Tram Town Large
Monday, July 31, 2006
| Western Swing Success has many parents, even the bastard child Rock and Roll’s success has many such claimants not the least influential of which was Western Swing. Western Swing was, in fact, a particularly fecund progenitor being one of the strongest claimants on the parenthood of everything “Nashville” from the fifties onwards. History Western Swing had a “Golden Age” of just over a decade from the early 1930’s to sometime soon after the war when the advertising revenue of radio and the popularity of the dance halls both waned due to the introduction of television. Though there is undoubtedly a distinct form now known as Western Swing, it was not until the early forties that it was named thus having hitherto been diversely titled Texas Swing, Hot String, Hot Fiddling (and many more). In the last few decades Western Swing has been popular amongst “roots” bands such as Asleep at the Wheel and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen and it has also had some success in the mainstream country charts with the likes of Merle Haggard’s A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (1970) and George Strait’s hit single Right or Wrong (1983). Unlike many genres, it is easy to place a time and date on the start of Western Swing. A group of four musicians, each of whom was to have a continuing influence on the genre, formed “The Aladdin Laddies” in 1930 to play on a radio show sponsored by the Aladdin Lamp Company on the Fort Worth station WBAP [Lowe]. When the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company took over the sponsorship they became The Lightcrust Doughboys. The four were: Bob Wills on fiddle, Herman Arnspiger on guitar, and Milton Brown and his brother Derwood on vocals and rhythm guitar respectively. Notable Artists Bob Wills is remembered by history as the King of Western Swing but it is probably fair to say that Milton Brown is the Father of Western Swing. Indeed, had his life not been tragically cut short by a car accident in 1936 his Musical Brownies may have gone on to even greater popularity than Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys. Other notable artists of the genre include: Adolph Hofner & his San Antonians, Hank Thompson, and W. Lee O’Daniel & his Hilbilly Boys (O’Daniel was a manager at the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company who felt betrayed by Bob Wills and Milton Brown and tried to have their later radio shows shut down). Also, much of the work of the Les Paul Trio during the 30’s and 40’s might be known as Western Swing if somebody hadn’t already labelled it Jazz. Over in California, Spade Cooley claimed the title of King of Western Swing when he and his orchestra beat Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in a clap-off by the audience at Venice Pier in 1943. Cooley is credited with coining the term Western Swing and he was quite successful as a cowboy actor in the forties. He died spurned and then all-but-forgotten in 1970 when he was about to be released from jail. There’s not much good karma to be had from beating your wife to death in front of your 13-year-old daughter [Quaglieri]. The Music and Instrumentation Musically, Western Swing is “an infectious combination of Country, Cowboy, Polka and Folk music blended with Swing” [Lowe]. It is also fairly easy to detect the influence of Hawaiian and Jazz on many recordings. Typically, a Western Swing song would have a “quick two” time signature though the bands generally played quite a variety of songs as demanded by the audiences at dance halls. The lead instrument was nearly always the fiddle and there was usually a support fiddle, two guitars, a bass, and a steel guitar as a minimum. As the popularity of the form increased, bigger bands could be supported. Piano and sax appear on early recordings though it was not until the mid thirties that Western Swing bands adopted horn sections and even then only in the bigger bands [Komorowski 1999]. Pedal steel guitar was introduced in the final years of Western Swing but was not common due to the tuning stability problems of the early instruments [McAuliffe]. Most chords were possible, however, on the multi-knecked steel guitars of the time. By the late forties Leon McAuliffe, one time Texas Playboy and now bandleader in his own right, was playing a four-knecked steel guitar. In the early days, most Western Swing took its rhythm lead from a banjo or the guitar section. When Bob Wills employed a drummer in 1935 one of the final pieces of Western Swing as we know it today was in place. The effect of the drums was a shift towards Jazz and away from Hills Country. The drums nearly stopped Bob Wills from being able to play on WSM radio’s Grand Ole Opry in 1940. The stalwarts of the Opry did not consider drums to be an appropriate country instrument, indeed, they were considered immoral due to their association with African and American Indian music. Eventually a compromise was reached where a curtain obscured the drums. As they were announced, Bob ordered the band to reveal the drums to the audience and it was too late for the Opry people to do anything. Notable Producers In an era where the goal of recording was generally to reflect as much of a live performance as possible, producers played a much less dominant role musically than they did in later eras. However “Uncle” Art Satherly, an English scholar of American Folk Music, was said to have been quite influential, particularly with Bob Wills. One wonders quite how influential when you consider that in their first session Satherly wanted to get rid of the horn section and tried to get Wills to stop his “hollerin’”. Both the horns and the hollerin’ remained Wills’ signatures for many years to come [Komorowski 2001]. Fred Rose, working as writer and producer with Roy Acuff in both Nashville and Los Angeles was also an influence, particularly in the forties. Recording Techniques As with any swing music, recording Western Swing is mostly a single take process. It’s very difficult to get “that swing” happening by recording on a track-by-track basis. This is obviously how all of the recordings were made in the “Golden Age”. In more modern times the tendency for this type of music is still to try to get that perfect take of the music and reserve overdubs for the vocal parts and corrections. This is, for example, apparently, how the Asleep at the Wheel Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills was recorded in 1993. Afterword As the “Golden Age” faded into the distance Western Swing bands were pared back to little more than rhythm sections that resembled those of the soon-to-emerge Rock and Roll bands. Amongst the bands that took this form was one that went by the name “The Four Aces of Western Swing”. One of the Aces, Bill Haley, subsequently formed the Saddlemen and, as their sound evolved, the Saddlemen became Bill Haley and His Comets [Peneny]. References
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