Introduction
Originally called hillbilly music, country music began to come of age in 1927 as a result of a set of recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company (or Victor Company) in Bristol, Tennessee. The Victor Company later became RCA Records. Known as the “Bristol Sessions,” 19 musical acts were recorded. Most notable were Jimmie Rodgers, and the Carter Family. Of great significance was the fact that a new generation of recording equipment was used, resulting in higher-quality records. This substantially contributed to the successful commercialization of country music.
Later in 1927, the Victor Company conducted a Jimmie Rodgers recording session that included the song “T For Texas.” This was to become his signature song and launched Rodgers to national stardom. These events in 1927 were so momentous to the history of the genre that Jimmie Rodgers is recognized as the “Father of Country Music.”
The Country Music Hall of Fame was established by the Country Music Association (CMA) in Nashville in 1961. The initial set of inductees consisted of three people: Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Fred Rose. With its beginning in 1961, the Country Music Hall of Fame had 34 years of catching up to do! This is the third and last in a series of articles that discusses the 24 performing artists who were inducted into that institution during its initial 20 years. The first artist, discussed in Part One of this series, was Jimmie Rodgers. Hank Williams, arguably the greatest of all country music stars, will be last. The other Hall of Famers are presented in alphabetical order. One “honorable mention” who was inducted many years later is also discussed. (Part Two of this series appeared in Issue 228.)
Fred Rose, the third 1961 inductee, was known primarily as a music publisher, producer, and songwriter. He headed a list of 10 non-performing Country Music Hall of Fame members from those first 20 years who were briefly profiled in the first article in this series.
Note that the Grand Ole Opry (or simply the Opry) is mentioned on numerous occasions in these articles. The Grand Ole Opry is a live Nashville radio show featuring top country artists. It has been broadcast since 1925. Successful artists can be granted prestigious Opry “membership.” The Opry is a little different from most radio shows because it takes place in a 4,400 seat venue.
There is also reference to the “Nashville Sound” in these articles. The Nashville Sound was an important development in the history of country music that arose in the late 1950s. It introduced smooth vocals, lush orchestration, and other elements of pop music into the country music genre. A group of people that included Chet Atkins (discussed in Part One of this series) is given credit for developing the Nashville Sound.
Hank Snow
Clarence Eugene “Hank” Snow was born in Nova Scotia in 1914. He is unquestionably the greatest country music star to come out of Canada during the early years of the genre. His childhood was extremely difficult: divorced parents, poverty, life with an abusive grandmother, and then life with an abusive stepfather. At the age of 12, he ran away from home to be an unpaid cabin boy on a fishing trawler. His only income was from fish that he caught himself. A sailor on the boat had an old guitar that Snow taught himself to play. He would often entertain the boat’s crew by singing and playing the guitar. As soon as he was able to save up a few dollars, he bought himself a guitar and music instruction book.
While at sea and when visiting his mother, Snow began listening to country music on the radio. He became a huge fan of Jimmie Rodgers and emulated him in many of his songs. After almost dying in a shipwreck, he left the sea behind. He purchased a new guitar and began performing in Nova Scotia clubs. Snow was hired by a radio station and called himself “Hank, the Yodeling Ranger.” He got married in 1935. They had one child, a son who they named Jimmie Rodgers Snow.
In 1936, Snow traveled to Montreal to record two songs for an RCA subsidiary label. All told, he made 90 recordings for that label between 1936 and 1949. Only a few were released in the US. Snow then moved to Nashville and continued to record for RCA. A major breakthrough came when he was befriended by Ernest Tubb (Tubb will be discussed later in this article) who arranged for Snow to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Now he was making the country charts and a year later became an Opry member.
Snow’s career was in high gear. “I’m Moving On” became a Number 1 hit and held that spot for 21 weeks. More success soon followed and between 1951 and 1955, he had 24 Top 10 hits. He helped to launch the career of Elvis Presley by arranging for him to perform at the Opry and introducing Elvis to his long-time manager, Colonel Tom Parker. He was also instrumental in making the LP record an important country music medium. Snow recorded 104 albums for RCA and was so upset when they dropped him in 1981 after a 45 year relationship that he never recorded again.
In later years, Snow continued his involvement with the Opry. He also became very active in the Hank Snow Foundation for the Prevention of Child Abuse that he had established earlier. He passed away in 1999 at the age of 85.
The Sons of the Pioneers
In 1933, Leonard Slye, Bob Nolan, and Tim Spencer formed the Pioneer Trio. All three members sang, with Slye playing guitar and Nolan playing string bass. They began performing on a Los Angeles radio station. Another guitarist and a fiddler soon joined the group, and their name was changed to the Sons of the Pioneers. By late 1934, segments of their programs were being broadcast nationally. By using a creative three-part harmony vocal technique that included yodeling, they developed a new style of music that became a model for future Western music groups.
In 1934, the Sons of the Pioneers were one of the first acts to sign with the newly formed Decca Records. Nolan and Spencer were talented songwriters and Nolan’s “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” was recorded at that first Decca session. It became a staple of the group. (Note that “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” was originally called “Tumbling Leaves,” but it was modified to present a more Western tone.) With other songs such as “Cool Water,” the Sons of the Pioneers presented a romanticized view of the Western landscape and cowboy life that was very appealing to a vast national audience. Over the next two years, the group recorded 32 songs for Decca.
The Sons of the Pioneers signed with Columbia Pictures and had their first movie role in 1935. Slye soon landed a starring part with a rival movie company and began calling himself Roy Rogers. However, his movie contract did not allow him to continue as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers and he left the group. Rogers would go on to major success as a singing cowboy in movies and on television. He remained close with his former bandmates and the Sons of the Pioneers were later cast in many of Rogers’ movies. All told, the Sons of the Pioneers appeared in 87 feature films. Legendary movie director John Ford used their songs in three of his classic Western movies.
The Sons of the Pioneers never abandoned radio. In the 1940s and early 1950s, they hosted three network radio shows. Amazingly, the group still exists and, of course, over their 90-plus year history, there have been many lineup changes. Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer have both been elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The group has been declared a National Treasure by the Smithsonian Institution.
Merle Travis
Merle Travis was born into a poor coal mining Kentucky family in 1917. He was a highly accomplished singer, songwriter, and musician. He also appeared in 15 films, most notably From Here to Eternity, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1953. As a child, Travis played the banjo. At age 12, his brother gave him a homemade guitar and he became obsessed with learning the fingerpicking guitar style unique to that part of Kentucky. The essence of this style is bass notes played by the thumb and melody played by the index finger. One of his mentors was Ike Everly, the father of the Everly Brothers.
After graduating from high school, Travis moved to Indiana. Shortly thereafter, he won a local talent contest which launched his music career. He was hired by several bands and found his way to a Cincinnati radio station. This led to a stint playing with Grandpa Jones in a gospel quartet called the Browns Ferry Four. In 1943, he and Jones (using pseudonyms because their radio contract forbade it) recorded for the newly formed King Records.
After a brief stint in the US Marine Corps, Travis moved to Los Angeles where he played with a Western swing band and appeared in Western movies. He would do one more recording session with the Browns Ferry Four before signing with Capitol Records in 1946. Travis immediately produced several country hits with songs that he wrote. Capitol next had him record an album of folk songs. While the album did not do well, it was a vehicle for Travis to write some of his most enduring songs. These included “Sixteen Tons” and “Dark as a Dungeon,” both inspired by Travis’ early years in a coal mining community. A very successful period ensued, with Travis-written songs becoming hits for himself and others.
By now, Travis had established himself as arguably the greatest country guitar player. One of his proteges was Chet Atkins, who is also acknowledged to be an all-time great guitarist. In 1948, Travis designed what some believe was the first solid body electric guitar. It is said that this influenced Leo Fender’s later designs.
After appearing in From Here to Eternity in 1953, Travis released some influential instrumental records and did a lot of session work with good friends Hank Thompson and Tex Ritter. However, alcohol abuse became a major obstacle in his life, with multiple arrests for drunk driving and a domestic violence incident. With the folk music revival of the early 1960s, he was able to play at clubs and folk festivals. However, drug problems surfaced and his career again sputtered.
Travis moved to Nashville in 1968 and became sober. He was featured on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s landmark album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. He recorded an album with his good friend and disciple, Chet Atkins, that won the Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance. He also appeared on variety shows such as The Johnny Cash Show and Austin City Limits. Merle Travis died in 1983 at the age of 65.
Ernest Tubb
Ernest Tubb. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Born into a sharecropper family on a Texas cotton farm in 1914, Ernest Tubb became known as the Texas Troubadour. He first heard Jimmie Rodgers recordings in his early teens and became a huge fan. He emulated Rodgers, singing and yodeling locally at various events. At the age of 19, he began singing on a San Antonio radio station. The pay was minimal and Tubb supported himself by digging ditches and with other menial jobs. He bought his first guitar a year later.
After Rodgers’ death in 1933, Tubb continued to emulate him in his performances. He contacted Rodgers' widow, requesting an autographed photo of his idol. They developed a friendship and she was instrumental in helping Tubb secure a recording contract with RCA Records. His first recordings very much emulated Rodgers and were not commercially successful. As a result, he was dropped by RCA. A tonsillectomy in 1939 was a blessing in disguise, because he could no longer yodel. He then developed his own musical style and concentrated more on songwriting.
In 1940, Tubb was signed by Decca Records and also began a regular show on a Fort Worth radio station. Shortly thereafter, he wrote and recorded his signature song, “Walking the Floor Over You.” This proved to be a massive hit, selling over a million copies. Now a star, he appeared in two movies and found himself performing in shows featuring established stars such as Roy Acuff and Bob Wills. Tubb made his first Grand Ole Opry appearance in 1942. In 1943, he formed his own band, the Texas Troubadours. He also became an Opry member, a relationship that lasted 40 years. Tubb’s career was now in high gear, with appearances in more movies and a heavy touring schedule.
With “Walking the Floor Over You,” Tubb is credited with establishing the honky-tonk sub-genre of country music. This helped blaze a trail for future honky-tonk artists such as Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Lefty Frizzell, Webb Pierce, and Merle Haggard. In 1947, he headlined the first Grand Ole Opry show at Carnegie Hall. From 1944 to 1959, he recorded 54 songs, almost all reaching the Top 10.
Starting in the mid-1960s, Tubb’s record sales began to decline due to the rise of rock and roll and the emergence of new honky-tonk stars and the Nashville Sound. But he was still very much in demand and hosted a syndicated TV program from 1965 to 1968. Until the early 1980s, he and the Texas Troubadours were working 150 to 200 shows a year. However, despite having been granted a lifetime contract by Decca, he was dropped from the label in 1975. Due to emphysema, he was forced to retire in 1982. Ernest Tubb died from that disease in 1984 at the age of 70.
Kitty Wells
Kitty Wells. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Kitty Wells (Ellen Muriel Deason) was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1919. Her father and uncle were musicians and her mother was a gospel singer. She began singing and playing guitar as a child. At the height of the Great Depression, Wells dropped out of school and took a job ironing clothes. Shortly thereafter, she joined with her two sisters to perform as the Deason Sisters on a local radio station.
At age 18, Wells married country musician Johnnie Wright and together with her husband’s brother-in-law formed a trio. When the brother-in-law was drafted into the Army in 1942, she started performing with her husband as a duet. It was here that she began calling herself Kitty Wells, a name chosen by Wright based on the folk ballad “Sweet Kitty Wells.” When the brother-in-law finished his tour of duty, the trio reunited, calling themselves Johnnie and Jack. Wells was part of their tour, occasionally singing backup vocals. In 1946 and 1947, Johnnie and Jack regularly appeared at the Opry, but Wells rarely performed with them. They sometimes toured with Roy Acuff who advised them not to let Wells be a headliner because women could never sell country records.
In 1949, Wells recorded some gospel songs for RCA Records, with Johnnie and Jack providing instrumental support. These songs did not sell well and Wells was dropped by RCA. For the most part, she spent the next few years caring for her three children. In 1952, Decca Records was looking for a female singer to record “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” and offered the song to Wells. She accepted and it became a smash hit, launching her career. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” reached the top of the country charts and stayed at Number 1 for six weeks. Later that year, Wells joined the Opry.
However that song proved to be controversial because it promoted the idea that men were responsible for women straying. Accordingly, it was banned by many radio stations. Despite that issue, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” sold 800,000 copies with its initial release. With it, Wells was the first female performer to reach Number 1 on the Billboard country charts. It also crossed over to the pop charts. Wells paved a path for future female stars such as Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, and Loretta Lynn.
Wells, now a star, had 23 Top 10 hits in the 1950s. She became the first female country singer to produce an LP record and continued to record Top 10 hits well into the 1960s. In 1969, she became the first female country star to have her own syndicated television show, with her husband sharing the spotlight. All three of their children were regular performers on the show. She was the first female country singer to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Wells was a successful concert attraction and toured with her husband Johnnie and their children until 2000. She was also a frequent Opry performer.
Wells always presented a grounded, unpretentious demeanor. Unlike many later stars, there was no glitter. She often wore a simple gingham dress with puffed sleeves. This country music superstar maintained a reputation for being a wholesome, family-oriented person. After having been married to Wells for 74 years, her husband, Johnnie died in 2011. Kitty Wells passed away a year later at the age of 92.
Bob Wills
Bob Wills. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Paul Parry/public domain.
James Robert “Bob” Wills was born into a Texas family of fiddle players in 1905. His father was a highly accomplished fiddler who had won many contests. By the time he was 10 years old, Wills was playing at dances with his father. Some of those dances took place in the family home. He learned to play blues and jazz from African-American musicians who lived in that part of Texas.
At the age of 16, Wills left his family home and drifted from town to town, working a myriad of jobs. He would seize opportunities to play his fiddle at ranch dances and in medicine shows. In 1929, he moved to Fort Worth and joined a minstrel show, where he played fiddle and performed blackface comedy. He formed a group with several other musicians that began playing on a local radio station. It is here that Wills began to develop what would later be called Western Swing.
In 1934, Wills formed a new band and moved to Waco to play on a radio station there. He called his group the Playboys. After a few months, they moved again, this time to Oklahoma City. Legal issues had them bouncing from one radio station to another. They again moved, this time to Tulsa, and found a home on KVOO, a very powerful radio station where their show was broadcast six days a week. It was here that the group became the Texas Playboys.
Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys had become the most popular group in the Southwest. In 1935, they made their first records. Big bands were dominating popular music at that time and Wills shrewdly emulated some of their elements. Over the next five years, he refined the group by adding brass, reeds, and other instruments. By 1940, the Texas Playboys had 16 members. Their records were routinely selling hundreds of thousands of copies. In 1940, Wills added lyrics to “San Antonio Rose,” which he had written several years earlier. He called it “New San Antonio Rose.” It sold over a million records and became the signature song of the group.
In the early 1940s, Wills and the group moved to Hollywood and appeared in 19 movies. This was interrupted by a brief stint in the US Army during World War II. In California, they were still making records. They were also performing on radio and to sellout crowds. From 1944 to 1948 he had 18 Top 10 hits. In 1950, he had two more hits, but his popularity began to decline after that.
Wills is widely known as the “King of Western Swing.” He integrated Western music with the blues and jazz he learned in his youth to create a new sub-genre. Western swing is sometimes called “jazz with a cowboy hat.” Wills replicated the Big Band model consisting of larger groups featuring brass and reed instruments. When Big Band music began to lose favor, he adapted his group accordingly. He has been elected to the Rock and Roll and Nashville Songwriters Halls of Fame. Bob Wills passed away in 1975 at the age of 70.
Hank Williams
Hank Williams. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Hiram “Hank” Williams was born into a rural community in Alabama in 1923. He had a congenital spinal deformity which would contribute to his well-publicized alcohol and drug issues later in life. His first musical instrument was the harmonica. Williams’ mother bought him a guitar when he was eight years old. He never learned to read music and the only instruction he ever got was from a street musician whom he would follow around town.
With his father confined to a veterans hospital, Williams’ mother moved the family to Montgomery, Alabama in 1937 and opened a boarding house. Now his musical career began to take shape. Williams won a talent contest and had his first radio appearance at age 15. He then formed a band called the Drifting Cowboys. By 1941, he had a regular show on a local radio station. Roy Acuff was his idol and he would often sing Acuff’s songs.
Williams’ career was stifled during World War II. He could not serve in the Army due to his spinal deformity, but all of his bandmates were drafted. He tried to form a new band but had difficulty keeping musicians. His worsening alcohol usage made him increasingly unreliable and difficult. In 1944, Williams got married. His wife would prove to be very helpful in managing his career. (They would have a son, Hank Williams Jr., in 1949.) The Drifting Cowboys reformed after the War and Williams became a local celebrity.
Williams and his wife went to Nashville in 1946 where he auditioned for Fred Rose from Acuff-Rose Publishing. The audition went well and Rose had Williams record several songs for a small record label. That led to Rose becoming his producer and manager. Next came a contract with MGM Records. Williams’ first MGM single, “Move It On Over,” was an immediate hit, reaching Number 5 on the country charts. He soon had a second hit with “Honky-Tonkin’.”
Rose now had Williams move to Shreveport, Louisiana to become a regular on the very popular Louisiana Hayride radio show and associated tours. Despite the fact that his drunkenness was increasingly becoming a problem, in 1949 Williams scored his first Number 1 hit with “Lovesick Blues.” It stayed at the top spot for 16 weeks.
Next came a move to Nashville and Williams would quickly become one of the biggest stars in country music. Now he was almost exclusively recording his own songs, sometimes co-written with Rose. All told, he is credited with writing 167 songs. He made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry and participated in the Opry’s first European tour. Many of his songs have become country music standards: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Why Don’t You Love Me,” “Hey Good Lookin’,” and “Your Cheating Heart," to name a few. However, it was Tony Bennett’s cover of Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart” in 1951 that broadened his appeal beyond country audiences. Many popular artists started covering his songs and he was appearing on mainstream television programs such as the Perry Como Show.
Following a fall, Williams had back surgery in late 1951 that was only minimally successful. This led to a dependency on morphine and other pain killers. With his huge success came wealth and more time on the road, which exacerbated his alcohol and drug problems. In 1952, Williams and his wife divorced. A few months later, he was fired by the Opry for drunkenness and missed performances. A few months later, he was dead. On New Years Day in 1953, while on his way to a gig in Ohio, Hank Williams passed away in the back seat of his chauffeur-driven Cadillac. The official cause of death was a heart attack. He was 29 years old. In all, Hank Williams had 55 Top 10 hits, with a dozen reaching Number 1 in his tragically brief career.
Webb Pierce (Honorable Mention)
Webb Pierce. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Decca Records/public domain.
Webb Pierce was born in Louisiana in 1921. Growing up, he was infatuated with Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry. He also listened to the music being played by Western Swing and Cajun bands. He learned to play guitar when he was young and at age 15 had his own weekly radio program. Pierce enlisted in the US Army during World War II. After his discharge in 1944, he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana where he took a job in the men’s department of a Sears Roebuck department store. He would perform on the radio and at local events, but for the next six years, his Sears Roebuck job paid the bills.
In 1949, Pierce landed a regular spot with the very popular Louisiana Hayride radio show. He assembled a high-powered band that included future country legends Floyd Cramer on piano and Faron Young on guitar and vocals. He then began recording for a record label that he co-founded with the director of Louisiana Hayride. In 1951, Pierce moved over to Decca Records and had an immediate hit with “Wondering,” which rose to the top of the country charts. “Wondering” was a Cajun song that he had successfully transformed into a honky-tonk hit. He then moved to Nashville and two more Number 1 hits soon followed.
As luck would have it, the Grand Ole Opry had fired Hank Williams and brought in Pierce to fill that void. After the death of Hank Williams early in 1953, Pierce became the most popular country music star. Over the next four years, every song he recorded reached the Top 10, with 10 records attaining Number 1. These included “There Stands the Glass,” “More and More,” and “In the Jailhouse Now.” In the 1950s, his songs spent a record 113 weeks at the top of the country charts. Pierce was also a shrewd businessman and teamed with the manager of the Opry to start a music publishing company and invest in radio stations.
In 1957, Pierce quit the Opry due to a disagreement about required payments of commissions and other financial issues. He became a regular on ABC-TV’s Ozark Jubilee and appeared in several movies. Pierce continued to produce hit records through the end of the decade. However, the emergence of the Nashville Sound and rock and roll ultimately made his honky-tonk music sound outdated. He scored his last Top 10 hit in 1967. He continued to record into the 1980s. Webb Pierce passed away in 1991 at the age of 69. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame 10 years later.
Webb Pierce racked up more Number 1 hits than more-celebrated honky-tonk stars like Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb. So why did it take 40 years for him to be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, relegating him to “honorable mention” in this series of articles?
Strike 1: Pierce was disliked by many people in Nashville. He had a sometimes abrasive personality and liked to show off his wealth. His 1962 Pontiac Bonneville convertible was lined with silver dollars and adorned with ornamental handguns, horseshoes, and Texas longhorn horns. He also regularly wore elaborate outfits custom made by famed tailor Nudie Cohn.
Strike 2: Pierce installed a guitar-shaped swimming pool in his home in an exclusive Nashville residential neighborhood. He made the house into a museum. Tour buses would bring thousands of people into his home each week. This went on until country star Ray Price and other neighbors filed a successful lawsuit that stopped him from doing this.
Strike 3: Pierce quit the Grand Ole Opry at the peak of his career. That did not sit well with the powers that be in Nashville.
Webb Pierce was truly one of the greats.
Final Thoughts
Originally called hillbilly music, several sub-genres of country music were defined by the early stars discussed in this series of articles. At its outset, hillbilly music was mostly string band and hoedown-oriented. Roy Acuff is given much credit for establishing a sub-genre in the early 1930s where the focus on the music became the lead singer. Accordingly, Acuff is known as the “King of Country Music.”
Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys emerged in the late 1930s. It is noteworthy that the original group was banjo-less. The banjo had fallen out of favor in the 1930s. This was partially due to the emergence of the smoother-sounding guitar. Also, the banjo is an expensive instrument relative to the guitar and the Great Depression of the 1930s had a negative impact on banjo popularity. But when Monroe added the banjo to his group, the classic bluegrass sub-genre was defined. It should be noted that Grandpa Jones is also given credit for helping to resurrect the banjo in country music.
While Bill Monroe was inventing bluegrass, Bob Wills was doing the same with Western Swing. He would become the most popular artist in the Southwest. As noted, his integration of blues and jazz with Western music resulted in a sub-genre sometimes called “jazz with a cowboy hat.” Wills also emulated the big band model by increasing the size of his band and adding brass and reed instruments. When big band popularity began to wane, he modified his group accordingly.
In the early 1940s, Ernest Tubb is credited with establishing the honky-tonk sub-genre with “Walking the Floor Over You.” Other honky-tonkers discussed in these articles were Hank Williams and Webb Pierce.
When rock and roll emerged in the 1950s to dominate popular music, Chet Atkins was part of a group of people who brought pop influences into country music. This established what would be known as the Nashville Sound. Other prominent Nashville Sound artists were Eddy Arnold and Jim Reeves.
Lastly, Johnny Cash deserves special mention. He was groomed under the tutelage of Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis. Phillips specialized in rockabilly stars. To my ear, Johnny Cash is more rockabilly than anything else. Of course, there is sometimes a fine line between sub-genres.
While not the first country music artist, Jimmie Rodgers is the undisputed “Father of Country Music.” Many of the artists discussed in these articles grew up listening to and sometimes emulating Rodgers. Many of the songs he wrote have become country standards.
Other even earlier influences who helped shape country music deserve mention here. Uncle Dave Macon was born 27 years before Rodgers and was the first Grand Ole Opry star. He kept alive many 1800s folk songs by adapting them to country music. Macon was the top star of the Opry during its first 15 years. Ernest Stoneman was an influential early country artist. He helped the Victor Company organize the 1927 Bristol Sessions that launched country music commercialization and Jimmie Rodgers’ career. Stoneman was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008.
Billboard established the Country and Western chart in 1949. Generally speaking, country music focuses on Appalachian rural life, heartbreak, and personal stories. Western music is more concerned with the life of the cowboy, the Western landscape, and stories about cowboy heroes and villains. The main reason that Billboard grouped them together was that there was enough similarity between the two that radio stations that played one style usually also played the other. An interesting difference was that due to the popularity of cowboy movies, Western artists often found their way to Hollywood. Billboard dropped “Western” from the name of the chart in 1962.
Looking at the demographics of where these early stars were born, all came from the Southern US, with the exception of Hank Snow, Pee Wee King, and the Sons of the Pioneers. Tennessee tops the list of states where these artists came from, followed by Texas, and then Kentucky. The Texas artists display an interesting dichotomy. Some, such as Ernest Tubb and Jim Reeves, were classic country singers, while others, like Gene Autry and Tex Ritter, fall into the Western category.
As with society as a whole, sexism existed in the early days of country music. In 1952, Kitty Wells was the first female artist to reach Number 1 on the country charts. Before that, she had teamed with her husband, who was advised by powerful people in Nashville not to let her sing lead on their recordings. The premise was that women couldn’t sell records. Her groundbreaking song was “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” It is ironic that this proved to be controversial because it suggested that men were the reason some women went astray. This message proved to be so contentious that the song was banned from some radio stations.
Minnie Pearl, on the other hand, had a much smoother road to stardom. She made her first stage performance in 1939, performed at the Opry a year later, and was an instant star. She was the first female standup comic to gain national attention. (No, it wasn’t Phyllis Diller 15 years later!) In 1994, Pearl was the first woman of any comedy genre to be inducted into the National Comedy Hall of Fame.
The church has always had a profound influence on country music. Some of the artists discussed in this series of articles were recording gospel songs early in their careers. Before signing with Sam Phillips, Johnny Cash was a gospel singer. And then there was radio. As someone who grew up glued to television in the 1950s, it’s easy to lose sight of the importance of radio in earlier years. Radio was integral to the success of every artist profiled in this series of articles. A final thought: where would country music be without the Grand Ole Opry?
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