A Brief History of Country Music in America Pt.1

Being a fan of County Music, I thought I would begin writing up a brief history of the development of Country in the USA. Writing up something totally complete would take too much space, and in fact, many encyclopedias of text could be written about this. So I will just write a little bit about what I have picked up over the years. Many may tell me that some names, dates and/or times are missing. I  know this, but if I choose to include every single minute detail, I would run the risk of boring those just looking for a brief account of the Country music genre.

I have also tried to follow a story line in the development of the genre and its variants, but many times, it has become difficult, as many movements and subgenres are emerging almost parallel to it to as well. With this in mind, I invite you to enjoy the following material and, of course, hope that someone will get something useful out of it.

Coming to America

The tradition of storytelling in songs is something that dates back to the Middle Ages, when there was no mass media to reach the public through television or the written word. It was then the music helped to spread stories, often real, and sometimes invented, which were transformed into songs.

In medieval Europe, bards could be considered as oral historians in an illiterate society, and were responsible for collecting the stories of people and narrating them to a musical backdrop. The bards were responsible for the collective memory of the people and were often more respected than the king himself. Later, the "minstrel" was in charge of passing these stories, using popular tunes and adapting their stories in rhyme to use the music he chose.

From Celtic to medieval Scotland, these musical traditions came with European settlers to the New World and settled in the west of what is now the United States.

For 1776, more than 250,000 people had come to America from the British Isles, of which over 50% were of Scottish descent, bringing their stories, ballads, tunes and instruments, more specifically, the fiddle. The musical accompaniment was performed with bagpipes and harps, but it was not until the arrival of the violin from Italy in the sixteenth century that the music of the British Isles was definitely instilled in the new world.

The French immigrants who settled in what is now Canada, would be displaced by the British colonizers and end up moving to what is now the state of Louisiana. They brought with them all of their French tradition, their lifestyle, its cuisine and music, all of which, merging with the local lifestyle, would result in a subgenre called Cajun country.

With the arrival of the train tracks and rail, new influences such as the banjo also arrived. Then came the guitar, much more practical for accompaniment. When mass production of guitars became possible at the beginning of the twentieth century, this instrument came into the hands of the common man more easily, and was first used as an accompaniment, but slowly, was introduced more and more to decorate the songs.

The Wreck of the Old '97

The arduous work days were reflected in songs that were transmitted orally, working long hours, often to improvising lyrics over old familiar tunes. After the day's work, family gatherings with neighbors included real "guitar playing" that made the acoustic-based music preferably on guitar, banjo, mandolin or fiddle-with this style becoming increasingly popular.

The themes of these songs, even sometimes sung acapella, were not far from the themes in Country Music today: death, love, abandonment, deception, crime and punishment.

In the southern United States, emerged a type of song which was basically like a newscast. One example is "The Wreck of the Old '97," based on a disaster on the railroad tracks in 1903 in the state of Virginia.

In the late nineteenth century, there also arose the tradition of vaudeville, as well as the rise of "traveling shows" where storytellers provided a mix of comedy and music, while offering miraculous medicines of dubious quality yield. By this means, songs such as "Buffalo Gals," and "Turkey in the Straw" came to be. Add to this, religious music, or Gospel, which came out of the Deep South of the United States and has continued to influence country until today with their vocal harmonies, especially in the Bluegrass genre. Also the Blues, first originating in Africa and brought to America in turn by slaves, became a strong country music influence, which began to grow more and more.

To be continued...