Western Music

As Western Music or cowboy music a style of music is called that, partly romantic idealizing, the conquest of the American West and the life of cowboys on the content has. Its beginnings go back to the time of the great cattle drives ("trails") in the second half of the 19th century. With the increasing interest of a wide audience for this epoch, especially for the figure of the cowboy, it developed into a music genre suitable for the masses at the beginning of the 20th century and reached its peak during the thirties and forties in the form of Hollywood's Singing Cowboys .

Because of its formative influence on country music , western music is seen as one of its sub-categories. This is not least due to the term Country & Western used in the past by the American Billboard magazine .

development

Thomas Moran, Under the Red Wall Grand Canyon of Arizona

Charles M. Russell, The Herd Quitter (1897)

Western music can be broadly defined as "the music that originated west of the Mississippi and is based on folk tradition by groups active in the field of raw material extraction and cattle breeding, such as fur hunters, miners, loggers, rock cutters and wandering drovers who drove the American West before the The arrival of the agricultural settlers ”. According to another, less broad definition, these are simply “songs that celebrate life and work and the geographic location of the American cowboy.” These definitions also characterize the two styles of the genre: On the one hand, the songs of the “real” cowboys and other regional groups that emerged in the second half of the 19th century, and on the other hand the music of the Singing Cowboys, which conquered the radios and cinemas in the 1930s. While the former are characterized by simple melodies and thematize the simple life of cowboys, the latter were composed by professional songwriters and are based on the popular music of the time, partly also on jazz . They also paint a romantic picture of the cowboys and often portray the beauty of the American West. In literature, these songs have therefore also been compared with pictures by Albert Bierstadt or Thomas Moran , while the original songs are supposed to resemble the more realistic pictures of Charles M. Russell . Don Edwards , a modern representative of the early style, also describes this as cowboy folk music , which he clearly differentiates from the later, more transfigured style, both in terms of content and style.

The early songs of the cowboys also differed significantly from the forerunners of hillbilly and old-time music , which were created at the same time in the southeastern United States. In terms of both style and content, there was initially little in common, although the boundaries were blurred over time: “While there was little musical or textual connection between cowboy songs and southern mountain tunes, the two would later be lumped together under the commercial designation Country and Western music. "

Some songs that are now considered western or even cowboy songs were written before 1850 and have no direct reference to the cowboys. For example, Sweet Betsy from Pike and Oh My Darling, Clementine were created during the Californian gold rush ; by Oh! Susanna is a minstrel song by Stephen Collins Foster from 1848. Nevertheless, all three are included in the Top 100 Western Songs compiled by the Western Writers of America .

Andy Parker and the Plainsmen: The Blue Juniata (1956)

Possibly the first song ever to have a romanticized West as its theme, The Blue Juniata by Marion Dix Sullivan, first published in 1844, is one of the most successful "parlor songs" (ie a song sung in the salons of high society) 19th century. The Juniata River is a river in Pennsylvania , at that time everything beyond the Appalachians was considered "the West". According to the music historian Douglas B. Green, an idealized West appears here for the first time, which is portrayed as the opposite pole to a hectic civilization and - linked to a "bold frontier hero", here in the form of an Indian couple in love - anticipates the setting of the singing cowboy .

The songs of the historical cowboys

Cattle drive in Montana, ca.1890

In the post- Civil War era, beef was in great demand in the east of the United States, while Texas in particular had large herds of cattle, some of which went back to the Spanish conquistadores . Daring ranchers therefore began to drive their herds through Texas and the Indian country in what is now Oklahoma to Kansas , where reloading points with large loading stations were built in so-called "cow towns" such as Abilene or Dodge City . The men who rode with the herds were called "cowboys".

According to popular belief, these cowboys sang songs to the cattle to get them to march during the day and calm them down at night. The latter in particular is said to have been so widespread that the night watch was also referred to as "singing to 'em". There are even said to have been ranches that only employed cowboys who could sing. There are numerous reports by eye or ear witnesses who describe that the sound of the human voice had a calming effect on the animals, and in this way stampedes were prevented or herds passed through were calmed. On the other hand, Jack Thorp, who first published a volume of cowboy songs in 1908, Songs of the Cowboys , has stated that over a period of 50 years he had seldom heard any kind of singing at many of the night watches.

Regardless of whether the cowboys actually sang to their animals or not, it is in any case recognized that wherever men have been isolated over a longer period of time and under special circumstances, a tradition of singing with songs about these men and their work has developed. so for example with seamen, loggers, miners etc. It can therefore be assumed that in periods of isolation and boredom every man who could come up with any other form of entertainment than card games provided a welcome change. “Undoubtedly” the more creative cowboys in the sleeping barracks and camps are said to have come up with the poems which, in connection with well-known melodies, became the cowboy songs.

A "real" cowboy, around 1888

At first, however, the cowboys sang songs that they knew from the past, such as hymns or minstrel songs. During the war there had already been various pocket-size songbooks that soldiers could carry with them and that contained a colorful mix of different styles: in addition to Scottish or Irish ballads and minstrel songs, patriotic and sentimental songs.

By 1870, the cowboys had also developed their own songs. On the one hand, well-known songs from the "old world" have been rewritten: For example, "Streets of Laredo", also known as The Cowboy's Lament , which tells of a dying cowboy, can be traced back to the English folk song The Unfortunate Rake (approx. 1790) , which is about a soldier who dies of syphilis . The sea man's poem The Ocean-Buried (also The Ocean-Burial , ca.1839) became Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie , also known as The Dying Cowboy , by adding the text “Bury me not in the deep, deep sea, where the dark blue waves will roll over me "changed to" Bury me not on the lone prairie, where the wild coyote will howl over me, where the buffalo roams the prairie sea ".

On the other hand, new songs were created that dealt with the rough and lonely life of the cowboys: their everyday work, rituals and self-spun stories. These songs focused on the relationship between the cowboys and nature rather than the relationship between the cowboys and society or with women within society. The emptiness that resulted from their isolation was filled by the cowboys with nature and their work: Just as the lumberjacks sang about the woods and their tools, the cowboys sang about the trail and the herds. And both sang of the whims of nature. In addition, non-work-related topics such as outlaws and Indians were processed, but there were also songs with obscene lyrics that “left nothing to the imagination”.

Stylistically, these are simply structured songs that tell a story without any major embellishments. In this respect, they resemble the songs of lumberjacks and miners. Since it was difficult for the cowboys to carry instruments with them during a cattle drive, the singing was mostly unaccompanied. Often, however, small instruments such as harmonica or jew's harps were also used, and a fiddle could also be transported in the "bedroll", a forerunner of the sleeping bag . At home in the sleeping barracks, guitars, mandolins and banjos were also used later. The first recordings of the traditional songs, which were made in the mid-1920s - partly by former cowboys - also feature a sparse instrumentation, mostly consisting of a fiddle and / or guitar.

The songs initially spread from ranch to ranch, for example when a newly hired cowboy brought the songs from his old place of work. In the course of time, new verses and variations developed, so that little by little a comprehensive set of songs was created. From around 1870, however, song texts and poems were also published in newspapers, especially in the Great Plains and the western states, but also in some national magazines.

The cowboys often took the melodies for the newly invented songs from traditional or popular songs. An example of this is the genre's genre's first big hit. In 1893 the poem After the Roundup by DJ O'Malley appeared, which was initially sung by the Cowboys to two different melodies, the lively Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane and the slow After the Ball . A good 30 years later, it finally became a great success for Carl T. Sprague in its final form under the title When the Work's All Done This Fall .

One of the most famous songs goes back to a poem published for the first time in 1872: Home on the Range , referred to by Roy Rogers as the “national anthem of the cowboys”, is an early example of the romantic transfiguration of the West and in a sense constitutes the “exception to the rule actuated ".

Beginnings

As the importance of the real cowboys declined with the beginning of the 20th century, so did the general public's interest in their lives and their epoch. Countless legends and stories emerged that greatly glorified the conquest of the West. Among other things, the Wild West Show by William Cody, called Buffalo Bill , contributed to this, and since 1883 it had also brought the West closer to people in the east of the USA and even in Europe.

Since the end of the 19th century, more and more dime novels , which thematized the life of cowboys, have appeared. In 1902 the novel The Virginian by Owen Wister was published . It is considered the first real literary western novel and shaped the image of the upright cowboy, which has since established itself in people's minds. In addition, a number of anthologies with cowboy songs appeared at this time, which found huge sales: Songs of the Cowboy (1908) by Nathan Howard Thorpe and Cowboy Songs and other Frontier Ballads (1910) by John Lomax . His son Alan continued this tradition into the 1960s.

Bentley Ball : Jesse James (1919)

Typewriter dealer Bentley Ball is considered to be the first to make commercial recordings of these authentic songs . He had performed songs from various themed areas during his sales demonstrations and eventually recorded some of them, including Jesse James and The Dying Cowboy , which the Columbia label described in 1919 as "genuinely thrilling 'ballads' of Cowboy life in frontier days" . However, Ball's recordings were not very authentic, especially since they were intended for a "cultured" audience, and he sang in a stilted and artificial style. Ball used the text handed down by Lomax, but changed the supposedly offensive description of Jesse James' murderer Robert Ford as "dirty little coward" in "mean little coward".

Carl T. Sprague : When the work's all done this fall (1925)

Western music's ultimate breakthrough came in October 1925 when Carl T. Sprague's recording of When the Work's All Done This Fall was released. Although had Fiddlin 'John Carson , the end of the 19th century created the song in March 1924 titled Dixie Cowboy added, the overwhelming success but only became Sprague's version. It sold more than 900,000 times, a sensational number for the time. As a teenager, Sprague had worked on his parents' ranch and also participated in cattle drives, and there learned the old songs of the cowboys. His singing differed significantly from the sophisticated performances of the later Singing Cowboys, which gave him a certain authenticity. Ultimately, Sprague's success is seen as a milestone that sparked widespread interest in commercial recordings in this field.

Jimmie Rodgers : When The Cactus Is In Bloom (1932)

A turning point came in 1929 when Jimmie Rodgers first recorded cowboy-oriented songs. Rodgers had enjoyed great success with the Blue Yodeling since 1927 and had himself photographed as a cowboy for advertising purposes. He was one of the first to portray the cowboy as a lonely but free man who rides across the prairie, surrounded by blooming cacti or under a beautiful moon. According to Don Edwards, despite his focus on old-time music, he can therefore be regarded as the founder of modern western music: “ Most of us who are familiar with what Jimmie Rodgers did, agree by now that he was the guy, even having been the 'The Singing Brakeman' and 'The Blue Yodeler' from Mississippi, who really created this western genre. Because with his early recordings of 'When the Cactus is in Bloom', 'Cow Hand's Last Ride and all of those songs - he was the one the others picked up on; he first went at it from a more romantic sense. "

In Rodgers' Yodeling Cowboy (1929), next to the ride into the sunset, the howling coyotes and the revolver on the side, the line of text "Where a man is a man and a friend is a friend" appears, which is later slightly modified ( " Out where a friend is a friend ” ) appears in Ray Whitley's Back in the Saddle again . The latter became one of the genre's biggest hits in Gene Autry's version. Over time, the topic was also taken up by other musicians from the hillbilly scene. Because of the bad image that the hillbilly had, artists in this area looked for a more prestigious and modern alternative. Before the neutral term “country” caught on in the mid-1940s, they liked to fall back on two romantically transfigured groups, the mountaineer and the cowboy. Aside from being both “colorful” and exotic, they embodied “quintessentially American” values ​​such as freedom, independence, heroism, and fearlessness. This assimilation has shaped and changed the face of all country music. To this day, cowboy boots and hats have remained the preferred outfit of many country singers, even if they have little to do with them thematically.

Turning points

Roy Rogers & The Sons Of The Pioneers: Little Joe The Wrangler (1947)

The founding of the Sons of the Pioneers by Roy Rogers, Tim Spencer and Bob Nolan in 1933 can be seen as another turning point and milestone in the genre . Her first big hit, Way Out There , featured a distinctive three-part yodel that would become her trademark. With their three or later four-part harmony singing and yodelling, the band defined the typical sound that is still associated with the music of the West and the singing cowboy. Numerous contemporary groups like Foy Willing & The Riders of the Purple Sage , but also modern cowboy bands like Riders in the Sky or Sons of the San Joaquin were influenced by the style of the Sons of the Pioneers.

The influence the Sons of the Pioneers had on the evolving genre wasn't limited to style, however. While Carl T. Sprague was still singing about the hard life ( The Cowboy ) and dying of the cowboys, they finally made the turn from more or less authentic descriptions to glorification and glorification, which would henceforth shape the genre. Especially songs from the pen of Bob Nolan like Tumbling Tumbleweeds are still part of the standard repertoire of every cowboy band. The same applies to the songwriter Billy Hill (1899–1940). All the big stars of the genre have recorded his compositions such as Call of the Canyon or Empty Saddles . He has also written for artists as diverse as Jimmie Rodgers and Bing Crosby . In addition to the Sons of the Pioneers, Hill had the most fundamental influence on western music. However, there was early criticism of the romanticization and glorification of the cowboys: "I think the Sons of the Pioneers are the worst thing that ever happened to Cowboy music" said Alan Lomax, who collected and preserved the authentic songs throughout his life.

Hollywood discovers the "Singing Cowboy"

Hollywood helped western music make its final breakthrough. A wave of musical westerns in the 1930s eventually spawned a new hero, the singing cowboy . The starting point for the development of musical westerns was the invention of the talkie in the late 1920s. Completely new possibilities opened up, especially for the music, as it had not previously been possible to display it, apart from a pianist who had accompanied the films live. It is therefore not surprising that the first full-length sound film was called The Jazz Singer (1927).

The story of the singing film cowboys is closely linked to the story of the “normal” westerns from which the genre evolved. Westerns were very popular at the time, and since cowboys were already associated with singing by the general public, it was only logical to use the new technique in this regard. Already during the silent film era, the director John Ford had used singing and other musical performances as stylistic devices in several of his early westerns, with the texts being reproduced in the subtitles. Ford used the music specifically to emphasize certain aspects of the plot. In Bucking Broadway (1918) , for example, the cowboys sing the sad song Home, Sweet Home , after the main actor learned that his girlfriend had left him.

The first musical western in the broader sense is In Old Arizona (1929), in which u. a. the main actor Warner Baxter sings the song My Tonia . After visiting the premier together, this film inspired producer Carl Laemmle of German origin and western star Ken Maynard to also incorporate vocal interludes into their westerns. The Universal Studio had been experimenting with the new medium for some time. The film The Wagon Master was released in two versions, on the one hand as a fully silent film and on the other hand with partial sound. In this version Maynard sang two songs and played the fiddle . After this was well received by the audience, other films of this type followed, until finally, in 1930, Mountain Justice, his first film with continuous sound, was released in theaters.

The combination of action and singing hit the nerve of the audience. As a result, more and more western stars began to incorporate vocal parts in their films, such as Bob Steele, Hoot Gibson or Buck Jones. Even John Wayne sang, or pretended to be, in some of his early films. The singing was said to have been done by other singers, but their identity was sometimes highly controversial. The success of these vocal interludes was so great that even actors who could not or did not want to sing themselves included guest appearances by well-known singers or bands in their westerns. The Sons of the Pioneers appeared regularly in Charles Starrett's films . Even Bob Wills had in the early 1940s with his band several film appearances, u. a. next to Russel Hayden.

The first stars

Gene Autry : Red River Valley (1946)

The problem was that Ken Maynard, a gifted rider, did not have a particularly good voice. The Mascot Studio, at which Maynard had been under contract with Carl Laemmle after a falling out, was therefore looking for a co-star who could take over the vocal interludes. They found what they were looking for in Gene Autry , who was considered a crowd puller due to his numerous radio appearances as a hillbilly singer in the style of Jimmie Rodgers, especially since he had repeatedly cultivated his cowboy image due to his origin from Texas. Autry had just landed a million seller with That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine , which he then featured in the 1934 film In Old Santa Fe . The film became a huge hit, and yodelling hillbilly became America's Cowboy No. 1".

This film is considered to be the first singing cowboy film in the true sense of the word. If the singing was previously only a minor matter, the numerous vocal interludes now developed into the main attraction of the films. For this reason, the earlier performers are sometimes referred to as "cowboys who sang", in contrast to the actual singing cowboys . The film is also remarkable because, in addition to the figure of the sidekick (the clumsy and / or weird companion of the hero), it also introduced the so-called Modern West setting . The action of most musical westerns took place since then in the present of the 1930s and 1940s. Exceptions are the early films by Roy Rogers, which took place in the traditional Wild West up to Red River Valley (1941).

The film was very well received by the audience, so that Autry had a steady job as a singing cowboy from now on. After the serial The Phantom Empire , a mixture of westerns and science fiction, he was hired by the Republic studio for a whole series of westerns. In September 1935 he appeared for the first time as a headliner with Tumbling Tumbleweeds , three more films followed by December with an interval of a few weeks.

Just two months after Tumbling Tumbleweeds , Warner Brothers sent another Singing Cowboy, Dick Foran, in Moonlight on the Prairie , with Foran to remain Warner's only Singing Cowboy.

It is unclear whether Warner just jumped on the moving train after Autry's success or had plans to do so beforehand. On the one hand, the short time interval should speak for the latter: It is unlikely that all decisions could be made in just two months, especially since a star had to be signed, a script had to be written and the marketing planned. On the other hand, the text with which Warner advertised the film to cinema owners on November 9, 1935, points in this direction: Accordingly, it should be a novel combination of Western action with the cowboy songs that the country has recently become so crazy about be.

Unlike Autry's early films Forans films were rather addressed to a young audience, its image corresponded to took a lovable older brother instead of a grumpy or clumsy adults a child, usually played by child star Dickie Jones , the role of sidekicks. While this has been viewed as a clever move by some critics, others have suggested that teenage viewers would rather look up at a hero than look with envy at a peer on a thrilling adventure.

According to some critics, Foran was the better singer, and the songs were more directly linked to the plot of the films, but could never build on Autry's great success. The reason for this is given by historians that Foran, like most of his colleagues, was an attractive actor and good singer, but lacked a certain credibility as a cowboy, "the ring of the plains". Foran is said to have been more of a "pop crooner", while Autry's nasal, nonetheless intimate style was natural and unaffected. "

It was also criticized that Foran's films set in the historical west were very predictable and, by the way, were all too tailored to him as the sole star. In contrast, Autry had his sidekicks and regularly offered guest appearances by other well-known radio stars. In 1936 alone, the Light Crust Doughboys and the Sons of the Pioneers performed twice, each with the Tennessee Ramblers and the Beverly Hillbillies, alongside him and Smiley Burnette. In this way, the films in the respective regions of origin of the guest stars should be particularly attractive to the audience.

Roy Rogers : The Yellow Rose Of Texas (1947)

Roy Rogers, the "King of the Cowboys" was the second big star of the genre after Gene Autry. After Autry threatened to leave the Republic Studio, where he was now under contract, in 1937 after a dispute over his salary, a feverish search was made for a replacement. Rogers heard about it, applied for the role and then split from the Sons of the Pioneers to start a solo film career. While he was still appearing under the name Dick Weston in his first film Wild Horse Rodeo , he changed his name to Roy Rogers for Under Western Stars (1938). Many more films followed, many of them again at the side of the Sons of the Pioneers and from 1944 with his wife Dale Evans , the Queen of the West .

criticism

There was also criticism of the unrealistic Singing Cowboys. In particular, the relocation of the plot to the present was a thorn in the side of the purists. But it was also criticized that an excessive number of vocal interludes were built in, as these are particularly cheap to produce compared to action scenes: “They use songs to save money on horses, riders and ammunition. Why, you take Gene Autry and lean him up against a tree with his guitar and let him sing three songs and you can fill up a whole reel without spending any money. That's why they've overdone the singing. " This quote comes from Buck Jones, who tried himself as a singing cowboy in the early years and even published a book with well-known cowboy songs in 1940.

However, these critics could not prevail, the musical westerns were a resounding success. That was probably also due to the fact that the audience wanted to escape everyday life at least for a short time in the difficult economic times of the global economic crisis . And what could be better suited than a beaming hero who solves all problems with a smile and a song on his lips, paired with a large portion of comedy that the sidekicks provided. In addition, the Singing Cowboys never claimed to be historical realism. The criticism was also partly taken up, for example when Gene Autry in his film Public Cowboy No. 1 (1937) sings: "There ain't much left of the west no more, the cowboys all turn troubadour."

Crossover

The great success of the Singing Cowboys and the general enthusiasm for every kind of cowboy romanticism meant that artists from other areas of music also dealt with the subject and recorded relevant pieces themselves. From the heyday of the genre, one should mention Bing Crosby , who had some hits with titles like Cool Water or Tumbling Tumbleweeds . He also made known the parody I'm an Old Cowhand (from the Rio Grande) through his film Rhythm on the Range (1936) , which Roy Rogers later used in his film King of the Cowboys . Other greats, such as the crooner Perry Como or the opera star Ezio Pinza , recorded some titles with the Sons of the Pioneers in the early 1950s, the latter, however, with little success. In return, artists from the western area also recorded numerous pop titles, especially the extremely versatile Gene Autry. Multiple guest appearances in film and television, such as the Ed Sullivan Show, did the rest to further increase awareness of the genre and its representatives.

After the Second World War

In the years after the Second World War , the singing cowboys gradually lost their importance in the cinema. In 1951, Rogers' last film, Pals of the Golden West , was released, and in 1953, Autry's last film, Last of the Pony Riders . Phantom Stallion (1954), Rex Allen’s last film, marked the end of the Singing Cowboys. A short time later, Two Guns and a Badge with Wayne Morris appeared, which is considered the last B-Western .

On the one hand, this loss of meaning may have been due to a certain oversaturation; on the other hand, the genre of the westerns continued to develop into more complex and realistic films; not least because of a loosening of the production code, which up until now had made it more difficult to depict violence or “immoral” scenes.

Western music had gradually lost its importance as early as the 1940s. New styles like the hard honky tonk or the lively and danceable western swing had come to the fore. However, both Roy Rogers and Gene Autry had recognized the signs of the times in good time and dared to take the plunge into the new media of radio and television. Autry had had a radio show called Melody Ranch since 1940 , the Gene Autry Show went on the air in 1950 and the Roy Rogers Show in 1951 , both of which were a mixture of music and comedy, with music taking a back seat, especially with Rogers .

These programs contributed to the immense popularity of the cowboys, especially among children. Fan clubs emerged that also tried to have an educational effect on the children and young people, whereby they could rely on the positive image of the cowboys. Examples include Autry's 10 Commandments of the Cowboy or the Roy Rogers Riders Club Rules , which should guide children in fairness, honesty and helpfulness, among other things. Advertising capitalized on this: in the early 1950s there was hardly a product from toy revolvers to cornflakes that was not adorned by Roy Rogers or at least his “Double R Bar” brand. The developments in film and music did not stop at these last bastions of genres, so that in 1955 and 1956 the last episodes of the Gene Autry Show and Melody Ranch were broadcast. The Roy Rogers Show was only able to last a year longer .

The presence

The Singing Cowboys had calmed down since the 1960s . There have been repeated attempts to revive the genre, but they have fizzled out. Exceptions are singers like Michael Martin Murphey or the Canadian Ian Tyson , who try not to let the old songs fall into oblivion. The band Riders in the Sky was founded in 1977 and has since developed into one of the most successful cowboy bands of the present. The high point of their career was in 2001 winning a Grammy for the song Woody's Roundup from the Disney film Toy Story 2 , which caused the The eyes of the wider public were once again turned to western music. The cowboy band Spirit of Texas was declared the "Official Cowboy Band for Texas" by the Texas Senate in 1991. However, the genre has not got beyond such respectable successes.

The establishment of the Western Music Association (WMA) in 1989 and the annual awards ceremony modeled on the Country Music Association gave the genre a new boost and a new self-confidence. In addition, the WMA publishes a quarterly magazine: the Western Music Advocate deals scientifically with the history of music and individual performers from the past and present. The new interest in Western Music and the success of Murphey's Cowboy Songs series even led to the founding of the Warner Western Label, a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group , in 1992 . In addition, many smaller labels published more or less elaborately designed anthologies, including rare material from the early years.

The genre lives on in the field of country music as well. On the one hand in the typical outfit that has become the symbol of the genre: Many country singers such as George Strait never appear without hat and boots. When a new generation of young artists conquered the country scene in the early 1990s as part of the New Country movement, the cowboy hat was their trademark, even though they had little connection with the topic in terms of content. Critics have coined the term has act .

In addition, there are also quite a few country musicians nowadays who have dedicated themselves to the subject of westerns. Songs like those of the former rodeo champion Chris LeDoux are far less overloaded with pathos and nostalgic transfiguration than their predecessors. Her subjects are horses and horse breeding, rodeo and nature. One of the most prominent examples is Garth Brooks , who took up the subject in his songs Cowboy Bill and In Lonesome Dove . The Dixie Chicks also sang songs like I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart in their early years and even named an album after Dale Evans. Even after their breakthrough, they released the song Cowboy Take Me Away from their album Fly (1999) as a single, which clearly borrows from cowboy romance.

Nevertheless, the performers mentioned are modern country singers, who differ greatly in style from the actual protagonists of Western music. In contrast, artists like Michael Martin Murphey often record traditional songs. He was inducted into the WMA Hall of Fame in 2004 for his services to the genre .

The role of women

Charles M. Russell , rodeo cowgirl

In the past, the conquest of the American West was mainly portrayed from a male perspective. It was only when “cowgirls” like Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane demonstrated their skills in the big western shows at the end of the 19th century that the role of women began to move into the public's awareness. In addition, the developing genre of western music offered (white) women more opportunities than, for example, the hillbilly genre or the blues. While the latter was already "off limits" for "decent" women, the former with its hobo songs was only partially suitable. The singing cowgirl therefore became an acceptable alternative; the wide prairie replaced the previous scenes such as bars, prison cells or freight cars.

An early example of this development is The Cowboy's Wife (1929) by Billie Maxwell , who is considered the first singing cowgirl . The song describes the life of a woman who patiently goes about her day's work, waiting for her cowboy to come home. From a male point of view, this corresponds to songs like the traditional The Girl I Left Behind Me or, more recently, The Arms of my Love (1997) by Riders in the Sky : “Does she wait by the fire-light, cry through the long nights, does she dream of the cowboy who rode through her heart? ”At the same time, Maxwell's few recordings are a good example of the sparsely arranged style of the early years, which in this respect does not differ from male performers like Jack Webb , Jules Allen or the others mentioned above .

Later singers like Patsy Montana differed greatly from Maxwell not only in style and presentation. Although the cowboys were adored in songs like Rodeo Sweetheart (1938), a new self-confidence shimmered through: In I want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart (1935), Montana's biggest hit, it says: “I wanna learn to rope and to ride, I wanna ride o'er the plains and the deserts, out west of the Great Divide. "It became even clearer in The She Buckaroo (1936):" Give me the feel of a horse that has wings, I'll ride him straight up, like all cowboys do, I'm a straight riding lassie, a she buckaroo. ”With her appearance, Montana conveyed the message that women can also have“ cowboy characteristics ”: they can be independent, free, self-confident and nonetheless be with her husband. For the singer Cyndi Lauper , I want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart was “a milestone in the history of the women's movement”: the woman who sings here “doesn't mention the cowboy whose sweetheart she would like to be. She becomes a cowboy herself. "

Overall, however, the genre was male-dominated, although there were also some female representatives such as Rosalie Allen or the Girls of the Golden West , who were very successful. The roles were also clearly assigned in the Hollywood westerns. Women played here mainly to be saved by the hero. Films that portray strong women have long been the exception, such as Barbara Stanwyck as the Cattle Queen of Montana (1954). The musical westerns were no exception and also predominantly used the classic " damsel in distress " motif. In many cases, the hero rescues his co-star from a runaway horse-drawn cart or stands by her when traders want to steal her inherited ranch, a gold mine or the traveling circus. Occasionally, however, there were also musical westerns with female headliners, such as Jane Frazee in Cowboy Canteen and Swing in the Saddle (both 1944), or Penny Singleton , who in her only western Go West, Young Lady (1941) alongside Glenn Ford and the Texas Playboys sang.

As early as the end of the 1930s, the financially troubled studio Grand National Films had tried to establish a whole series of films with a singing cowgirl with Dorothy Page as the star, in order to gain a larger audience. The project - and with it the studio - failed, however: the three films realized ( Water Rustlers , Ride 'Em Cowgirl , The Singing Cowgirl , all 1939) were failures. The reason for the failure of the series is believed to be that on the one hand the audience was not yet ripe for a proactive, self-actualizing cowgirl, and on the other hand the attraction of a female main character to the pre-pubescent boys who make up a large part of the Audience made out, overestimated.

In contrast, child star Mary Lee made cowgirl outfits and horse riding popular with young girls in the early 1940s. The 15-year-old Lee, who is described as a "little brunette with a big voice", played the mischievous little sister of Autry's female co-star when she first appeared (of nine) at the side of Gene Autry.

However, this trend did not take hold. Dale Evans, the queen of the singing cowgirls, therefore even toyed with the idea of ​​changing the genre in 1945: "A heroine in a western is always second string. The cowboy and his horse always come first." poked fun at her song Don't ever fall in love with a Cowboy : “He will tell you he thinks you are pretty and he likes your last year's dress, but he'll buy that horse a new blanket, cause he loves his horse the best ... "

The importance of ethnic minorities

African American

Historians now agree that a not inconsiderable number of the “real” cowboys were of African American origin. These were mainly former slaves who found work on ranches in the American Southwest after the Civil War. In contrast to country music, there is no evidence of a significant influence of authentic black music (such as the blues or its predecessors) on the music of the cowboys, but the forerunners of western music were also found in the 19th century by the then popular minstrel - Shows. Many of the titles sung there have been assimilated into the general fundus over time. The Yellow Rose of Texas , now considered the prime example of early cowboy titles and the unofficial national anthem of the state of Texas, was originally a pre-Civil War minstrel song, the Yellow Rose being a fair-skinned woman of African descent acts. It was not until the 20th century that western swing emerged under the influence of jazz and blues.

Although individual black cowboys had achieved a certain degree of fame, a European view of American history prevailed in the cinemas. In addition, there were separate cinemas for whites and blacks in the course of racial segregation . The early western heroes, like their singing relatives, were almost exclusively embodied by whites. A notable exception to this was jazz singer Herb Jeffries , who was the only African American to ever portray a singing cowboy. Due to a formative experience, he decided to bring a black cowboy to the cinemas as a role model for black children.

Harlem on the Prairie (1937) was the first in a series of films advertised as "all-colored" characterized by their consistently black cast. Whites didn't exist in it, not even in supporting roles. In addition, these films differ from the “white” films in the style of the music. The fact that both Jeffries and his companion band, the Four Tones, were jazz musicians apart from acting was clearly noticeable in the films, even if the music was later carefully adjusted to the common western numbers. Unfortunately, the films were also characterized by particularly modest budgets, which was clearly noticeable even in comparison to the white B-Westerns. After all, Jeffries' debut as a singing cowboy was sufficiently successful, at least in his target group, to result in a total of four sequels, two of which in turn had the clichéd Harlem in the title.

More recently, the films have also been interpreted as an attempt to create a new African-American identity. This should of course be achieved on the one hand through the cast, on the other hand through the targeted use of anachronisms and contrasts, such as the juxtaposition of contemporary Harlem in the title and the west of the 19th century as the setting for the plot. This should reflect the optimistic mood associated with the conquest of the West in an Afro-American context. However, early on, critics criticized the fact that these films also used some of the clichés and stereotypes typical of the time with regard to black actors, such as an exaggerated fear of ghosts.

In this context point 5 of the Cowboy Code published by Gene Autry as a guideline for his youthful followers is noteworthy: He (the Cowboy) must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas. The portrayal of the black chef Chappie in Tex Ritter's Riders of the Frontier (1939) is an example of this attitude . This is played by the African-American comedian Mantan Moreland, who played the superstitious and terrible cliché black in numerous race movies at the beginning of his career . Although Chappie utters sentences like “I wish I was chopping cotton” in (supposedly) threatening situations, in the end he plays the decisive role by warning knights of an ambush and even playing the decoy. During a cattle drive, Chappie is mocked by Ritter's opponent, Ritter cheers him up with the following words: “Color don't make any difference. Take you for instance, Chappie. You skin's dark, but your heart ain't shriveled up, like somebody I know. "Chappie's answer:" You sure know the human race. "

Mexican

In addition to the blacks, numerous Mexicans also worked in the American Southwest, historians estimate their share at around ten percent. They shaped the genre to a far greater extent, although no counterpart to the romantic cowboy legends had developed in the Hispanic culture. The charro was a lowly laborer there who did the dirty work for which the gentlemen were too fine.

Vaquero in California, ca.1830

The Spaniards had already introduced horse and cattle breeding in what is now Mexico and the southwestern US states, so working with both had a long tradition there. The Mexican cowboys then passed their knowledge on to their American colleagues. For this reason, numerous expressions of the "cowboy lingo", the colloquial language of cowboys, are taken from Spanish, such as Buckaroo, which is a synonym for cowboy and is derived from the Spanish vaquero (pronounced with a soft b). The same applies to terms such as chaps , lariat or bronc .

The relationship between Americans and Mexicans was not entirely unproblematic at first, not least because of the disputes in the course of Texan independence. In John Lomax's Cowboy Songs , published in 1911, there is Way Down in Mexico, a warlike song in which the Mexican dictator Santa Anna and his greaser soldiers are threatened with death on the gallows or a damp grave in the Rio Grande. Conflicts continued into the 20th century, the climax was the Mexican attack on the cavalry base in New Mexico Columbus led by Pancho Villa in 1916 . This also had a negative effect on the prevailing image of Mexicans in American films, who were usually shown as lazy and devious.

Nevertheless, Mexican culture exerted a strong influence, which eventually led to a pronounced "South-of-the-Border-Romanticism" over time. The Texan-Mexican border region has always been a popular setting for western films, one can actually speak of a sub-genre. The region around the Rio Grande or Spanish Rio Bravo (del Norte) is regularly depicted as a vast and untouched landscape, which was intended to express the longing for the "frontier experience" that was no longer to be found in America in the 1930s . In addition to the actual setting, a pattern of content can also be recognized in many of these films: the crossing of the border river is also presented as a kind of initiation ritual, both for the individual and for the nation as a whole. The former has the prospect of an exotic, possibly even erotic adventure, the latter the opportunity to offer their civilizational superiority to the less developed Mexicans. Gene Autry's South of the Border (1939) is regarded as an almost archetypal example of this development.

Numerous films by the singing cowboys were therefore set on haciendas or in the Texas-Mexican border region, for example Tex Ritter's first film Song of the Gringo (1936). In line with the general tendency of the films, less emphasis was placed on confrontation and more on commonalities, for example in Roy Rogers' Hands across the Border (1944). Characteristic of the genre is a high proportion of songs with Spanish titles or text parts, such as My Adobe Hacienda , which was a hit for Louise Massey and the Westerners in 1941 and at the same time the first crossover between (then still known as) hillbilly and pop Charts was. The song (Allá en) El Rancho Grande can be considered exemplary . Originally written in Spanish, with English verse later added, it first became a hit with Bing Crosby in 1939. In 1940 Gene Autry sang it in his film of the same name, and in 1946 it appeared in Roy Rogers' My Pal Trigger. Since then there has hardly been a representative of the genre in whose repertoire it cannot be found and even Elvis Presley has recorded a version of it. The exact origin of the song could not be finally clarified in 1941, even in a process due to copyright infringement.

From that point of view, it is not surprising that South of the Border was Gene Autry's most successful film. It was named after the song of the same name that songwriters Michael Carr and Jimmy Kennedy wrote for him during Autry's UK tour and which had proven to be a huge hit.

Tito Guízar : Allá en el Rancho Grande (1936)

In parallel to the Singing Cowboys, the figure of the Singing Charro had established itself in Mexico . One of its best-known representatives was the trained opera singer Tito Guízar, who had increasingly switched to singing so-called corridas and rancheras, traditional Mexican songs about life on the ranch. With his first film Alla en el Rancho Grande (1936) he also had great success on the American market and even appeared alongside Roy Rogers in two films after the Second World War, On the Old Spanish Trail (1947) and The Gay Ranchero (1948). In the opposite direction, American films were also very popular in Mexico, which in turn led to US artists repeatedly recording Spanish-language titles.

Yodel

Yodelling has always played a major role in western music . Timothy E. Wise even sees it as an "important, if not a distinctive part" of the genre, that yodelling is one of the "primary characteristics" of the cowboy. Accordingly, many standards of the genre contain or at least exist in yodelling versions. The WMA takes this into account through the annual presentation of Yodeling Awards in several categories.

Over time, a close connection between cowboys and yodelling developed in the general perception. For example, in Frank Zappa's film 200 Motels, the character of the Lonesome Cowboy Burt is characterized just as much by his yodeling as by his cowboy outfit, albeit in a negative way. But even in today's pop culture, yodelling is still associated with the cowboy. For example, in one episode of the series The Librarians, the protagonists Cassandra, Jake and Ezekiel are transported to an old western, where Jake starts to sing around the campfire and - to Ezekiel's displeasure - to yodel. Further evidence of this is the character Jessie, the Yodeling Cowgirl from the movie Toy Story 2 is in the film. Are the cows go (English title:. Home on the Range) sets Rustler Alamida Slim one a yodelling song to the cows in To put in a trance. And in an article about the special challenges facing homosexual cowboys in the wake of the film Brokeback Mountain , the American MAD u. a. firmly: “There's the question of where to add yodels in campire renditions of showtunes.” In addition, some “textbooks” have been published, with the help of which one can specifically learn how to yodel in Western style.

While it is unclear whether - and if so how - the historic cowboys yodeled, there is consensus that the final incorporation of yodelling did not take place until the 1930s in the wake of Jimmie Rodgers' successes. It finally experienced profound stylistic changes from singers such as Roy Rogers and Wilf Carter.

Historical evidence

There are no reliable indications that the real cowboys actually yodeled, especially in the sense as it is understood today. The main problem with this is that the cowboys' music is only preserved in writing, not as audio recordings, whereby "apparently trivial matters such as the breaking of the voice easily escape perception".

A passage from Emma B. Miles' (1879–1919) quasi-autobiographical collection of essays The Spirit of the Mountains (1905), which is supposed to describe the prototypical cowboy, was used as an indication that the historical cowboys might have yodelled . There it says: “(...) His first songs are yodels. Then he learns dance tunes, and songs of hunting and fighting and drinking, (...) ” Miles, however, characterizes the“ mountain man ”here, not the cowboy. Her work describes the life of the long-established inhabitants of the southern Appalachians at the turn of the century. As a counter-argument, however, it has been pointed out that, for example, Owen Wisters Virginian , the first literary cowboy hero, did not yodel, but sang "blackface minstrel tunes" .

However, there are reports from contemporary witnesses who suggest that the cowboys also used the falsetto voice when singing and at least made yodel-like sounds. John Lomax quotes a cowboy as saying, “We always had so many squawks and yells and hollers… I thought I might have as well a kind of a song to it.” The Texan historian J. Frank Dobie recalls: “No. human sound that I have ever heard approaches in eerieness or in soothing melody the indescribable whistle of the cowboy. “ So if you sang, it should also have been possible that you did it in the falsetto or head voice, whereby one A song hummed in this pitch could also be considered a yodel if the term was given a generous interpretation.

In his autobiography Adventures of a Ballad Hunter (1947), John Lomax recalls that when he was four years old, he himself heard a cowboy singing Git Along, Little Dogies to the cattle while yodelling . However, that memory has been questioned even by Frank Dobie, who believed the cowboys of the time didn't yodel. However, it is important to note how the term yodel is defined. According to Lomax's children, their father did not mean the typical Swiss yodel, but rather “a low, crooning moan with falsetto” , a rather soft, plaintive sound with a breaking voice. Lomax himself later spoke of "calls, shouts or hollers" instead of "yodels" .

Ken Maynard : The Lone Star Trail (1930)

Some songs from the early days of the genre, in which such yodelling precursors can be recognized, also go in this direction: Ken Maynard, on his only trip to a recording studio in April 1930 a. a. recorded the song The Lone Star Trail , which contains a plaintive whee-ee, whee, whee as a refrain , referred to by Douglas B. Green as "proto yodel" . Since Maynard must have known the "real" yodelers in the style of Jimmie Rodgers, it has been speculated whether he might not have used a stylistic device as a counterpart that he heard from real cowboys at the beginning of the 20th century when he was still in Wild West shows was active. The better known Cattle Call , composed by Tex Owens in 1934 based on an older song, contains a similar whoo, whoo, whoo. It is said to go back to the calls of the cowboys with whom they announced their position at night so as not to scare the cattle. Eddy Arnold refined the song in the 1940s and added a more elaborate yodel. According to another view, according to which a yodel must necessarily contain an abrupt change or break in the vocal register , Owens' versions of the Cattle Call and similar melisms are conceptually not yodels, but merely pure falsetto singing. Later versions, for example by Arnold or Slim Whitman, are indisputably yodeled.

Liz Masterson, a founding member of the WMA, pointed out that cowboys still use high-key shouts to stand out from the low-pitched cattle tones. In these “not-so-musical sounds” such as “Weee-Yip, Geee-Yip, Geee-Yip” you can “definitely” hear a yodel. In some cases it has also been suggested that the cowboys might have learned yodelling from immigrants from Switzerland. As the ethnologist James P. Leary has shown in his book Yodeling in Dairyland , a strong Swiss culture with numerous yodelers had developed in Wisconsin . Building on this, the connection between cowboys and cattle breeding could explain the spread of this singing style from the dairy industry in the Midwest to the Wild West. Others believe that the cowboys learned at least the use of falsetto singing from Mexican vaqueros. This is supported by the fact that this type of singing has a long tradition in Mexico, for example in the typical AyAyAy calls or in the Huapango or Son Huasteco mariachi styles . A well-known example is the song La Malaguena , which contains drawn out falsettos and has already been covered by US western bands.

Some of these speculations are strictly rejected, the yodelling cowboys arouse strong rejection in them. Powder River Jack H. Lee, one of the early interpreters of authentic cowboy songs, never missed an opportunity to pull off the leather film cowboys whom he contemptuously called "drugstore cowboys" . He particularly hated the unnatural yodelling. In the foreword to his book Cowboy Songs (1938) he writes: "If authenticity is to be preserved for posterity, then the present type of radio singers who yodel will have to be discountenanced." In his memoirs published in 1942, the owner of a drugstore writes, who lived his life in Big Springs , Texas ranch country, he had never heard a cowboy yodel in 43 years. Probably he would have been shot for the attempt, just as he would like to shoot those film cowboys who "sing through their noses or yodel". The real cowboys would have hummed songs to the cattle at night, but there was no “damn yodelling”.

The origins of yodelling have also been addressed by the performers themselves. Riders in the Sky offer an alternative - if not very serious - explanation for the yodelling cowboys in their song That's How The Yodel Was Born (1979): According to this, the characteristic sounds were created after a cowboy's backside opened while riding a horse had made uncomfortable acquaintance with the saddle horn . In Elton Britt's title of the same name (1953), a lonely cowboy “invents” yodelling while riding across the prairie under the impression of a melancholy evening mood: “He was born to wander out where he belongs, on the open prairie just to yodel a little song. “ The yodel is more bluesy.

The Singing Cowboys begin to yodel

There is widespread agreement, however, that yodelling in its current form was only associated with Western music in the 1930s under the influence of singers such as Jimmie Rodgers and later, above all, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. With the triumphant advance of the singing - and recently also yodelling - cowboys, the audience got the impression that yodelling had "always" been part of the cowboy tradition. Nick Tosches calls the yodelling cowboys "one of the most powerful pop hallucinations of all time."

By the turn of the century, yodelling had been a popular curiosity in the United States at traveling vaudeville and minstrel shows . Groups from the Alpine region also often performed there, and the yodelling style was accordingly Alpine. The Canadian Wilf Carter , as "Montana Slim" one of the pioneers of the yodelling cowboys, tells in his songbook (1939) how he came to yodel as a child through an artist named The Yodeling Fool . Roy Rogers had also learned yodelling as a child on his parents' farm in Ohio from a Swiss yodeler's phonograph cylinder and developed his own style over time. After the family moved to California , he even won some yodelling competitions there.

Jimmie Rodgers : The Land of My Boyhood Dreams (1933)

Jimmie Rodgers, the founder of Blue Yodeling , had triggered a real yodel boom in hillbilly music through his success in the late 1920s. Beginning in February 1929, he recorded Desert Blues , a cowboy number enriched with yodelling, for the first time and was the first to combine these two subject complexes. Seven more cowboy songs followed, such as Yodeling Cowboy or Cowhand's Last Ride . This pioneering status is also expressed in Dwight Butcher's When Jimmie Rodgers Said Goodbye (1933). Released just one month after Rodgers' death and immediately covered several times, the third verse reads : "He left a yodel for the cowboy (...) And he left every prairie lonely" , a clear homage to his cowboy titles. His biographer Nolan Porterfield has also pointed out that the "cattle calls" of the singing cowboys can be traced back to Rodgers' influence as well as to the "yippy-ki-ays" of the real cowboys.

In the area of ​​cowboy-oriented music, too, various singers incorporated yodels into their songs, both in traditional songs and in new compositions. As early as 1934, Doc Schneider & His Yodeling Texas Cowboys were moving from one radio station to the next. a. they were twice successful guests at WSB in Georgia Atlanta . They were said to have occurred in a total of 43 states. One of the best-known examples is Patsy Montana's biggest hit, I Wanna Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart (1935), which is considered the first “million seller” by a female artist from the “Country” field, even if there is no verifiable evidence of this. In addition to Montana, female singers such as Rosalie Allen , Carolina Cotton and the Girls of the Golden West also shaped the image of yodelling cowgirls. For some, Rosalie Allen's duets with Elton Britt are among the best recordings of Harmony Yodeling, such as The Yodel Blues , Beyond The Sunset or Prairieland Polka . Their joint appearances have also been referred to as " yodeling extravaganzas ". In addition to these national stars, however, there were also artists who could only assert themselves on a regional level. In the American Midwest, for example, Jerry Smith was known as " The Yodeling Cowboy ". He was the figurehead of the station WHO in Iowa Des Moines and could even win the title of Champion Yodeler of Iowa in a competition in 1938 .

One reason for the successful incorporation of yodelling into the genre was that it fitted the image of the cowboy as a cocky daredevil with “whoops and hollers” . Yodelling became not only a substitute for the "cowboy yell" , but a correlate for the supposedly typical character traits of the cowboy, e.g. B. Carelessness, bravery, ferocity etc.

Since Gene Autry's successes, the yodelling cowboys moved into the cinemas. Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935), Autry's first film as a leading actor, opens with a scene in which he plays his guitar while singing Yodeling My Troubles Away . Previously he had in two episodes of the serial The Phantom Empire yodelling. The phenomenon was also reflected in film titles such as Autry's Yodelin 'Kid from Pine Ridge (1937), although, curiously, there is hardly any yodelling in this film of all places. In The Old Corral (1936), Autry and Roy Rogers roll down an abyss after a fight. Since they wanted to perform together later, Autry asks worried if Rogers could still sing. In response, he lets hear a hearty yodel. In Tex Ritters' Riding The Cherokee Trail (1941), which is set in the historic west, the villain of the film Ritter plays an opera recording and comments that this is good music, not “that squeaky yodeling these cowboys call music.” Already At the beginning of the film, a cowby band had been yodelling on a porch. In this way, the connection between cowboys and yodellers was gradually strengthened, so that the impression arose that the cowboy as such was a "native yodeler" . This, it is criticized, also affected the research into the question of whether the real cowboys yodeled. It was mostly seen in the light of later popularity, which may have "contaminated" the few available data. Ultimately, this led to a misunderstanding: "One of the great misconceptions that the singing cowboy brought to the Western mythology, was that yodeling and being a cowpoke go hand in hand."

The third generation of western music placed less emphasis on yodelling, only the renewed interest in the heyday of the genre helped yodeling to regain its former glory. In contrast, it hardly plays a role in modern country music, the exception being the Texan traditionalist Don Walser , who often used well-known yodel classics. Garth Brooks has also added a soulful yodel to his version of the often-covered cowboy ballad Night Rider's Lament (1992).

Style issues: Yodel The Cowboy Way

In the course of its development into the trademark of the cowboy, the yodelling style has changed significantly. During the early days in Vaudeville, it was still strongly influenced by the alpine originals. George P. Watson , one of the pioneers of American yodelling, recorded numerous German-language songs and based himself on her style.

Jimmie Rodgers largely retained his usual style in his cowboy songs, his yodeling technique is not much different from his blues titles. When Patt Patterson, whom Art Satherly wanted to make a new star in 1930, with his Champion Rep Riders u. a. that traditional The Wandering Cowboy recorded with yodels, his style still reminded of Jimmie Rodgers. Cowboy Yodel (1929), Gene Autry's only cowboy title before 1933, is stylistically a Blue Yodel, a hymn of praise for a carefree life that apart from the title and the first line “I'm just a yodeling cowboy…” has no specific references to Subject. In Autry's recording of Billy Hills The Last Round-Up (October 1933), the later cowboy crooner in the style of Bing Crosby can already be clearly recognized, but the short yodels at the beginning and in the middle still bear a great deal of similarity to the Blue Yodels on. The same applies to the many Rodgers impersonators who also added cowboy numbers to their repertoire, such as Cliff Carlisle or Jimmie Davis . Her contributions to this topic were either cover versions of Rodgers' cowboy titles or in-house productions very closely related to his style. These yodellers usually have a simple scheme that is easy to mimic.

In contrast, the yodellers of the cowboys are more melodic and sophisticated and are more reminiscent of the alpine models, both in the technical execution of the yodellers and in terms of content. However, many great stars of western music cite Jimmie Rodgers as a role model who had an impact on their career, such as Roy Rogers: “Jimmie Rodgers had some impact on my decision to make yodeling a strong part of my singing. By taking these yodels, changing the rhythm and breaks, I created a style all of my own; we [Sons of the Pioneers] may have been the first to do trio yodeling. ” Patsy Montana also learned to yodel as a child from Rodger's recordings, and her career began by winning a singing competition where she played Rodgers' Whisper Your Mother's Name and yodeling cowboy sang.

Roy Rogers' first recording with yodels was probably The Swiss Yodel , which he made in 1934 with the Sons of the Pioneers for Jerry King's Standard Radio Transcriptions , a record service for radio stations. In terms of content, a love song with Swiss romanticism, it begins very cautiously, but then suddenly and suddenly turns into a complex yodel. Other early recordings by the Pioneers also became turning points in yodelling. For example, her repertoire for her first radio appearances included three of Jimmie Rodger's yodel songs, My Little Lady , T For Texas and Yodeling Cowboy , but their style was noticeably different from Rodgers' versions, with more emphasis on the fiddle and jazzy guitar. My Little Lady in particular was played much faster and developed early on as a demonstration piece for Rogers' yodelling skills. With their first major success, Way Out West , they also introduced three-part yodelling.

To My Little Lady , sometimes under the title Hadie Brown published the change of yodeling and the perception of Western Music can also be seen well. Although it has no cowboy-oriented references in terms of content, it has generally established itself as a western song. And while Jimmie Rodgers had limited himself to dragging out the endings of “Hady-ee, my little lady-ee” in falsetto, over time it developed into the “standard test for athletic yodellers interested in Rodgers's Songs. “In addition to Roy Rogers, it was covered by Elton Britt and Grandpa Jones. For some, Hadie Brown is Rogers' most impressive yodelling performance.

Slim Clark : The Old Chisholm Trail (1957)

Over time, the yodel songs changed both stylistically and in terms of content. On the one hand, the yodelling technique was continuously changed, with increased emphasis on speed and rapid vowel changes . In addition, more consonantic sounds were produced by tongue movements. This - so it was criticized - would partly at the expense of the accuracy of the execution. On the other hand, alpine - namely Swiss - clichés mixed with cowboy romanticism, a sign of the "elasticity of the Western myth." One of the first to reconnect the "Hillbilly Yodel Song" with its "original source" was Wilf Carter . His debut My Swiss Moonlight Lullaby , which he made for Victor shortly after Jimmie Rodgers' death in 1933, was stylistically not dissimilar to contemporary hillbilly songs with its guitar accompaniment, but the yodels contained therein were fundamentally different from those previously heard, as they were essential more complex and unusual. The same goes for Chime Bells (1934), Elton Britt's first major success. Accompanied on the piano by Bob Miller, the composer, and held in 6/8 time, it addresses mountain lakes and the peal of bells and has nothing to do with westerns or even just country, but rather creates a “peculiar European feeling”, but it mainly serves as a Demonstration piece for Britt's yodelling skills, which are described as "pyrotechnic". Another representative of this yodeling style in the style of Wilf Carter or Patsy Montana, which Bill C. Malone calls a " sophisticated, Swiss style ", was Slim Clark, who is certified as having a " machinegun yodeling " and titles like I Miss My Swiss (And My Swiss Miss Misses Me) sang.

The majority, however, were still songs that dealt exclusively with the cowboy or the American West, enriched with yodelling in different styles, be it more bluesy or more alpine.

But there are also many slow yodels, such as the subdued Lo-oo-dee that the Sons of the Pioneers built into some recordings of Home on the Range . This type of yodelling is also often used to express certain associations that are often associated with the cowboy. This applies, for example, to Stan Jones 'Cowpoke, an often covered piece from the post-war period, which contains a “carefree” yodel or falsetto singing that reflects the basic mood of the song: “I'm a carefree range rider, a driftin' cowpoke” . Accordingly, the pop version of the Cattle Call recorded by Eddy Arnold in 1955 , arranged by Hugo Winterhalter with orchestral accompaniment and French horn , has been criticized for watering down the song's message, which is to convey the loneliness of the open pasture land.

One of the Pioneers' first recordings for ARC was Cowboy Night Herd Song (1937). Rogers sings slow yodels between the individual verses, which evoke a feeling of nostalgia and authenticity. In 1991, Riders in the Sky received the Western Heritage Award from the Cowboy Hall of Fame for The Line Rider . It contains a sad, three-part yodel that reinforces the melancholy mood of the song, which, according to composer Douglas B. Green, should express both the loneliness and fatigue of the line rider, as well as the inner strength that he repeatedly brings up to be Day's work to do. The Girls of the Golden West often preferred a softer yodelling style, almost reminiscent of crooning, as in their most famous piece Will There Be Yodelers In Heaven? (1934). In doing so, they "conjured up" a mystical past west, free from the burden of everyday life during the economic crisis.

Tex Ritter: Sam Hall (1936)

In addition, a stylistic device related to yodelling was used again and again, the brief breaking of the voice within a word or sound, usually at the beginning or end of a syllable. This “voice break singing” , also known as the “yodeled grace note” , is supposed to express exuberance and exuberance and can be found next to Wilf Carter or Patsy Montana above all at Tex Ritter. An example of this is Ritter's version of A-Ridin 'Old Paint , in which he decorates individual words with brief outbursts in falsetto. He had already used this technique in his first film, Song of the Gringo, on the old folk song Sam Hall . Another example of this is Wilf Carter's Little old log shack I always call my home (1934), where he yodels the word endings in the chorus.

Relationship to country music

Strictly speaking, country and western music are two different styles of music that initially developed independently of each other. The resulting differences are still noticeable today. In addition to the subject matter and instrumentation, there is above all public perception.

In hillbilly and country music, disturbed relationships and families or adultery have always been discussed, the first examples can be found in Jimmie Rodgers' first hit T for Texas : “I'm gonna shoot poor Thelma, just to see her jump and fall ” . Western Music has excluded such topics and instead cultivated a more family-friendly image. The differences in the instrumentation are less noticeable, but the accordion plays a larger role alongside the common instruments. One example is Gene Autry's Back in the Saddle Again in the version with an accordion solo by Smiley Burnette.

The protagonists' own and public perception is of particular importance. While the hobo was often sung about in hillbilly and the term hillbilly already had a certain derogatory tendency, the cowboy has a more positive image. Owen Wister, in his essay “The Evolution of the Cow-Puncher”, published in 1895, drew a direct line from the Anglo-Saxon knights to the American cowboys, a tendency that has continued to this day, as shown by magazines such as American Cowboy Magazine . Artists from the field of western music distinguished themselves from their unloved relatives at an early stage.

It is said of Bob Wills , the pioneer of western swing , that he hated it when people called his music “country” or even “hillbilly”; he preferred the term "Western Dance Music". The same applies to the songwriter Billy Hill , whose compositions have decisively shaped the genre. Quote from his daughter Lee DeDette Hill Taylor: “(He) just didn't want to be connected with hillbilly music. He wrote genuine western an the comparison rankled him. " This distinction is also important to contemporary representatives like Riders in the Sky, which is also found in critics: " This is not country music but rather western - aside from the spare string band type instrumentation (guitar, fiddle, bass, accordion), this style has little in common with country. "

The 1970 album The Country Side of Roy Rogers shows that the protagonists of the scene were also aware of this distinction. A dialogue from the film Blues Brothers points in the same direction : Before appearing in Bob's Country Bunker , Elwood asks the woman behind the counter: "Excuse me ma'am, what kind of music do y'all have here?" Answer: "Both kinds, Country and Western!"

Even so, western music is generally considered a country sub-category. This can also be seen from the fact that all relevant works on country music devote more or less detailed chapters to the “Singing Cowboys”. The background for this general perception is, in addition to the common clichés, not least the name Country & Western used in the past by the American Billboard magazine , which implies that this is a uniform genre. However, as a look at the history of the Billboard charts shows, this is a generic term. In December 1949, the term Country & Western first appeared in the title "Country & Western Records Most Played By Folk Disk Jockeys". The term was abandoned in 1962; the charts are now called Hot Country Songs .

Despite all the differences, there has always been overlap since the beginning, and both genres are aimed at a more or less identical target group. Basically, it is an academic question that the audience hardly grapples with: "Although the purist considers western music a discrete style, it continues to be firmly identified and confused with country music."

On the air

Most country broadcasters in the United States have ignored Western performers for decades. However, there are a few exceptions that have been recognized by the WMA with its own awards for radio stations and DJs since 2005. Since 2010 only one combined DJ award has been given. An example of this is the show Western Music Time , which received an award in the same year , presented by OJ Sikes, an expert in the field of Western Music who has also written articles for the Western Music Advocate . The program runs weekly on the non-profit station KKRN 88.5 FM and mainly offers music from the “golden era”, but also contemporary interpreters.

literature

• Don Cusic: The Cowboy in Country Music: An Historical Survey with Artist Profiles , McFarland, 2011, ISBN 9780786486052
• Douglas B. Green: Singing Cowboys , Gibbs Smith, 2006, ISBN 9781586858087
• Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, ISBN 9780826514127
• Charlie Seemann: The Real Singing Cowboys , Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 9781493022328
• Peter Stanfield: Horse Opera: The Strange History of the 1930s Singing Cowboy , University of Illinois Press, 2002, ISBN 9780252070495

Web links

• The official website of the Western Music Association with Hall of Fame
• Western Music Time with OJ Sikes on KKRN 88.5 FM Community Radio
• The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America: Western and Cowboy Songs

Individual evidence

1. ^ Thomas F. Johnson: That Ain't Country: The Distinctiveness of Commercial Western Music , JEMF Quarterly. Volume 17, No. 62, pp. 75 - 84, here: p. 75: “... the trans-Mississippi, folk-based, popular music of extractor and animal husbandry groups, such as trappers, miners, loggers, drifters , and nomadic herders (cowboys), who occupied the American West before the coming of agricultural settlers. "
2. ↑ The Sons of the San Joaquin ( Memento from April 19, 2018 in the Internet Archive ): "We sing western music, songs which celebrate the life and work and the geographical setting of the American Cowboy."
3. ↑ Don Cusic: It's the Cowboy Way !: The amazing true adventures of Riders in the Sky. University Press of Kentucky, 2003, ISBN 0-8131-2284-8 , p. 21.
4. ↑ SCV NEWSMAKER OF THE WEEK: Don Edwards, Cowboy Singer Interview by Leon Worden, February 29, 2004.
5. ^ Bryan Woolley: Texas Road Trip: Stories from across the Great State and a few personal Reflections. TCU Press, 2004, ISBN 0-87565-291-3 , p. 220.
6. ^ Ronald D. Cohen: Folk music: The Basics. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2006, ISBN 0-415-97160-8 , p. 29.
7. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , pp. 3 f.
8. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 5.
9. ↑ Western Writers of America: Top 100 Western Songs ( Memento of December 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
10. ^ Gordon Morris Bakken: The World of the American West: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. ISBN 9781440828607 , p. 38.
11. ^ Gordon Morris Bakken: The World of the American West: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. ISBN 9781440828607 , p. 38.
12. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 3.
13. ↑ Holly George-Warren: Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry . Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517746-6 , p. 109.
14. ^ Jacqueline M. Moore: Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier . 1865-1900, NYU Press, 2009, ISBN 9780814757406 , p. 129.
15. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , pp. 13 f.
16. ↑ Holly George-Warren: Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry . Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517746-6 , p. 109.
17. ↑ Bruce Dillman: The CowBoy Handbook: A Guide to Your Cowboy Heritage . Lone Prairie Publishing 1994, ISBN 9780944112205 , p. 104: “It is generally thought that cowboys did a lot of singing around the herd at night to quiet them on the bed ground. I have been asked about this, and I'll say that I have stood my share of night watches in fifty years, and I seldom heard singing of any kind. ”This quote is also reprinted in Green, p. 14, and abridged by George-Warren, p. 109.
18. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 13.
19. ^ Charlie Seemann: The Real Singing Cowboys . Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 9781493022328 , p. 1.
20. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , pp. 14 f.
21. ^ Jacqueline M. Moore: Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier . 1865-1900, NYU Press, 2009, ISBN 9780814757406 , p. 129.
22. ↑ Douglas B. Green: S inging in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 5.
23. ↑ Cotton Smith: The Cattle Drive Q & A. ( Memento of March 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
24. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 15.
25. ↑ Holly George-Warren: Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry . Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517746-6 , p. 109.
26. ↑ Mark Fenster: Preparing the Audience, Informing the Performers: John A. Lomax and Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . in: American Music. 1989, No. 3, pp. 260-277, here: p. 274.
27. ^ Thomas F. Johnson: That Ain't Country: The Distinctiveness of Commercial Western Music . JEMF Quarterly. Volume 17, No. 62, pp. 75 - 84, here: p. 75.
28. ^ Thomas F. Johnson: That Ain't Country: The Distinctiveness of Commercial Western Music . JEMF Quarterly. Volume 17, No. 62, pp. 75 - 84, here: p. 79.
29. ^ Charlie Seemann: The Real Singing Cowboys . Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 9781493022328 , p. 1.
30. ^ Charles W. Harris, Buck Rainey: The Cowboy: Six-Shooters, Songs, and Sex . University of Oklahoma Press, 1976, ISBN 9780806113418 , p. 132.
31. ^ Thomas F. Johnson: That Ain't Country: The Distinctiveness of Commercial Western Music . JEMF Quarterly. Volume 17, No. 62, pp. 75 - 84, here: p. 78.
32. ^ Charlie Seemann: The Real Singing Cowboys . Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 9781493022328 , p. 2.
33. ↑ Mark Fenster: Preparing the Audience, Informing the Performers: John A. Lomax and Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . in: American Music. 1989, No. 3, pp. 260-277, here: p. 274.
34. ^ Jacqueline M. Moore: Cow Boys and Cattle Men: Class and Masculinities on the Texas Frontier . 1865-1900, NYU Press, 2009, ISBN 9780814757406 , p. 129.
35. ↑ Mark Fenster: Preparing the Audience, Informing the Performers: John A. Lomax and Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . in: American Music. 1989, No. 3, pp. 260-277, here: p. 262.
36. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 15.
37. ↑ Laurence Zwisohn, Track-by-Track Notes, in: Companion to Happy Trails - The Roy Rogers Collection 1937 - 1990 , Rhino Entertainment Company, 1999, p. 36.
38. ↑ Mark Fenster: Preparing the Audience, Informing the Performers: John A. Lomax and Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . in: American Music. 1989, No. 3, pp. 260-277, here: p. 274.
39. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 21.
40. ^ Norm Cohen: Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong , University of Illinois Press, Chicago 2000, ISBN 978-0252068812 , p. 109.
41. ^ Bill C. Malone: Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music , University of Georgia Press, 2003, ISBN 9780820325514 , p. 89.
42. ^ Richard Polenberg: Hear My Sad Story: The True Tales That Inspired "Stagolee," "John Henry," and Other Traditional American Folk Songs , Cornell University Press, 2015, ISBN 9781501701481 , p. 118.
43. ^ Norm Cohen: Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong. University of Illinois Press, Chicago 2000, ISBN 978-0252068812 , p. 109.
44. ↑ Steve Sullivan: Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume 1 , Scarecrow Press, 2013, ISBN 9780810882966 , p. 818.
45. ^ John Irwin White: Git Along, Little Dogies: Songs and Songmakers of the American West , University of Illinois Press, 1975, ISBN 9780252003271 , p. 191.
46. ^ Robert K. Oermann: A Century of Country: An Illustrated History of Country Music , TV Books, 1999, ISBN 1-57500-083-0 , p. 27.
47. ↑ Kurt Wolff, Orla Duane: The Rough Guide to Country Music , Rough Guides, London 2000, ISBN 1-85828-534-8 , p. 64 f.
48. ↑ Steve Sullivan: Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume 1 , Scarecrow Press, 2013, ISBN 9780810882966 , p. 818.
49. ↑ quoted from Barry Mazor: Meeting Jimmie Rodger: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century. Oxford University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-532762-5 , p. 133.
50. ↑ Barry Mazor: Meeting Jimmie Rodger: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century. Oxford University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-532762-5 , pp. 133 f.
51. ↑ Bill C. Malone, Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music , University of Georgia Press, 2003, ISBN 9780820325514 , pp. 94 f.
52. ^ Bill C. Malone, Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music , University of Georgia Press, 2003, ISBN 9780820325514 , pp. 72 ff.
53. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 69.
54. ↑ Kathryn Marie Kalinak: How the West was sung: Music in the Westerns of John Ford , University of California Press, Berkeley, CA 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-25234-9 , pp. 14 ff.
55. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , pp. 102 ff.
56. ↑ Larry Langman: A Guide to Silent Westerns. Greenwood Press, Westport 1992, ISBN 0-313-27858-X , p. 488.
57. ^ Paul Varner: The A to Z of Westerns in Cinema. Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-7051-2 , p. 92.
58. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 149.
59. ^ Peter Stanfield: Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail. University of Exeter Press, 2001, ISBN 0-85989-694-3 , p. 86.
60. ^ Paul Varner: The A to Z of Westerns in Cinema , Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-7051-2 , p. 92.
61. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 151 f.
62. ^ Paul Varner: The A to Z of Westerns in Cinema , Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8108-7051-2 , p. 92.
63. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing Cowboys. Gibbs Smith, 2006, ISBN 1-58685-808-4 , p. 60.
64. ↑ Holly George-Warren: Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517746-6 , p. 142.
65. ^ Peter Stanfield: Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail. University of Exeter Press, 2001, ISBN 0-85989-694-3 , p. 87.
66. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 149.
67. ^ Jon Tuska: Filming of the West - The Definitive Behind-the-Scenes History of the Great Western Movies. Doubleday, Garden City, NY 1976, ISBN 0-385-03115-7 , p. 408.
68. ↑ Richard Slatta: The Cowboy Encyclopedia , 2nd Edition, Norton, New York 1996, ISBN 0-393-31473-1 , S. 173rd
69. ↑ Michael Martin Murphey's entry in the WMA Hall of Fame
70. ↑ Timothy E. Wise: From the mountains to the prairies and beyond the pale: American yodeling on early recordings. In: Journal of American Folklore. 125 (497), pp. 358-374. Quoted here from the online version , p. 24 f.
71. ^ Sara E. Quay: Westward Expansion , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 9780313312359 , p. 183.
72. ↑ Michael Pilz: The uptight Europeans ruined America. Interview with Cyndi Lauper. on: welt.de May 3, 2016, accessed June 12, 2016.
73. ↑ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy , Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, ISBN 9780826514127 , pp. 207 f.
74. ↑ Holly George-Warren, The Cowgirl Way: Hats Off to America's Women of the West , Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010, ISBN 9780547488059 , p. 66.
75. ↑ Holly George-Warren: Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry , Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517746-6 , p. 187.
76. ^ Robert Phillips: Roy Rogers. McFarland & Company, Jefferson, NC 1995, ISBN 0-89950-937-1 , p. 29.
77. ^ Socorro Garcia, Ramon Gomez, Desireé Crawford: Black Cowboys Rode The Trails, Too. ( Memento from October 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
78. ↑ Juan Carlos Rodriguez: The Yellow Rose Of Texas. In: Handbook of Texas Online.
79. ^ Julia Leyda: Black-Audience Westerns and the Politics of Cultural Identification in the 1930s. ( Memento of the original from April 1, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Cinema Journal. 42, No. 1, Fall 2002, pp. 46-70. 
80. ^ William K. Everson: Pictorial History of the Western Film. 1969, ISBN 0-8065-0257-6 , p. 148.
81. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 11.
82. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , p. 10.
83. ^ Douglas B. Green: Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville 2002, ISBN 0-8265-1412-X , pp. 11 f.
84. ↑ Elena Dell'Agnese: The US-Mexico Border in American movies: A Political Geography Perspective. ( Memento from June 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Geopolitics. 10/2005, pp. 204-221, here: p. 205.
85. ↑ Elena Dell'Agnese: The US-Mexico Border in American movies: A Political Geography Perspective. ( Memento from June 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: Geopolitics. 10/2005, pp. 204-221, here: pp. 206 f.
86. ↑ UCLA LAW & Columbia Law School Copyright Infringement Project ( Memento of February 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
87. ^ Jon Guyot Smith: Track-by-Track Notes. In: Sing Cowboy Sing - The Gene Autry Collection. Accompanying book, p. 32.
88. ↑ Timothy E. Wise: From the mountains to the prairies and beyond the pale: American yodeling on early recordings. In: Journal of American Folklore. 125 (497), pp. 358-374. Quoted here from the online version , pp. 1, 19.
89. ↑ Timothy E. Wise: From the mountains to the prairies and beyond the pale: American yodeling on early recordings. In: Journal of American Folklore. 125 (497), pp. 358-374. Quoted here from the online version , p. 31.
90. ↑ S04 / Ep04: "And the Silver Screen", first broadcast in the USA on December 20, 2017.
91. ^ John Caldwell, Ugly issues Gay Cowboys are forced to contend with. In: Mad Magazine. No. 463, March 2006, pp. 15–17, here: p. 17.
92. ^ Robert Coltman: Roots of the Country Yodel: Notes toward a Life History. In: Nolan Porterfield (Ed.): Exploring Roots Music, Twenty Years of the JEMF Quarterly. The Scarecrow Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8108-4893-7 , pp. 135–156, here p. 140.
93. ↑ Bart Plantenga: Yodel-ay-ee-oooo: The secret history of yodeling around the world. Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0-415-93990-9 , p. 214.
94. ^ The Spirit of the Mountains. Full text. at Archive.org, p. 69.
95. ↑ Danny Miller: Wingless flights: Appalachian women in fiction. Popular Press, 1996, ISBN 0-87972-718-7 , p. 81 ff.
96. ^ Peter Stanfield: Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail. University of Exeter Press, 2001, ISBN 0-85989-694-3 , p. 61.
97. ↑ Green, p. 13 f.
98. ↑ Green, p. 18.
99. ^ Nolan Porterfield: John Lomax and Texas, Roots of a Career. In: Francis Edwar Abernethyd (ed.): Corners of Texas: Publications of the Texas Folklore Society. Volume 52, University of North Texas Press, 1993, ISBN 0-929398-57-2 , pp. 31-46, here p. 45.
100. ^ Nolan Porterfield: Last Cavalier: The Life and Times of John A. Lomax 1867-1948. University of Illinois Press, 2001, p. 490, note 30, ISBN 978-0-252-06971-0 .
101. ↑ Green, p. 104.
102. ^ Coltman, p. 140.
103. ↑ Plantenga, p. 234.
104. ↑ Tim Wise: Yodel Species: A Typology of Falsetto Effects in Popular Music Vocal Styles. In: Radical Musicology. 2, 2007, p. 17 January 2008, para. 49 f.
105. ↑ Plantenga, p. 214.
106. ↑ James P. Leary: Yodeling in Dairyland. University of Wisconsin Press, 2002, ISBN 0-9624369-2-5 .
107. ^ Ted Gioia: Work Songs. Duke University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8223-3726-6 , p. 76.
108. ↑ Harold Courlander: Negro Folk Music USA Courier Dover Publications, 1992, ISBN 0-486-27350-4 , p. 25.
109. ↑ Plantenga, p. 155.
110. ^ Tony Russell: Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost. Oxford University Press US, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-532509-6 , p. 134.
111. ↑ Shine Philips: Put Your Little Foot. In: Sonnichsen, Charles Leland (ed.): Texas Humoresque: Lone Star humorists from then till now. TCU Press, 1990, ISBN 0-87565-046-5 , pp. 67-72, here p. 71.
112. ↑ Nick Tosches: Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock'n'Roll. Da Capo Press, 1996, ISBN 0-306-80713-0 , p. 114.
113. ↑ Rudy Robbins, Shirley Field: How To Yodel The Cowboy Way. Centerstream Publishing, Anaheim, CA 1997, ISBN 1-57424-035-8 , p. 33.
114. ↑ Laurence Zwisohn: Happy Trails: The Life of Roy Rogers. Biography on the Roy Rogers Family Trust website .
115. ^ Raymond E. White: King of the Cowboys, Queen of the West: Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Popular Press, 2006, ISBN 0-299-21004-9 , p. 47.
116. ↑ Green, p. 38. Stanfield (p. 65) speaks of a total of seven cowboy songs, Malone (Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers, p. 89) of at least seven.
117. ^ John Minton: 78 Blues: Folksongs and Phonographs in the American South. University Press of Mississippi, 2008, ISBN 978-1-934110-19-5 , pp. 113 f.
118. ^ Nolan Porterfield: Jimmie Rodgers: The life and times of America's blue yodeler. University Press of Mississippi, 2007, ISBN 978-1-57806-982-8 , p. 125.
119. ^ Wayne W. Daniel: Pickin 'on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia. University of Illinois Press, 2000, ISBN 0-252-06968-4 , pp. 123 f.
120. ^ Russell, Originals, p. 182.
121. ^ Richard Carlin: Country Music: A biographical dictionary. Taylor & Francis, 2003, ISBN 0-415-93802-3 , p. 6.
122. ↑ Green, p. 302.
123. ↑ Steve Evans, Ron Middlebrook: Cowboy Guitars. Centerstream Publications, 2002, ISBN 1-57424-102-8 , p. 105.
124. ↑ Timothy E. Wise: From the mountains to the prairies and beyond the pale: American yodeling on early recordings. In: Journal of American Folklore. 125 (497), pp. 358-374. Quoted here from the online version , p. 19 f.
125. ↑ Holly George-Warren: Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry. Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-517746-6 , p. 141.
126. ↑ In Episode 4 ( Phantom Broadcast ) Autry yodels in the song Uncle Henry's Vacation ; He ends the 12th and last episode ( The End Of Murania ) with a short yodel with which he says goodbye to the listeners of his radio show.
127. ↑ Porterfield, p. 125.
128. ^ Coltman, p. 140.
129. ^ Peter Stanfield: Hollywood, Westerns and the 1930s: The Lost Trail. University of Exeter Press, 2001, ISBN 0-85989-694-3 , p. 60.
130. ↑ George-Warren, p. 47.
131. ↑ Don Cusic: Gene Autry: His Life and Career. McFarland, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7864-3061-1 , p. 68.
132. ↑ Barry Mazor: Meeting Jimmie Rodger: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century. Oxford University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-532762-5 , p. 134.
133. ↑ Ken Griffis: Hear My Song: The Story of the Celebrated Sons of the Pioneers. John Edwards Memorial Foundation, Los Angeles 1977, p. 148.
134. ↑ Patsy Montana, Jane Frost: Patsy Montana: The Cowboy's Sweetheart. McFarland, 2002, ISBN 0-7864-1080-9 , pp. 35 f.
135. ↑ White, p. 47.
136. ↑ Mazor, p. 137 f.
137. ^ Mazor, p. 134.
138. ↑ Mazor, p. 80.
139. ↑ White, p. 50.
140. ^ Coltman, p. 141.
141. ^ Coltman, p. 140.
142. ^ Russell, p. 175.
143. ↑ Green, Singing in the Saddle, p. 64.
144. ^ Mazor, p. 79.
145. ↑ Malone, p. 103.
146. ^ Coltman, p. 141.
147. ↑ Don Cusic: It's the Cowboy Way !: The amazing true adventures of Riders in the Sky. University Press of Kentucky, 2003, ISBN 0-8131-2284-8 , p. 82.
148. ↑ Michael Streissguth: Eddy Arnold: Pioneer of the Nashville Sound. University Press of Mississippi, 2009, ISBN 978-1-60473-269-6 , p. 146.
149. ↑ White, p. 50.
150. ↑ According Slatta: Cowboy Encyclopedia. P. 221, is referred to as Line Rider, also Outrider or Fence Rider, a ("lonely") cowboy who independently rides the outer borders of a large ranch to repair fences, keep strange herds away and track cattle thieves. During this time he lives on his own in the so-called line camps.
151. ↑ Cusic, Cowboy Way, S. 154th
152. ^ Kristine M. McCusker: Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angels: The women of barn dance radio. University of Illinois Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-252-07524-7 , p. 69.
153. ↑ Plantenga, p. 310.
154. ↑ Tim Wise: Yodel Species: A Typology of Falsetto Effects in Popular Music Vocal Styles. In: Radical Musicology. 2, 2007, p. 17 January 2008, para. 45 ff.
155. ↑ Western and Country Music: Some Differences ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
156. ↑ Definition of the term hillbilly in Webster's Online Dictionary ( Memento of June 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
157. ↑ John Nesbitt: Owen Wister's Achievement in Literary Tradition. In: Western American Literature. 18.3, 1983, p. 199 ff.
158. ^ Kurt Wolff, Orla Duane: The Rough Guide to Country Music. Rough Guides, London 2000, ISBN 1-85828-534-8 , pp. 70, 92.
159. ↑ Jim Bob Tinsley: For a Cowboy Has to Sing. University of Central Florida Press, Orlando 1991, ISBN 0-8130-1052-7 , p. 229.
160. ↑ Mark Keresman: CD review: Riders in the Sky - Silver Jubilee
161. ^ Green, Singing in the Saddle, p. 17.
162. ↑ Radio Station of the Year Award and Radio DJ of the Year Award on the WMA website