Cowboys & Playboys

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Country music today retains little of the regional identity that characterized it in its early days. There are pockets of resistance to this homogeneity and to the hegemony of Nashville – a honky-tonk dance circuit and a fiercely independent singer-songwriter tradition in Texas, for example – but overall the scene is one of major stars playing huge venues. The middle ground of regional stardom has largely disappeared, but it was once ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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It is ironic that western music – be it cowboy vocal balladry or ranch-house dance fiddling – began seriously to engage the imagination of the American public as the real West slipped further and further into the past and the country became increasingly urbanized and sophisticated. This capturing of the public imagination was perhaps inevitable, too, not only because of the nostalgia for what was lost – and sometimes never was ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1916–2000) Adolph Hofner successfully combined the musical heritage of his Texas-Czech youth with hillbilly, pop and swing influences in a career that stretched from the mid-1930s to the late 1990s, with his steel guitar-playing brother Emil (nicknamed ‘Bash’) at his side throughout. Equally influenced by Milton Brown and Bing Crosby, Hofner was the first western-swing crooner, and his San Antonio-based bands featured such top-flight musicians as fiddler J. ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(A&R man, 1889–1986) Arthur Satherley was a pioneering A&R man for several important record companies from the 1920s, responsible for scouting and recording a vast array of country and blues performers. Among these were two important figures whose careers the British-born Satherley helped particularly to shape and steer – Bob Wills and Gene Autry. A legend himself by the 1940s, he essentially retired from producing in the early 1950s. He was ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1910–77) Bill Boyd led one of the most prolific and important western-swing groups, The Cowboy Ramblers. A guitarist, Boyd and brother Jim (1914–93), a bassist and guitarist who also became an important figure, were reared in Greenville, Texas and began their careers in nearby Dallas in the early 1930s. Boyd signed to Victor’s Bluebird label in 1934. He recorded more than 200 sides for the label through 1951 ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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Observers who saw him in his prime have likened the charisma of the ‘king of western swing’ Bob Wills to that of latter-day superstars such as Elvis and The Beatles. The Texas fiddler, with his trademark high-pitched folk hollers and jivey, medicine-show asides, was an irresistible force of nature. Although he was, in the earliest days of his band-leading career, in the shadow of Milton Brown – who left Fort ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(Vocals, 1895–1979) Carl T. Sprague was one of the earliest singing cowboys to record and, like Jules Verne Allen, he was the genuine article, having worked as a cowboy. He began recording in 1925 and ‘When The Work’s All Done This Fall’ sold almost a million copies. His recording career was short-lived and after 1927 he worked outside the music industry until rediscovery in the 1960s, after which he performed occasionally ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(Songwriter, vocals, 1918–2006) The sophisticated songs of Cindy Walker were particularly attractive to western-swing performers like Bob Wills, whose recordings helped establish her as one of the top songwriters in country music. From Mart, Texas, Walker also sang, recorded and appeared in films with Texas Jim Lewis. Over time, she concentrated solely on writing and turned out dozens of classics, including ‘Dusty Skies’, ‘Bubbles In My Beer’, ‘You Don’t Know Me’ ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(Fiddle, bandleader, 1915–2000) Cliff Bruner was one of the most influential western-swing fiddlers and bandleaders of the late 1930s–40s era. Born in Texas City, Texas, the self-taught Bruner was playing professionally by his mid-teens and joined the music’s pioneering ensemble, Milton Brown’s Musical Brownies, in 1935. His stint with Brown made him a name, and following Brown’s death, Bruner formed his own Texas Wanderers, which included such important figures as steel ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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(Bandleaders, 1940s) Curley Williams (1914–70) and Paul Howard (1908–84) were – outside of Pee Wee King – the chief exponents of western swing east of the Mississippi during the music’s 1940s heyday. Both led excellent, hot bands on the Grand Ole Opry and both found it necessary to leave the Opry in order to play the music they wanted to play on their own terms. Williams co-wrote the classic ‘Half As ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
101 Words Read More

(Songwriter, vocals, guitar, 1914–2003) Floyd Tillman is best known as one of the pioneers of modern country songwriting and one of the architects of honky-tonk. His classic songs include ‘It Makes No Difference Now’ (1938) and ‘Slipping Around’ (1949) Tillman came out of Houston’s lively western-swing scene. Originally, he was a lead guitarist, not a singer or writer, and he was among the earliest to record with an electrically amplified instrument, ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
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It’s hard to fathom now – 70 years on – the enormous impact that the laid-back, unassuming Gene Autry (1907–98) had when he rose to national stardom in 1935. Cowboys and western music had enjoyed a certain currency and mystique before he came along, but the first singing movie cowboy’s phenomenal rise inspired an entire generation and changed the course of country music. The First Singing Cowboy Autry was born Orvon Gene ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
740 Words Read More

(Vocals, guitar, bandleader, 1918–92) Hank Penny was, with his Radio Cowboys, the most ardent exponent of western swing in the south-east prior to the Second World War. He relocated to California after the war and led excellent bands, though as time passed he eased towards comedy at the expense of music. He recorded prolifically from 1938 and over the years his groups included such legendary musicians as guitarist Merle Travis and ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
98 Words Read More

Hank Thompson (b. 1925) is one of the most difficult country stars to classify. His Brazos Valley Boys were for a number of years one of the most talented and revered of western-swing bands, yet Thompson was never really a western-swing performer. He recorded a number of songs that remain honky-tonk classics, but he was never just a honky-tonk singer. Nor is he associated with a particular era, sustaining an ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
774 Words Read More

(Fiddle, guitar, vocals, 1922–51) Harry Choates is one of the tragic figures of country music. A charismatic fiddler reared along the Louisiana-Texas Coast, he combined Cajun styles with western swing and hit with ‘Jole Blon’ in 1946. The hard-living, alcoholic Choates (who was even more skilled on guitar than fiddle) soon spiralled out of control. When he died in an Austin, Texas jail, locked up for non-support, he was not yet ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen
95 Words Read More
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.

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