The following has been compiled from Wikipedia articles and other sources.
footnotes are not in order but are hotlinked to separate pages.
The Nashville Sound dates to its invention in 1957, when it soon began overtaking the Honky Tonk and allied Bluegrass music popular in the 1940s and 1950s.
Using suave strings and choruses, sophisticated background vocals and smooth styles associated with traditional pop, the Nashville Sound was intended to revive the sagging fortunes of Country-Western, which faced tremendous pressure from Elvis Presley-style Rockabilly and later forms of rock and roll.
The Nashville Sound took a lot of the twang -- as critics labeled it -- out of earlier forms of Country. Honky Tonk and its related genre, Bluegrass, used fiddle, mandolin and, frequently, steel guitar (similar to a dobro). Nashville did not ban the banjo, but its role in recordings was greatly reduced. Gone was Bill Monroe's nasal lead vocal style.
Also pretty much gone were the solo instrumental breaks made popular by Monroe.
JUST COOL STEEL
The steel guitar -- so-called for the sliding steel bar used on the strings and the steel cone resonators -- was invented by a Hawaiian at the end of the 19th Century. Enthusiasm for it soon swept the music business because its sharp, distinct tones recorded well on 78 rpm records. Early 20th Century bands found it almost mandatory to have this instrument on hand. The dobro, invented in the 1920s, was a variant of the "steel" lap guitar.
In the Twenties, musicians found that their acoustic guitars were swamped by other instruments in the big swing/jazz bands. One solution was the dobro guitar, which was deliberately designed to be louder than regular acoustic guitars, which were overwhelmed by the drums and horns used in swing dance bands. Another solution was electrical amplification of the steel guitar; that guitar evolved into the table-top instruments still seen today. But in both cases, the purpose of upgrading the Hawaiian steel guitar was to have something that would blast through a wall of horns and drums.
The "distortion" -- what some call "twang" -- produced by these instruments was pleasing to many, thus explaining their presence in Honky Tonk and Bluegrass music. But now the tables were turned. The steel guitar's distinctive sound now tended to shout down the acoustic stringed instruments. This effect may have influenced producer Owen Bradley's decision to play down the steel guitar in Country recordings. Interestingly, the steel guitar found use in Blues, which also quickly adopted the electric solid body guitar, laying a basis for Rock and Roll.
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar (the dobro is an example) is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar's sounding board (top). What this means is that the sound produced by the strings is amplified. Amplification is achieved because a sound slice is repeated by a resonator, so that two identical sound slices overlay each other. But these slices are slightly out of phase. That is, there are slight delays that give the amplified slice a bit of twang (similar in process to the ring of a bell).
Further, the sliding bar on the strings adds to that "distortion" by using continuous note-making, as opposed to individual note-making on the regular guitar, mando and banjo. On those instruments, the plucked string vibrates at a specific frequency determined by length of the vibrating string and its tautness. But the soundwave is not amplified by much. The fiddle, using slight changes in pressure and other movements, makes both distinct and continuous notes (continuous sound between two notes). It is loud enough to hold its own against the steel. The fiddle's volume is accounted for, at least in part, by both the bow and string(s) vibrating together, reinforcing each other's vibrations, thus producing an "amplified" sound.
Though developed much later, an extreme of the "distortion" effect is the wah-wah pedal, which distorts the sound made by the electric guitar.
One spin-off of the shoulder-strap electric steel guitar was the electric guitar, though it wasn't until the early fifties that Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar of Rock and Roll fame.
Another spin-off was the table-top steel guitar. The instrument worked on the same principle as the electric shoulder-strap steel guitar, but musicians found it more flexible.
The table-top steel guitar was adopted by numerous Country groups, though, unlike the banjo and fiddle, it was certainly never mandatory. On many recordings from the 1940s and 1950s one can hear the almost overpowering sound of the steel guitar. But does this instrument complement the other instruments? Nashville studios came to doubt its value.
It is ironical that the electrified steel guitar's close relative, the solid body electric guitar, can be played with almost as much finesse as a fiddle -- though it often isn't. It is also ironical that in order to make Country more competitive with Rock, the steel guitar had to be sacrificed while Rock probably would never have existed without ithe electric ax.
Musical tastes, of course, change. With the rise of Rap and Hip Hop, many young fans never developed an ear for electric guitars. I recall a young DJ commenting with bemused scorn on all the electric guitars playing on some Rock number. He was a Hip Hop man. Electric guitar, steel guitar, dobro -- none meant much to him or his peers.
Some groups handle the volume imbalance problem with recording technology that lowers steel volume. Modern software programs can do this even for music recorded live outside the studio.
The McKinney Sisters: Life is a Mountain Railroad (4:58)
A recently active Bluegrass group, the McKinney Sisters, had only three members. So for different numbers different instruments might be played. In a 2013 live video, Randyl McKinney, who was about 16, shifts from her usual banjo to the dobro. She manages to keep it muted except when she solos. But, the impression is that the instrument isn't obnoxiously loud. Even so, to my taste, it is still slightly overbearing, though that outcome clearly is not her doing. That's a design issue.
HANK'S A NICE GUY, BUT...
The year 1957 marks the split-off of Bluegrass from Country-Western, which was now renamed Country -- because cowboy yodeling songs were also not wanted.
That is the year that RCA Victor, the recording company, decided to scrap the music presented by the Grand Ole Opry of the 1940s and 1950s and replace it with a form deliberately designed and tightly controlled by Chet Atkins, who had served a lengthy stint at the Opry with the revived Carter Family.
The dead but not forgotten Hank Williams was out, a refashioned George Jones would soon enough be in. Reversed was Hank Sr.'s idea of calling his group The Drifting Cowboys as he and his bandmates dressed in cowboy attire, thus identifying as national Country-Western rather than as regional north Alabama hillbilly.
In a strange twist of fate, Ernest Tubb [1a] -- a poor boy who made good as one of the founders of 20th Century Country -- was not quite right for the Nashville Sound, though he managed to keep busy with singers like fellow Opry star Loretta Lynn during the 1960s. In fact, his label, Decca, a promoter of the Nashville Sound, kept releasing the 30-million-record performer's music into the mid-1970s. Tubb was Honky Tonk before Williams hitched himself to that star. The Texan's biggest hit, "Walking the Floor Over You" (1941), launched the Honky Tonk era. His
But the rise of the Nashville Sound toned down his previous success other than among a fiercely loyal fan base.
Ernest Tubb: Walking the Floor Over You
The Grand Ole Opry hired him in 1943, and he performed there for the next four decades.
He never appeared in public without a tailored Western suit and ten-gallon hat, a feature that helped erase "hillbilly" from Country-Western. Even so, Tubb's Texas Honky Tonk is usually credited with paving the way for Bluegrass -- though his band's instruments were heavy on guitars and steel guitars. During vocals, his bandmates were under orders to keep the instrument volume down.
Tubbs early on used quite a bit of electric amplification, which helped his Texas Troubadors achieve that Honky Tonk sound, which is the reason why Merle Haggard once showed up to perform with Tubb carrying his electric ax. Amplification of specific instruments is generally frowned on in Bluegrass, though modern bands use microphones and amplifiers, of course.
The year 1957 is when Atkins became RCA Victor's chief of Nashville operations and scrapped the old Opry sound, heeding the advice of producer Owen Bradley to ditch the fiddle and the steel guitar from the new form. Others on Atkins's team were producers Steve Sholes and Bob Ferguson, and recording engineer Bill Porter.
Now "in" were the smooth elements of 1950s pop: string sections, background vocals and crooning leads, along with pop music structures. All this was slickly produced -- some would say overproduced. That is, the various sound components were carefully overlaid and spliced to yield a perfected studio sound.
The producers relied on a small group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability and creative input made them vital to the hit-making process. The Anita Kerr Quartet was used extensively by RCA in the early 1960s. Also heavily used on backup vocals during that transition period was the Southern gospel group The Jordanaires.
One tale has it that when asked what the Nashville Sound was, Atkins put his hand in his pocket, shook some loose change, and said, "That's what it is. It's the sound of money."
It has been suggested that Presley's non-country hit of 1956, "Don't Be Cruel," influenced Atkins and his colleagues into developing the "new sound."
It should be emphasized that outside RCA's Nashville studios there were few hard and fast rules on what constituted acceptable Country instruments, as we see from telecasts of the era. Check the Country Music Hall of Fame site,
Instruments found in Country
https://countrymusichalloffame.org/education/instruments/
Also check,
The Country Music Project
https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/countrymusic/the-history/the-nashville-sound/
THE RISE OF COUNTRY
The Roaring Twenties tapped into the new connectivity provided by paved roads, model T's, radio broadcasting and post-war exuberance. Passage of the women's suffrage amendment immediately revolutionized society, as legislatures across the country quickly dismantled various restrictions on women's rights. Further, the passage of Prohibition in 1919 unleashed a massive wave of contempt for government and "fuddy duddy" elders.
In other words, the youth-driven times were ripe for all sorts of new ideas, including in the music business. Upstart labels sought "new" forms in order to be competitive. And "new" is what music is all about. The ear tires easily of an oft-repeated number. Variation on every level (not necessarily all at once) is essential.
According to the article.
History of the Record Industry: 1920 to 1950s
https://medium.com/@Vinylmint/history-of-the-record-industry-1920-1950s-6d491d7cb606
Yet, OKeh's first smash hit came after Peer recorded an African-American, Mamie Smith, singing "Crazy Blues," which sold in the millions, mostly to African-Americans, thus establishing the genre of what today is called Rhythm and Blues.
In 1923, Peer authorized the release of what is often seen as the first Country recording after asking Polk C. Brockman, an OKeh distributor in Atlanta, to think of a folk musician worth an OKeh trip to Atlanta. The result was "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" sung by Fiddlin' John Carson.
The Country genre gained a tremendous boost in 1927, when Peer, now working for RCA's predecessor (Victor Talking Machine Company), advertised for performers to try out in Bristol, Tenn. Among those who showed up in early August 1927 were the Carter Family, and Jimmie Rodgers.
Rodgers's recordings of "The Soldier's Sweetheart" and "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" were issued in October, to modest success. He then traveled to Victor's Camden, N.J., studios and recorded "Blue Yodel" -- better known as "T for Texas" -- which was a huge hit. His sister-in-law Elsie McWilliams had a substantial impact on his career, writing or co-writing more than 40 of his songs.
"T is for Texas" made the guitar-playing Rodgers in high demand as a solo artist.
Peer recorded the Carter Family -- Alvin Pleasant Carter, his wife Sara and his sister Maybelle -- on Aug. 1, 1927, two days before Peer recorded Rodgers. Maybelle played guitar and sang harmony; Sara played autoharp and sang alto lead; and Alvin intermittently played fiddle and sang bass.
In November, Victor released a double-sided 78 rpm record of the Carters performing "Wandering Boy" and "Poor Orphan Child." In December 1928, Victor released "The Storms Are on the Ocean" / "Single Girl, Married Girl," which became very popular. By the end of 1930, they had sold 300,000 records in the United States and went on to a meteoric recording career at Victor.
The Carters later went on to become a powerful voice in radio. In 1939, they had a twice-daily program on an American-controlled station just over the border in Mexico. Mexican radio stations did not conform to U.S. limits on range of signal, meaning the family's songs were heard across the United States. Later, the group recorded their sessions in San Antonio, Tex., which were then broadcast from a number of border stations.
After World War II, "Mother Maybelle" and daughters Anita, June and Helen landed permanent spots on the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry itself was an outgrowth of the Carters' pioneering work.
FADE-OUT OF WESTERN SWING
At a 1982 performance of Bob Wills's song "Faded Love," Tammy Wynette cited the Western Swing bandleader as an important influence on her music.
Born in 1905 in Kosse, Tex., Wills formed the Texas Playboys in 1934. The initial lineup was Wills, fiddle; Tommy Duncan, piano and vocals; June Whalin, rhythm guitar; Johnnie Lee Wills, tenor banjo; and Kermit Whalin, steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on the Tulsa, Okla., radio station KVOO. Wills eventually added drummers and a horn section, thus molding the group into one of the Big Bands then in vogue.
Using jazzy arrangements, the band hit the big time in the 1930s and stayed popular nationwide into the 1940s. found national popularity with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag," "New San Antonio Rose," "Smoke on the Water," "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima" and "New Spanish Two Step."
In 1968, the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Wills. In 1999, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame did likewise for him and the Texas Playboys. In 1974, a stroke felled him while he was recording with a fan, Merle Haggard. Wills did not recover and died in 1970.
Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys: Faded Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoVNMa29lgg
Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys: Steel Guitar Rag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxzxH6wIPCY
COUNTRYPOLITAN POPS UP
In any case, the new kid on the block -- the Nashville Sound -- quickly morphed into something else, which was dubbed Countrypolitan. Shaken by the sudden deaths of money-earners Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, Nashville saw Atkins's tight-fisted grip loosened. Nashville brought more variety to Country in what is fairly described as a fusion of the Nashville Sound and pop. The idea was to target mainstream markets. This new Countrypolitan wave sold well during the 1960s and first half of the 1970s.
Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill -- who promoted Tammy Wynette's [1] early career -- and Glenn Sutton. Artists who typified Countrypolitan included Wynette, Charlie Rich and Charley Pride, along with Los Angeles-based singers Lynn Anderson and Glen Campbell. George Jones's mature style fused Countrypolitan with the Honky Tonk (also called Hillbilly) that had made him famous.
Wynette's hits usually follow the maxim that a country song requires "three chords and a story." [6] Her brilliant vocal artistry made these little human stories into powerhouse music, though her vocal skill is generally underappreciated. She often followed songwriter Harlan Howard's formula that songs about love should have some drama in them.
According to Howard,
Not all Nashville labels followed the Atkins-Bradley line on the Nashville Sound. On Wynette's first record, "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," released by Epic in 1967, a steel guitar or dobro is used to complement Wynette's vocals, without stepping on them. though the instrument is kept under rein. There is no fiddle.
Tammy Wynette: Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad
POOR GIRL MAKES GOOD
Like Wynette, Dolly Parton [2] started out as a dirt poor country girl.
Parton is the real deal: She grew up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, where she absorbed the Appalachian music handed down from her Welsh ancestors. Fiddles and mandolins were prized among Appalachians. Yet, when she began her songwriting and singing career in Nashville upon graduation from high school, she immediately plunged into the Nashville Sound.
For example, a televised performance by Bill Phillips and Ruby Wright of "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" from the 1960s shows a band with no fiddle, steel guitar or mandolin. Parton and her songwriter uncle, Bill Owens, wrote that song.
Phillips & Wright: Put It Off Until Tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbltZuYTDk
As a woman who hit the big time in Country, Skeeter Davis was a top influence on Parton and Wynette. Parton and Owens wrote Davis's 1967 hit, "Fuel to the Flame."
Skeeter Davis: Fuel to the Flame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1Oq7ZoluY
Davis's vocal and instrumental backup is "pop mild" and the record could easily be viewed as a crossover playable in northern urban markets.
Parton's career breakthrough came when Porter Wagoner added her to his band as a singer. Wagoner persuaded his label, RCA, to give Parton a record deal. Her first record featured a duet with Wagoner of Tom Paxton's 1964 hit, "The Last Thing on My Mind."
Tom Paxton: The Last Thing On My Mind (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o146K6cGLk
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoOeq8oEi6U
On the other hand, a telecast of a Parton-Wagoner duet shows Wagoner's band WITH fiddle and steel guitar. But there are no solo breaks -- not that all Bluegrass numbers include breaks.
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (telecast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhgPo62eLyQ
On that RCA single, time is kept by a fairly strong sounding instrument that serves as a drum beat but is not from a drum. What is it? You tell me. That strong a beat is generally avoided in Bluegrass. Whatever the backup band's instruments, the instrumental sound is toned down and blended. No instrumental bridge. In fact, I find it difficult to distinguish instruments, something that would not happen with a Bluegrass band.
On listening to a number of 1970s Countrypolitan numbers, I would guess that the backbeat was generally issued by a metronome. That is, what else would go "tock, tock, tock..." with impecabble timing?
Yet a telecast version of Loretta Lynn's "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind" gives the impression that the "tock, tock" is from her guitar...but I'm skeptical. (And note the brevity of the steel guitar and fiddle breaks.)
We have as evidence the studio version of the smash Country hit "D.I.V.O.R.C.E" -- written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman and released by Wynette in 1968. The metronomish tock-tock is very apparent.
[Update: I have found that such a sound can be produced by a percussive shaker or a woodblock, which is tapped with a single drum stick. Even so, the right metronome would work fine and never lose a beat. Further, I gave a new listen to Lynn's Decca version of "Your Cheatin' Heart" and picked up a quick double-tap on every alternate tock. So I suppose that was either a shaker or a woodblock, not a metronome.]
Though the producers had no problem including a bold steel guitar sound for the intro, the rest of the instrumentals are pretty much mellowed out with no sign of a steel guitar that I noticed.
Tammy Wynette: D.I.V.O.R.C.E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVgb5aPhDQ
Loretta Lynn: Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBnkAkmLtaw
Compare three versions of the iconic Country hit "Satin Sheets."
The song, by Jan Howard and Bill Anderson, appeared in their 1972 album "Country Essentials." That version used the team's original lyrics, which, when sung in a duet confused the hearer as to who was who. A year later Jeanne Pruett [8], who had finally escaped RCA's strict control, revised the lyrics to reflect a woman's perspective. The result was a sensation and her stymied career took off. Pruett had also artfully promoted her song to radio stations across the country, obtaining major crossover airplay.
Wynette's 1974 version is a direct knock-off of Pruett's, including the intro instrumentals, the singing style and, yes, even the...errh...metronome.
Yet one must concede that Wynette brought her full vocal artistry to bear on that song, and probably outpoints Pruett in that regard. She followed Pruett, but subtly.
Bill and Jan: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMRaBO7FU0
Jeanne Pruett: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6n-UQ9k8rI
Tammy Wynette: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4bPcKCmvEE
'ROCKY TOP' STUNS NASHVILLE
Lynn Anderson once said that as a Californian, she had been given the blow-off by the Nashville elite. So she covered "Rocky Top," written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and first performed by the Osborne Brothers, a Bluegrass band, and scored herself a big hit. The first version had less of a Bluegrass backup sound than the second. In any case, the Californian had pushed a button among Tennesseans, and many Nashville performers, such as Dolly Parton, followed her in covering what is really a fun, novelty song that is iconic among Bluegrass fans and all over the South.
Lynn Anderson: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROkIhZJLSY
The distinction between Countrypolitan and Bluegrass is well illustrated by Anderson's 1970 release of "Rose Garden," a song written by Joe South, which quickly obtained crossover status.
Lynn Anderson: Rose Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHHCZTvQco
Similarly, the distinction is drawn by Crystal Gayle's [3] versions of her "orchestral style" number "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" which attained crossover status, and "Rocky Top," which is straight Bluegrass, solo breaks and all.
Crystal Gayle: Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9lz_yzrGZw
Crystal Gayle: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nm2atrRqcY
Likewise, Kitty Wells 1952 versus Kitty Wells 1961 demonstrates the shift away from Honky Tonk to Countrypolitan. The Nashville native [5] hit the jackpot in 1952 when, in her early thirties, she recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a song written by J.D. Miller. The Decca number stunned her by about-facing her flagging career. A decade later "Heartbreak USA," written by Harlan Howard, scored her a hit. Its early Countrypolitan sound is very apparent.
Kitty Wells: It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKleTa94dC8
Note the steel guitar in that video.
Kitty Wells: Heartbreak USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pChL_SAB60U
TAMMY'S ADAPTABILITY
Tammy Wynette had no problem singing Honky Tonk or Bluegrass and did so regularly.
Tammy Wynette: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z-EU5Sx8-k
On the Bluegrass number "Rocky Top" she demonstrates the patient good humor of an artist singing something that requires vocal skills far below her level.
A young Hank Jr. teams with Tammy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTC82ZeRi-A
Here Wynette comfortably airs her parts of a medley of Hank Sr. hits. (Interesting that the youthful Hank Jr. sounds remarkably like his dad when singing this medley.)
The distinction between Honky Tonk and the Nashville Sound is artfully blurred in Tammy's version of "Your Cheating Heart." A youthful Wynette revised Hank Sr.'s lyrics to make them more in step with her time, clipping some of the rural verbiage that lent the song a Honky Tonk flavor. She also felt at liberty to change the verb "will" to "is gonna," which had become popular idiomatically. The background instrumental is pop mild, with no trace of the banished "twang." That is, she had made a Honky Tonk number into a Nashville Sound number.
Tammy Wynette: Your Cheating Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X17_FUxUccM
LORETTA BLENDS TWO WORLDS
Another poor girl made good: Loretta Lynn [4], whose 1971 hit "Coal Miner's Daughter" tells her tale of growing up in an impoverished rural Kentucky mining settlement.
In 1960, she caught a break when a Canadian admirer financed her first recording, "I'm a Honky Tonk Woman," on his Zero Records label. She and her husband Oliver (Doolittle) Lynn then toured radio stations, often sleeping in their car, to promote her record. As she was at the time West Coast-based, she had not fallen into step with the Nashville Sound, though it wasn't long before Decca gave her a contract and issued a new version of "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl."
Her Zero backup included steel guitar, fiddle, guitar, bass and -- drums! Evidently West Coast Honky Tonk wasn't inflexible. "Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville Sound," said Lynn. "It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat."
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Decca)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLQw6I5VCac
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Zero)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgE-gwZDbb0
On both versions we hear a Honky Tonk sound, but Decca producer Owen Bradley's production is better arranged. In particular, the Zero version's steel guitar is too loud and overwhelms the vocals rather than enhancing them. Bradley greatly curbs the steel guitar's volume and makes sure its strains only fill the vocal eddies without competing with vocal surges. Bradley, the real inventor of the Nashville Sound, took the top job at Decca Nashville in 1958, but seems not to have been quite as controlling as RCA's Atkins.
Neither record has any Bluegrass-style solo breaks. Such breaks are rarely heard in the Honky Tonk or Bakersfield styles.
On Decca's "Coal Miner's Daughter," the instrumental backup takes a Bluegrass mode, with the banjo given moderate prominence. I didn't detect a fiddle, and if there is any steel guitar, its role has been greatly reduced. No breaks, of course. The backbeat tock-tock is almost unhearable. Clearly, a grassy backup made sense. Lynn projected as an authentic and very likable "hillbilly," despite having released a number of songs with a strong feminist point of view.
Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqkUaxFB-4
Yet, Bradley used an all-out Nashville Sound to back Decca recordings of Lynn's team-up with Conway Twitty (who had previously been in the Rockabilly camp). Sure enough, no metronome-like tock-tock on their number "It's Only Make-Believe." Egad! It's a drum -- though rather low-key, of course. And then there is the type of choral backing standard to the mainstream pop of the period.
Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty: It's Only Make Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVoWve7_Mg
FROM BAKERSFIELD TO OUTLAW
Before the rise of the Nashville Sound in 1957, what is now called the Bakersfield Sound aired Honky Tonk in the bars of Bakersfield, Calif. Those Central Valley musicians had inherited the music of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl refugees. Notable among them were Buck Owens ("Streets of Bakersfield") and Merle Haggard, who was a young prisoner in the Folsom prison audience when Johnny Cash sang there.
Still, one would be hard put to characterize Haggard's later career as Honky Tonk or Bakersfield. It is better termed Nashville style with a dash or two of Bakersfield.
After the Nashville Sound became dominant, the Bakersfield Sound still found good airplay.
In 1983 Okie-from-Muskogee Haggard went over to the enemy, in the eyes of many Country fans, by joining up with the despised Texas hippie Willie Nelson, on a high-selling album, "Pancho and Lefty." That title song rings more of Folk music than it does of Country. (What is Folk music? Good question. TTYL on that.) But by that time both performers needed to re-energize their careers.
In 1985, Nelson turned the tables on his demonizers by becoming a top man in what was billed as Outlaw Country, which was spurred by the supergroup The Highwaymen, consisting of Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, all of whom had been aging out of the music business and needed a new deal. The band released a folky album, "The Highwayman," which also does not have a "real Country" ring. Meanwhile, the Hag managed to cruise in the Outlaw world, with six collaborative albums with Nelson that are very hippie-like, while holding his tradition-minded fan base with a continuing stream of his brand of the Nashville Sound.
HIP MEETS BLUEGRASS
Yet, no one would say that Bluegrass is dead and gone. An example of a modern, highly expert, Bluegrass band is the Petersens. My opinion is that they are a cut above most grass bands because of the rigor of their rehearsals, led by Katie Petersen, the expertise of their arrangements, and the tightness of their music. And they put audiences at ease with their youthful banter. But it is their singing, both together and solo, that makes them so remarkable. Their harmonious voices are very finely framed by the expert instrumentals.
The Petersens are highly skilled in traditional Bluegrass but also are known for their ability to "grass up" Pop and Rock hits, or just about anything they like. Based in Branson, Mo., in the heart of the Ozarks, the band has been serving up its eclectic blend of old-timey and new wave Bluegrass to appreciative audiences for more than a decade.
Among their biggest Youtube sellers are "Country Roads" by John Denver, "Jolene" by Dolly Parton and "Carolina in My Mind" by James Taylor, which mught be regarded as Country or Country Rock numbers.
The Petersens: Country Roads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qap9Qm-Q894
The Petersens: Jolene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viQx4KDivPY
The Petersens: Carolina in My Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKeMIOhXjo
But then we have "Bohemian Rhapsody," a song by rocker Freddy Mercury.
The Petersens: Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XVrm6zXmw
But if you like old standbys, their "Rocky Top" is one of the best out there.
The Petersens: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQYtBaI7bU
And you'll even find old folk music numbers, like "Shenandoah."
The Petersens: Shenandoah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSjI8f5Zqw
Nor is there a shortage of standard Country fare. "Amarillo by Morning" is just one of many examples.
The Petersens: Amarillo by Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_Amx13hLI
Then there is "Tulsa Time," which has served both Country and Rock artists. Here is their fun grassed-up version.
The Petersens: Tulsa Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2DA-lSMj4E
The troubadors do not hide their faith, as we hear on one of their gospel videos.
All Glory Be to Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EexEDzJ6zIY
This essay obviously only gives a slice of the history of Country music and does not attempt to cover its entire evolution from ancient to modern times.
Using suave strings and choruses, sophisticated background vocals and smooth styles associated with traditional pop, the Nashville Sound was intended to revive the sagging fortunes of Country-Western, which faced tremendous pressure from Elvis Presley-style Rockabilly and later forms of rock and roll.
The Nashville Sound took a lot of the twang -- as critics labeled it -- out of earlier forms of Country. Honky Tonk and its related genre, Bluegrass, used fiddle, mandolin and, frequently, steel guitar (similar to a dobro). Nashville did not ban the banjo, but its role in recordings was greatly reduced. Gone was Bill Monroe's nasal lead vocal style.
Also pretty much gone were the solo instrumental breaks made popular by Monroe.
JUST COOL STEEL
The steel guitar -- so-called for the sliding steel bar used on the strings and the steel cone resonators -- was invented by a Hawaiian at the end of the 19th Century. Enthusiasm for it soon swept the music business because its sharp, distinct tones recorded well on 78 rpm records. Early 20th Century bands found it almost mandatory to have this instrument on hand. The dobro, invented in the 1920s, was a variant of the "steel" lap guitar.
In the Twenties, musicians found that their acoustic guitars were swamped by other instruments in the big swing/jazz bands. One solution was the dobro guitar, which was deliberately designed to be louder than regular acoustic guitars, which were overwhelmed by the drums and horns used in swing dance bands. Another solution was electrical amplification of the steel guitar; that guitar evolved into the table-top instruments still seen today. But in both cases, the purpose of upgrading the Hawaiian steel guitar was to have something that would blast through a wall of horns and drums.
The "distortion" -- what some call "twang" -- produced by these instruments was pleasing to many, thus explaining their presence in Honky Tonk and Bluegrass music. But now the tables were turned. The steel guitar's distinctive sound now tended to shout down the acoustic stringed instruments. This effect may have influenced producer Owen Bradley's decision to play down the steel guitar in Country recordings. Interestingly, the steel guitar found use in Blues, which also quickly adopted the electric solid body guitar, laying a basis for Rock and Roll.
A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar (the dobro is an example) is an acoustic guitar that produces sound by conducting string vibrations through the bridge to one or more spun metal cones (resonators), instead of to the guitar's sounding board (top). What this means is that the sound produced by the strings is amplified. Amplification is achieved because a sound slice is repeated by a resonator, so that two identical sound slices overlay each other. But these slices are slightly out of phase. That is, there are slight delays that give the amplified slice a bit of twang (similar in process to the ring of a bell).
Further, the sliding bar on the strings adds to that "distortion" by using continuous note-making, as opposed to individual note-making on the regular guitar, mando and banjo. On those instruments, the plucked string vibrates at a specific frequency determined by length of the vibrating string and its tautness. But the soundwave is not amplified by much. The fiddle, using slight changes in pressure and other movements, makes both distinct and continuous notes (continuous sound between two notes). It is loud enough to hold its own against the steel. The fiddle's volume is accounted for, at least in part, by both the bow and string(s) vibrating together, reinforcing each other's vibrations, thus producing an "amplified" sound.
Though developed much later, an extreme of the "distortion" effect is the wah-wah pedal, which distorts the sound made by the electric guitar.
One spin-off of the shoulder-strap electric steel guitar was the electric guitar, though it wasn't until the early fifties that Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar of Rock and Roll fame.
Another spin-off was the table-top steel guitar. The instrument worked on the same principle as the electric shoulder-strap steel guitar, but musicians found it more flexible.
The table-top steel guitar was adopted by numerous Country groups, though, unlike the banjo and fiddle, it was certainly never mandatory. On many recordings from the 1940s and 1950s one can hear the almost overpowering sound of the steel guitar. But does this instrument complement the other instruments? Nashville studios came to doubt its value.
It is ironical that the electrified steel guitar's close relative, the solid body electric guitar, can be played with almost as much finesse as a fiddle -- though it often isn't. It is also ironical that in order to make Country more competitive with Rock, the steel guitar had to be sacrificed while Rock probably would never have existed without ithe electric ax.
Musical tastes, of course, change. With the rise of Rap and Hip Hop, many young fans never developed an ear for electric guitars. I recall a young DJ commenting with bemused scorn on all the electric guitars playing on some Rock number. He was a Hip Hop man. Electric guitar, steel guitar, dobro -- none meant much to him or his peers.
Some groups handle the volume imbalance problem with recording technology that lowers steel volume. Modern software programs can do this even for music recorded live outside the studio.
The McKinney Sisters: Life is a Mountain Railroad (4:58)
A recently active Bluegrass group, the McKinney Sisters, had only three members. So for different numbers different instruments might be played. In a 2013 live video, Randyl McKinney, who was about 16, shifts from her usual banjo to the dobro. She manages to keep it muted except when she solos. But, the impression is that the instrument isn't obnoxiously loud. Even so, to my taste, it is still slightly overbearing, though that outcome clearly is not her doing. That's a design issue.
HANK'S A NICE GUY, BUT...
The year 1957 marks the split-off of Bluegrass from Country-Western, which was now renamed Country -- because cowboy yodeling songs were also not wanted.
That is the year that RCA Victor, the recording company, decided to scrap the music presented by the Grand Ole Opry of the 1940s and 1950s and replace it with a form deliberately designed and tightly controlled by Chet Atkins, who had served a lengthy stint at the Opry with the revived Carter Family.
The dead but not forgotten Hank Williams was out, a refashioned George Jones would soon enough be in. Reversed was Hank Sr.'s idea of calling his group The Drifting Cowboys as he and his bandmates dressed in cowboy attire, thus identifying as national Country-Western rather than as regional north Alabama hillbilly.
In a strange twist of fate, Ernest Tubb [1a] -- a poor boy who made good as one of the founders of 20th Century Country -- was not quite right for the Nashville Sound, though he managed to keep busy with singers like fellow Opry star Loretta Lynn during the 1960s. In fact, his label, Decca, a promoter of the Nashville Sound, kept releasing the 30-million-record performer's music into the mid-1970s. Tubb was Honky Tonk before Williams hitched himself to that star. The Texan's biggest hit, "Walking the Floor Over You" (1941), launched the Honky Tonk era. His
But the rise of the Nashville Sound toned down his previous success other than among a fiercely loyal fan base.
Ernest Tubb: Walking the Floor Over You
The Grand Ole Opry hired him in 1943, and he performed there for the next four decades.
He never appeared in public without a tailored Western suit and ten-gallon hat, a feature that helped erase "hillbilly" from Country-Western. Even so, Tubb's Texas Honky Tonk is usually credited with paving the way for Bluegrass -- though his band's instruments were heavy on guitars and steel guitars. During vocals, his bandmates were under orders to keep the instrument volume down.
Tubbs early on used quite a bit of electric amplification, which helped his Texas Troubadors achieve that Honky Tonk sound, which is the reason why Merle Haggard once showed up to perform with Tubb carrying his electric ax. Amplification of specific instruments is generally frowned on in Bluegrass, though modern bands use microphones and amplifiers, of course.
The year 1957 is when Atkins became RCA Victor's chief of Nashville operations and scrapped the old Opry sound, heeding the advice of producer Owen Bradley to ditch the fiddle and the steel guitar from the new form. Others on Atkins's team were producers Steve Sholes and Bob Ferguson, and recording engineer Bill Porter.
Now "in" were the smooth elements of 1950s pop: string sections, background vocals and crooning leads, along with pop music structures. All this was slickly produced -- some would say overproduced. That is, the various sound components were carefully overlaid and spliced to yield a perfected studio sound.
The producers relied on a small group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability and creative input made them vital to the hit-making process. The Anita Kerr Quartet was used extensively by RCA in the early 1960s. Also heavily used on backup vocals during that transition period was the Southern gospel group The Jordanaires.
One tale has it that when asked what the Nashville Sound was, Atkins put his hand in his pocket, shook some loose change, and said, "That's what it is. It's the sound of money."
It has been suggested that Presley's non-country hit of 1956, "Don't Be Cruel," influenced Atkins and his colleagues into developing the "new sound."
It should be emphasized that outside RCA's Nashville studios there were few hard and fast rules on what constituted acceptable Country instruments, as we see from telecasts of the era. Check the Country Music Hall of Fame site,
Instruments found in Country
https://countrymusichalloffame.org/education/instruments/
Also check,
The Country Music Project
https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/countrymusic/the-history/the-nashville-sound/
THE RISE OF COUNTRY
The Roaring Twenties tapped into the new connectivity provided by paved roads, model T's, radio broadcasting and post-war exuberance. Passage of the women's suffrage amendment immediately revolutionized society, as legislatures across the country quickly dismantled various restrictions on women's rights. Further, the passage of Prohibition in 1919 unleashed a massive wave of contempt for government and "fuddy duddy" elders.
In other words, the youth-driven times were ripe for all sorts of new ideas, including in the music business. Upstart labels sought "new" forms in order to be competitive. And "new" is what music is all about. The ear tires easily of an oft-repeated number. Variation on every level (not necessarily all at once) is essential.
According to the article.
History of the Record Industry: 1920 to 1950s
https://medium.com/@Vinylmint/history-of-the-record-industry-1920-1950s-6d491d7cb606
Until the 1920s, the music business was dominated not by major record labels, but by song publishers and big vaudeville and theater concerns. In those days, sheet music consistently outsold records of the same hit songs, proving that most of the music heard in homes and in public back then was played by people, not record players. A hit song’s sheet music often sold in the millions between 1910 and 1920. Recorded versions of these songs were at first just seen as a way to promote the sheet music, and were usually released only after sheet music sales began falling.In 1920, an 18-year-old Kansan, Ralph Peer, was hired as recording director for OKeh Records in New York after a stint in Kansas City working for Columbia Records. Two years earlier, OKeh had been founded by Otto K.E. Heinemann in New York. Heinemann wished to go beyond the standard fare of the era -- popular songs, dance numbers and vaudeville skits -- and record music that would appeal to the great waves of European immigrants across America.
Records grew steadily in popularity throughout that time, though, with sales going from 4 million units per year in 1900 to 30 million in 1909, and to over 100 million per year by 1920. But in relative terms, records were still a small part of the entertainment pie, and recording them in the years before 1910 was no more exciting for musicians than acting in early films was for stage actors. Both film and records were considered novelties. Live shows remained the main income source for musicians, and songwriters lived off of sheet music and performance royalties.
Yet, OKeh's first smash hit came after Peer recorded an African-American, Mamie Smith, singing "Crazy Blues," which sold in the millions, mostly to African-Americans, thus establishing the genre of what today is called Rhythm and Blues.
In 1923, Peer authorized the release of what is often seen as the first Country recording after asking Polk C. Brockman, an OKeh distributor in Atlanta, to think of a folk musician worth an OKeh trip to Atlanta. The result was "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" sung by Fiddlin' John Carson.
The Country genre gained a tremendous boost in 1927, when Peer, now working for RCA's predecessor (Victor Talking Machine Company), advertised for performers to try out in Bristol, Tenn. Among those who showed up in early August 1927 were the Carter Family, and Jimmie Rodgers.
Rodgers's recordings of "The Soldier's Sweetheart" and "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" were issued in October, to modest success. He then traveled to Victor's Camden, N.J., studios and recorded "Blue Yodel" -- better known as "T for Texas" -- which was a huge hit. His sister-in-law Elsie McWilliams had a substantial impact on his career, writing or co-writing more than 40 of his songs.
"T is for Texas" made the guitar-playing Rodgers in high demand as a solo artist.
Peer recorded the Carter Family -- Alvin Pleasant Carter, his wife Sara and his sister Maybelle -- on Aug. 1, 1927, two days before Peer recorded Rodgers. Maybelle played guitar and sang harmony; Sara played autoharp and sang alto lead; and Alvin intermittently played fiddle and sang bass.
In November, Victor released a double-sided 78 rpm record of the Carters performing "Wandering Boy" and "Poor Orphan Child." In December 1928, Victor released "The Storms Are on the Ocean" / "Single Girl, Married Girl," which became very popular. By the end of 1930, they had sold 300,000 records in the United States and went on to a meteoric recording career at Victor.
The Carters later went on to become a powerful voice in radio. In 1939, they had a twice-daily program on an American-controlled station just over the border in Mexico. Mexican radio stations did not conform to U.S. limits on range of signal, meaning the family's songs were heard across the United States. Later, the group recorded their sessions in San Antonio, Tex., which were then broadcast from a number of border stations.
After World War II, "Mother Maybelle" and daughters Anita, June and Helen landed permanent spots on the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry itself was an outgrowth of the Carters' pioneering work.
FADE-OUT OF WESTERN SWING
At a 1982 performance of Bob Wills's song "Faded Love," Tammy Wynette cited the Western Swing bandleader as an important influence on her music.
Born in 1905 in Kosse, Tex., Wills formed the Texas Playboys in 1934. The initial lineup was Wills, fiddle; Tommy Duncan, piano and vocals; June Whalin, rhythm guitar; Johnnie Lee Wills, tenor banjo; and Kermit Whalin, steel guitar and bass. The band played regularly on the Tulsa, Okla., radio station KVOO. Wills eventually added drummers and a horn section, thus molding the group into one of the Big Bands then in vogue.
Using jazzy arrangements, the band hit the big time in the 1930s and stayed popular nationwide into the 1940s. found national popularity with such hits as "Steel Guitar Rag," "New San Antonio Rose," "Smoke on the Water," "Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima" and "New Spanish Two Step."
In 1968, the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Wills. In 1999, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame did likewise for him and the Texas Playboys. In 1974, a stroke felled him while he was recording with a fan, Merle Haggard. Wills did not recover and died in 1970.
Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys: Faded Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoVNMa29lgg
Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys: Steel Guitar Rag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxzxH6wIPCY
COUNTRYPOLITAN POPS UP
In any case, the new kid on the block -- the Nashville Sound -- quickly morphed into something else, which was dubbed Countrypolitan. Shaken by the sudden deaths of money-earners Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, Nashville saw Atkins's tight-fisted grip loosened. Nashville brought more variety to Country in what is fairly described as a fusion of the Nashville Sound and pop. The idea was to target mainstream markets. This new Countrypolitan wave sold well during the 1960s and first half of the 1970s.
Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill -- who promoted Tammy Wynette's [1] early career -- and Glenn Sutton. Artists who typified Countrypolitan included Wynette, Charlie Rich and Charley Pride, along with Los Angeles-based singers Lynn Anderson and Glen Campbell. George Jones's mature style fused Countrypolitan with the Honky Tonk (also called Hillbilly) that had made him famous.
Tammy Wynette
Wynette's hits usually follow the maxim that a country song requires "three chords and a story." [6] Her brilliant vocal artistry made these little human stories into powerhouse music, though her vocal skill is generally underappreciated. She often followed songwriter Harlan Howard's formula that songs about love should have some drama in them.
According to Howard,
The toughest songs in the world to write are love songs. "I love you and I will forever, blah blah blah." I prefer a song about a relationship that’s a little bit shaky or even tragic. That represents country music and the drama of the man-woman thing. That’s the most fun to write. [7]Of course adherents of the Nashville Sound might on occasion cross the line and do a Bluegrass standard like "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms," as Jones and Wynette did for a TV show.
Not all Nashville labels followed the Atkins-Bradley line on the Nashville Sound. On Wynette's first record, "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad," released by Epic in 1967, a steel guitar or dobro is used to complement Wynette's vocals, without stepping on them. though the instrument is kept under rein. There is no fiddle.
Tammy Wynette: Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad
POOR GIRL MAKES GOOD
Like Wynette, Dolly Parton [2] started out as a dirt poor country girl.
Parton is the real deal: She grew up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, where she absorbed the Appalachian music handed down from her Welsh ancestors. Fiddles and mandolins were prized among Appalachians. Yet, when she began her songwriting and singing career in Nashville upon graduation from high school, she immediately plunged into the Nashville Sound.
Dolly Parton
For example, a televised performance by Bill Phillips and Ruby Wright of "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" from the 1960s shows a band with no fiddle, steel guitar or mandolin. Parton and her songwriter uncle, Bill Owens, wrote that song.
Phillips & Wright: Put It Off Until Tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbltZuYTDk
As a woman who hit the big time in Country, Skeeter Davis was a top influence on Parton and Wynette. Parton and Owens wrote Davis's 1967 hit, "Fuel to the Flame."
Skeeter Davis: Fuel to the Flame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1Oq7ZoluY
Davis's vocal and instrumental backup is "pop mild" and the record could easily be viewed as a crossover playable in northern urban markets.
Parton's career breakthrough came when Porter Wagoner added her to his band as a singer. Wagoner persuaded his label, RCA, to give Parton a record deal. Her first record featured a duet with Wagoner of Tom Paxton's 1964 hit, "The Last Thing on My Mind."
Tom Paxton: The Last Thing On My Mind (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o146K6cGLk
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoOeq8oEi6U
On the other hand, a telecast of a Parton-Wagoner duet shows Wagoner's band WITH fiddle and steel guitar. But there are no solo breaks -- not that all Bluegrass numbers include breaks.
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (telecast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhgPo62eLyQ
On that RCA single, time is kept by a fairly strong sounding instrument that serves as a drum beat but is not from a drum. What is it? You tell me. That strong a beat is generally avoided in Bluegrass. Whatever the backup band's instruments, the instrumental sound is toned down and blended. No instrumental bridge. In fact, I find it difficult to distinguish instruments, something that would not happen with a Bluegrass band.
On listening to a number of 1970s Countrypolitan numbers, I would guess that the backbeat was generally issued by a metronome. That is, what else would go "tock, tock, tock..." with impecabble timing?
Yet a telecast version of Loretta Lynn's "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind" gives the impression that the "tock, tock" is from her guitar...but I'm skeptical. (And note the brevity of the steel guitar and fiddle breaks.)
We have as evidence the studio version of the smash Country hit "D.I.V.O.R.C.E" -- written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman and released by Wynette in 1968. The metronomish tock-tock is very apparent.
[Update: I have found that such a sound can be produced by a percussive shaker or a woodblock, which is tapped with a single drum stick. Even so, the right metronome would work fine and never lose a beat. Further, I gave a new listen to Lynn's Decca version of "Your Cheatin' Heart" and picked up a quick double-tap on every alternate tock. So I suppose that was either a shaker or a woodblock, not a metronome.]
Though the producers had no problem including a bold steel guitar sound for the intro, the rest of the instrumentals are pretty much mellowed out with no sign of a steel guitar that I noticed.
Tammy Wynette: D.I.V.O.R.C.E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVgb5aPhDQ
Loretta Lynn: Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBnkAkmLtaw
Loretta Lynn
Compare three versions of the iconic Country hit "Satin Sheets."
The song, by Jan Howard and Bill Anderson, appeared in their 1972 album "Country Essentials." That version used the team's original lyrics, which, when sung in a duet confused the hearer as to who was who. A year later Jeanne Pruett [8], who had finally escaped RCA's strict control, revised the lyrics to reflect a woman's perspective. The result was a sensation and her stymied career took off. Pruett had also artfully promoted her song to radio stations across the country, obtaining major crossover airplay.
Jeanne Pruett
Wynette's 1974 version is a direct knock-off of Pruett's, including the intro instrumentals, the singing style and, yes, even the...errh...metronome.
Yet one must concede that Wynette brought her full vocal artistry to bear on that song, and probably outpoints Pruett in that regard. She followed Pruett, but subtly.
Bill and Jan: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMRaBO7FU0
Jeanne Pruett: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6n-UQ9k8rI
Tammy Wynette: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4bPcKCmvEE
'ROCKY TOP' STUNS NASHVILLE
Lynn Anderson once said that as a Californian, she had been given the blow-off by the Nashville elite. So she covered "Rocky Top," written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and first performed by the Osborne Brothers, a Bluegrass band, and scored herself a big hit. The first version had less of a Bluegrass backup sound than the second. In any case, the Californian had pushed a button among Tennesseans, and many Nashville performers, such as Dolly Parton, followed her in covering what is really a fun, novelty song that is iconic among Bluegrass fans and all over the South.
Lynn Anderson
Lynn Anderson: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROkIhZJLSY
The distinction between Countrypolitan and Bluegrass is well illustrated by Anderson's 1970 release of "Rose Garden," a song written by Joe South, which quickly obtained crossover status.
Lynn Anderson: Rose Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHHCZTvQco
Similarly, the distinction is drawn by Crystal Gayle's [3] versions of her "orchestral style" number "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" which attained crossover status, and "Rocky Top," which is straight Bluegrass, solo breaks and all.
Crystal Gayle: Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9lz_yzrGZw
Crystal Gayle: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nm2atrRqcY
Crystal Gayle
Likewise, Kitty Wells 1952 versus Kitty Wells 1961 demonstrates the shift away from Honky Tonk to Countrypolitan. The Nashville native [5] hit the jackpot in 1952 when, in her early thirties, she recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a song written by J.D. Miller. The Decca number stunned her by about-facing her flagging career. A decade later "Heartbreak USA," written by Harlan Howard, scored her a hit. Its early Countrypolitan sound is very apparent.
Kitty Wells: It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKleTa94dC8
Note the steel guitar in that video.
Kitty Wells: Heartbreak USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pChL_SAB60U
Kitty Wells
TAMMY'S ADAPTABILITY
Tammy Wynette had no problem singing Honky Tonk or Bluegrass and did so regularly.
Tammy Wynette: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z-EU5Sx8-k
On the Bluegrass number "Rocky Top" she demonstrates the patient good humor of an artist singing something that requires vocal skills far below her level.
A young Hank Jr. teams with Tammy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTC82ZeRi-A
Here Wynette comfortably airs her parts of a medley of Hank Sr. hits. (Interesting that the youthful Hank Jr. sounds remarkably like his dad when singing this medley.)
The distinction between Honky Tonk and the Nashville Sound is artfully blurred in Tammy's version of "Your Cheating Heart." A youthful Wynette revised Hank Sr.'s lyrics to make them more in step with her time, clipping some of the rural verbiage that lent the song a Honky Tonk flavor. She also felt at liberty to change the verb "will" to "is gonna," which had become popular idiomatically. The background instrumental is pop mild, with no trace of the banished "twang." That is, she had made a Honky Tonk number into a Nashville Sound number.
Tammy Wynette: Your Cheating Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X17_FUxUccM
LORETTA BLENDS TWO WORLDS
Another poor girl made good: Loretta Lynn [4], whose 1971 hit "Coal Miner's Daughter" tells her tale of growing up in an impoverished rural Kentucky mining settlement.
In 1960, she caught a break when a Canadian admirer financed her first recording, "I'm a Honky Tonk Woman," on his Zero Records label. She and her husband Oliver (Doolittle) Lynn then toured radio stations, often sleeping in their car, to promote her record. As she was at the time West Coast-based, she had not fallen into step with the Nashville Sound, though it wasn't long before Decca gave her a contract and issued a new version of "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl."
Her Zero backup included steel guitar, fiddle, guitar, bass and -- drums! Evidently West Coast Honky Tonk wasn't inflexible. "Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville Sound," said Lynn. "It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat."
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Decca)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLQw6I5VCac
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Zero)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgE-gwZDbb0
On both versions we hear a Honky Tonk sound, but Decca producer Owen Bradley's production is better arranged. In particular, the Zero version's steel guitar is too loud and overwhelms the vocals rather than enhancing them. Bradley greatly curbs the steel guitar's volume and makes sure its strains only fill the vocal eddies without competing with vocal surges. Bradley, the real inventor of the Nashville Sound, took the top job at Decca Nashville in 1958, but seems not to have been quite as controlling as RCA's Atkins.
Neither record has any Bluegrass-style solo breaks. Such breaks are rarely heard in the Honky Tonk or Bakersfield styles.
On Decca's "Coal Miner's Daughter," the instrumental backup takes a Bluegrass mode, with the banjo given moderate prominence. I didn't detect a fiddle, and if there is any steel guitar, its role has been greatly reduced. No breaks, of course. The backbeat tock-tock is almost unhearable. Clearly, a grassy backup made sense. Lynn projected as an authentic and very likable "hillbilly," despite having released a number of songs with a strong feminist point of view.
Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqkUaxFB-4
Yet, Bradley used an all-out Nashville Sound to back Decca recordings of Lynn's team-up with Conway Twitty (who had previously been in the Rockabilly camp). Sure enough, no metronome-like tock-tock on their number "It's Only Make-Believe." Egad! It's a drum -- though rather low-key, of course. And then there is the type of choral backing standard to the mainstream pop of the period.
Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty: It's Only Make Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVoWve7_Mg
FROM BAKERSFIELD TO OUTLAW
Before the rise of the Nashville Sound in 1957, what is now called the Bakersfield Sound aired Honky Tonk in the bars of Bakersfield, Calif. Those Central Valley musicians had inherited the music of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl refugees. Notable among them were Buck Owens ("Streets of Bakersfield") and Merle Haggard, who was a young prisoner in the Folsom prison audience when Johnny Cash sang there.
Still, one would be hard put to characterize Haggard's later career as Honky Tonk or Bakersfield. It is better termed Nashville style with a dash or two of Bakersfield.
After the Nashville Sound became dominant, the Bakersfield Sound still found good airplay.
In 1983 Okie-from-Muskogee Haggard went over to the enemy, in the eyes of many Country fans, by joining up with the despised Texas hippie Willie Nelson, on a high-selling album, "Pancho and Lefty." That title song rings more of Folk music than it does of Country. (What is Folk music? Good question. TTYL on that.) But by that time both performers needed to re-energize their careers.
In 1985, Nelson turned the tables on his demonizers by becoming a top man in what was billed as Outlaw Country, which was spurred by the supergroup The Highwaymen, consisting of Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, all of whom had been aging out of the music business and needed a new deal. The band released a folky album, "The Highwayman," which also does not have a "real Country" ring. Meanwhile, the Hag managed to cruise in the Outlaw world, with six collaborative albums with Nelson that are very hippie-like, while holding his tradition-minded fan base with a continuing stream of his brand of the Nashville Sound.
HIP MEETS BLUEGRASS
Yet, no one would say that Bluegrass is dead and gone. An example of a modern, highly expert, Bluegrass band is the Petersens. My opinion is that they are a cut above most grass bands because of the rigor of their rehearsals, led by Katie Petersen, the expertise of their arrangements, and the tightness of their music. And they put audiences at ease with their youthful banter. But it is their singing, both together and solo, that makes them so remarkable. Their harmonious voices are very finely framed by the expert instrumentals.
From left, Emmett Franz, dobro; Karen Petersen, bass, and her offspring: Ellen Haygood, banjo; Julianne, mandolin; Matt, guitar; and Katie, fiddle.
The Petersens are highly skilled in traditional Bluegrass but also are known for their ability to "grass up" Pop and Rock hits, or just about anything they like. Based in Branson, Mo., in the heart of the Ozarks, the band has been serving up its eclectic blend of old-timey and new wave Bluegrass to appreciative audiences for more than a decade.
Among their biggest Youtube sellers are "Country Roads" by John Denver, "Jolene" by Dolly Parton and "Carolina in My Mind" by James Taylor, which mught be regarded as Country or Country Rock numbers.
The Petersens: Country Roads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qap9Qm-Q894
The Petersens: Jolene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viQx4KDivPY
The Petersens: Carolina in My Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKeMIOhXjo
But then we have "Bohemian Rhapsody," a song by rocker Freddy Mercury.
The Petersens: Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XVrm6zXmw
But if you like old standbys, their "Rocky Top" is one of the best out there.
The Petersens: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQYtBaI7bU
And you'll even find old folk music numbers, like "Shenandoah."
The Petersens: Shenandoah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSjI8f5Zqw
Nor is there a shortage of standard Country fare. "Amarillo by Morning" is just one of many examples.
The Petersens: Amarillo by Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_Amx13hLI
Then there is "Tulsa Time," which has served both Country and Rock artists. Here is their fun grassed-up version.
The Petersens: Tulsa Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2DA-lSMj4E
The troubadors do not hide their faith, as we hear on one of their gospel videos.
All Glory Be to Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EexEDzJ6zIY
This essay obviously only gives a slice of the history of Country music and does not attempt to cover its entire evolution from ancient to modern times.
No comments:
Post a Comment