|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZWESTERN SWINGIn the late '20s and '30s East Coast musicians described territory bands from the Midwest (like Bennie Moten's) as 'western swing', but the term mainly came to refer to big bands in country music infl. by jazz, popular from the mid-'30s to early '50s and still infl. today. The relationships between white and black rural musics and between country music and jazz are usually underemphasized; Vassar Clements played with Bob Wills in the '50s and made an album with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli '87: hot solos and improvisation have always been part of country music. Wills was the most important artist in Western Swing, enormously popular all over the Southwest from early '30s, partly as a result of radio sponsorship by flour mills and mineral water (Crazy Water Crystals) etc. Wills's fiddling transcended category and his band often resembled the typical swing band of the era; he wrote the million-seller 'San Antonio Rose'. Hank Penny and Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies were popular; Spade Cooley filled dance halls during WWII; in the '50s Hank Thompson and later Buck Owens led largeish groups which were infl. by Western Swing, but it was really wrecked by the same forces that put an end to the Big Band Era: wartime entertainment tax, closure of ballrooms (during WWII because of petrol rationing, later because of competition from TV), and the economics of the road all combined to make it impossible to keep a big band together. But there are always musicians in country music who can swing with the best; Willie Nelson has appeared on a PBS film playing instrumentals with three guitars, string bass and a fiddle, the same instrumentation as Django Reinhardt's legendary lineup; Asleep at the Wheel kept the flame burning with a fine series of albums; Merle Haggard made a Bob Wills tribute album and used many of the Texas Playboys in his '70s band, and also helped the genre to carry on in the music of George Strait into the '80s and to a lesser extent Tracy Byrd, Mark Chesnutt etc in the '90s. Compilations on the Texas Rose label '80s incl. Milton Brown ('34 tracks), Light Crust Doughboys ('36--9), Bob Wills ('32--41), fiddler Cliff Bruner ('37--44); Stomping Western Swing '97 on President incl. 28 tracks by Brown, the Doughboys, Cliff Bruner, Smokey Wood, Moon Mullican and others; five-CD box Cliff Bruner And The Texas Wanderers on Bear Family compiles their '37--50 tracks. See Wills's entry. |