddles were really violins (it's all in the way they hold it and stroke it they tell me!) played in more symphonic approach. Elvis isn't the sole reason Western Swing died. When you listen to Cooley's harp and accordions smothered in orchestral violins riveted with that lifeless beat his band had, it's evident the part he played in the genre's demise! Though he was the self proclaimed King of Western Swing, he is the one who killed it first by taking out the Swing altogether. Blues was never part of Cooley's sound and Jazz and Swing was represented by a few soloists who were greatly gifted and adept in those fields- especially former Texas Playboys Noel Boggs, Les Anderson, Jimmy Wyble and Cameron Hill and Joaquin Murphey whose Jazz approach to the steel is indisputable. But for all of that, Spade's domineering personality, his constant insistence on tight arrangements that had more in common with the Hollywood movie soundtrack version of 'Western' music than it ever did the Western music of his native Oklahoma, he managed to keep the music from ever really Swinging. He didn't like the Black music approach in his music any more than the folks in Appalachia.
So what happened? The 'Countrification' of Western Swing began to erode at the very foundation of it all. The post war years weren't permissible to Big bands, with most of them disintegrating; Financially it wasn't feasible. With the Great Depression and WWII over, people became settled and lazy. They didn't dance as much and with each passing year the gallery of onlookers at the foot of the stage became deeper. Next people wanted a chair to sit in and wanted to view a concert instead of dance. To accommodate them bands settled their beat so it wouldn't cause anyone to feel compelled to rise from their comfy seat and maybe shake a leg. Soon they would rather stay home and watch 'I Love Lucy' than venture out to 'witness' musical performances.
OK, so what about Honky Tonk? It was nothing new really when Hank Thompson became the King of that genre, though he's considered a Western Swing legend as well. Artists before him like Ernest Tubb, Al Dexter, Ted Daffan and many others in Texas can be cited as early Honky Tonk stylists. They seldom if ever played what was really Western Swing. First of all it never had the beat. Their music was more simplistic, without the Jazz and Swing idioms and instrumentation common in Western Swing but certainly it was more Blues oriented than Appalachian Hillbilly music. They sang about topics and used lyrics that weren't acceptable on WSM and the Grand Old Opry. They sang to a 'Beer drinking crowd' found more often in a rowdy Texas road house more likely to be found shooting pool or practicing the art of fisticuffs without the benefit of the Marquis of Queensberry Rules, than they were dancing or just sitting at a concert content in a chair.
Though Country music 'purists', Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell can certainly be numbered among the Honky Tonk stylists, who were more acceptable in Nashville and curiously they were both more Blues oriented. Things were beginning to change. They were both Western Swing influenced as was Thompson but they possessed a leaning towards arising trends and things to come that Thompson really never did; The Memphis sound and The Bakersfield Sound. To me Thompson was just to 'legit', too 'White' and way too 'Hank Thompson' oriented. It was all about him, regardless of whether he was doing what passed for Western Swing or his more Honky Tonk sounds. He was the center of attention. His voice, his songs which he'd wrote, his guitar playing, his face and his band, who were just a bunch of guys (even though he had some phenomenal players, he NEVER turned them loose and let them PLAY like Wills or Williams, Frizzell or even Cooley or Ole Rasmussen! OR Ernest Tubb for that matter!) The Earth shaking tremors erupting out of Memphis with the advent of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins and others helped rescue Country and Western music which had long since fell asleep with the demise of Western Swing and Bob Wills music, the death of Hank Williams, the institution of The Nashville Sound, and the proliferation of Honky Tonk lead by Hank Thompson. Thompson refitted his music in that straight jacket that Cooley had long before knitted for Western Swing, which Hank held hostage as well and soon he relegated Honky Tonk to the same sentence. What Williams and Frizzell had laid groundwork for soon found it's genesis in a California oiltown where stars were blooming on the vine. Bakersfield was a music center where Bob Wills, Williams and Frizzell had impacted many of it's residents. Namely Wynn Stewart, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Buck rescued Honky Tonk from the choking throes of death it was certainly suffering from at the hands of Thompson and even brought Memphis Rockabilly into play into a new California bred Country music, which became the Bakersfield Sound. What Buck did for these genres Merle did for Western Swing. They brought Life back into the music. Chet Atkins Nashville Sound and Capitol Records in Hollywood had already played a death dirge with their over-produced, smothered syrupy 'music'.
So now we are down to the wire. What exactly is the difference between Western Swing and Honky Tonk? It's mainly in the beat, but it is certainly evidenced in the instrumentation and the arrangement. Western Swing is more about musical expression having to do with Western themes played with Blues based Jazz emphasis on the beat and solos, riffs and other idioms incorporated in the music that sets it apart from Hillbilly or Country music. It is music to dance to - to move with. Honky Tonk is music to sit and muse with. It is music to reflect with about lost love, fortunes lost and tragedy in life - drinking and fighting music. It's more about the singer than the song or the band. The longer Tommy Duncan was away from Bob Wills the more Honky Tonk his music became - it simply ceased to be Western Swing by virtue of him being the center of attention, with his song choice and the lack of spark in his band. They soon lacked that infectious dance rhythm that commanded dancers. He lost his crowd and soon was playing to seated patrons who came to listen to him. Though Bob Wills was the center of attention, no matter who was singing or playing, he always cast the light on his soloists and vocalists. Had he ceased to play dance music and tried to be a Honky Tonk artist his career would have plummeted. What did Sun Records label owner Sam Philips do when he signed the Big Five (Elvis, Orbison, Cash, Jerry Lee and Carl Perkins)? They brought Rhythm and Blues into White music again which had all but died because of the sterilization caused by the demise of the Big Band and Swing era, the death of Western Swing and the proliferation of Hollywood and Nashville music. What did Buck and Merle do for their music interests? They brought life into it and resurrected it by bringing the 'roots' back into play. They restored order by breaking ranks and going against the grain. They brought Black music influences back into their music on a large scale. They incorporated the music of their heroes in such a way that they both resurrected styles while inventing styles of their own all the while being a part of The Bakersfield Sound. Buck wasn't afraid to rescue Honky Tonk and then augment it with his flair for Rockabilly and his appreciation for Western Swing and Country. Merle became a legend in his own time with his own sound which has Honky Tonk roots but he also became the ultimate tribute artist who re-created the sounds of Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell as no other before him or since. He delved in to Blues and Jazz and Swing music and did a believable tribute to 20's minstrel Emmett Miller who had long since been a common denominator of influence with Rodgers, Wills, Williams and Frizzell! So what do we have? We have Western Swing which is Bluesy, Jazzy music birthed of Texas fiddles merged with horns and electrified strings played in a Swing beat; 2/4 , 4/4 etc. It's audience participation music. As Bob Wills once said on stage near the drums, off mic, to the room at large, "Ladies and gentleman you're fixing to hear the best damn fiddle band in the world! Now get up off your asses and dance!" Then he approached the mic and said to the eager crowd, "Friends, welcome! Let's dance!" (Thanx! Gimble!)
We have Honky Tonk which is Blues oriented Country music and therefore more sophisticated, but doesn't 'swing' like Western Swing, (so it isn't!) which isn't played to dance by, so therefore the beat is more of a 1/3 Country beat and the lyrics are aimed at downer situations. It's drinking music, fighting music, music to just sit and listen too. It's mostly spectator music or music to do your own thing by.