(Vocal/instrumental group, 1930–present) Formed in Fort Worth in 1930, The Light Crust Doughboys were one of the seminal bands of western swing. The original group, essentially a traditional Texas string band, included the music’s future architects Milton Brown and Bob Wills. The band name came from the group’s flour-company sponsor and from soon after their formation The ...
(Guitar, vocals, 1911–82) Sam Hopkins was born in Centerville, Texas. His father and two brothers were musicians and he learned guitar from an early age. He met and played with Blind Lemon Jefferson at the age of eight. He accompanied his cousin, Texas Alexander, for much of the 1930s, drifting through Texas. He was discovered ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1970–83, 1985–86, 2000–01, 2012) Devised by Roy Wood (various instruments, vocals) to provide an alternative outlet to The Move, ELO consisted of that group’s remaining members, Jeff Lynne (guitar, piano, vocals) and Bev Bevan (drums). ELO aimed to combine rock with classical instrumentation. Bill Hunt (French horn) and Steve Woolam ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1989–present) Ian Broudie produced bands as diverse as Echo And The Bunnymen and Icicle Works before his own success. The electronic hook of ‘Pure’ was recorded alone, becoming an unexpected hit in 1989. From here The Lightning Seeds then became a studio and touring act in support of a string of immaculate hit pop songs including ‘Three ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 2002–present) Very much a vehicle for precociously talented singer Johnny Borrell, four-piece Razorlight – with Bjorn Agren (guitar), Carl Dalemo (bass) and Andy Burrows (drums) – trade in modern indie rock, so appealing that their performance at Live 8 in 2005 saw sales of their debut album Up All Night (2004) rocket. Often accused of speaking ...
(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 ...
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 ...
(Bandleader, fiddle, 1905–75) Between 1929 and 1931 Bob Wills assembled his first western-swing band, The Light Crust Doughboys, later rechristened The Texas Playboys. By 1940, with its hit single ‘New San Antonio Rose’, it was filling concert halls across the country. The band’s biggest hit, ‘New Spanish Two Step’, spent 16 weeks at No. 1. ...
There was a time during the western-swing revival of the 1970s when it looked as if the pioneering legacy of Milton Brown (1903–36) And His Musical Brownies would be entirely subsumed amid the accolades given to the music’s most popular, enduring figure, Bob Wills. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, though Wills continues to reign supreme in the popular ...
(Guitar, bass, bandleader, 1909–90) Texas Jim Lewis is a largely unheralded figure in western swing, but his varied activities deserve far more attention. His career encompassed 1930s stints on New York radio and in vaudeville, and a 1940s run in Hollywood making movies and recording. His Lone Star Cowboys were one of the best bands of ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1930s–42) The Hi-Flyers were among the earliest and most important of Texas western-swing bands. The Fort Worth band predated even the seminal Light Crust Doughboys, though it didn’t ease towards a string swing style until inspired by Brown’s Musical Brownies. Led by guitarist Elmer Scarbrough, the band also included such key musicians as fiddler Darrell Kirkpatrick ...
(Bandleader, 1890–1969) W. Lee O’Daniel rose to fame as the leader and announcer of The Light Crust Doughboys. President of the band’s sponsor Burrus Mill, he disliked their music and had little respect for the musicians, but he was ambitious – and used the band as a tool for self-promotion. After being fired by Burrus, he formed ...
Western swing is an innovative, free-wheeling yet complex instrumental amalgam drawn from blues, jazz and Dixieland syncopations and harmonies. Central to the style is an emphasis on instrumental solos, often involving the transposition of jazz-style horn parts to fiddle, guitar and steel guitar. It is indicative of western swing’s sophistication that Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys, the ...
The western music – be it jazzy, danceable western swing or spare cowboy songs – that thrived for more than two decades from the 1920s grew out of several strains of American folk tradition, chiefly balladry and fiddle-band music, each of which had over time developed its own regional flavours and stylistic quirks. The Development Of Cowboy Music ...
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 ...
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