The following has been compiled from Wikipedia articles and other sources.
Footnotes are not in order but are hotlinked to separate pages.
The Nashville Sound dates to its invention in 1957, when it soon began overtaking the Honky Tonk and allied Bluegrass music popular in the 1940s and 1950s.
Using suave strings and choruses, sophisticated background vocals and smooth styles associated with traditional pop, the Nashville Sound was intended to revive the sagging fortunes of Country-Western, which faced tremendous pressure from Elvis Presley-style Rockabilly and later forms of rock and roll.
The Nashville Sound took a lot of the twang -- as critics labeled it -- out of earlier forms of Country. Honky Tonk and its related genre, Bluegrass, used fiddle, mandolin and, frequently, steel guitar (similar to a dobro). Nashville did not ban the banjo, but its role in recordings was greatly reduced. Gone was Bill Monroe's nasal lead vocal style.
Also pretty much gone were the solo instrumental breaks made popular by Monroe.
JUST COOL STEEL
The steel guitar -- so-called for the sliding steel bar used on the strings -- was invented by a Hawaiian at the end of the 19th Century. Enthusiasm for it soon swept the music business because its sharp, distinct tones recorded well on 78 rpm records. Early 20th Century bands found it almost mandatory to have this instrument on hand. The dobro, invented in the 1920s, was a variant of the "steel" lap guitar. In the early thirties, musicians found that their steel guitars were swamped by other instruments in the big swing/jazz bands. Hence, the steel guitar was given electrical amplification.
One spin-off was the electric guitar, though it wasn't until the early fifties that Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar of Rock and Roll fame.
Another spin-off was the table-top steel guitar. The instrument worked on the same principle as the electric shoulder-strap steel guitar, but musicians found it more flexible.
The table-top steel guitar was adopted by numerous Country groups, though, unlike the banjo and fiddle, it was certainly never mandatory. On many recordings from the 1940s and 1950s one can hear the almost overpowering sound of the steel guitar. But does this instrument complement the other instruments? Nashville studios came to doubt its value.
It's ironical that the electrified steel guitar's close relative, the solid body electric guitar, can be played with almost as much finesse as a violin -- though it often isn't. It's also ironical that in order to make Country more competitive with Rock, the steel guitar had to be sacrificed while Rock probably would never have existed without ithe electric ax.
Musical tastes, of course, change. With the rise of Rap and Hip Hop, many young fans never developed an ear for electric guitars. I recall a young DJ commenting with bemused scorn on all the electric guitars playing on some Rock number. He was a Hip Hop man. Electric guitar, steel guitar, dobro -- none meant much to him or his peers.
HANK'S A NICE GUY, BUT...
The year 1957 marks the split-off of Bluegrass from Country-Western, which was now renamed Country -- because cowboy yodeling songs were also not wanted.
That is the year that RCA Victor, the recording company, decided to scrap the music presented by the Grand Ole Opry of the 1940s and 1950s and replace it with a form deliberately designed and tightly controlled by Chet Atkins, who had served a lengthy stint at the Opry with the revived Carter Family.
The dead but not forgotten Hank Williams was out, a refashioned George Jones would soon enough be in. Reversed was Hank Sr.'s idea of calling his group The Drifting Cowboys as he and his bandmates dressed in cowboy attire, thus identifying as national Country-Western rather than as regional north Alabama hillbilly.
The year 1957 is when Atkins became RCA Victor's chief of Nashville operations and scrapped the old Opry sound, heeding the advice of producer Owen Bradley to ditch the fiddle and the steel guitar from the new form. Others on Atkins's team were producers Steve Sholes and Bob Ferguson, and recording engineer Bill Porter.
Now "in" were the smooth elements of 1950s pop: string sections, background vocals and crooning leads, along with pop music structures. All this was slickly produced -- some would say overproduced. That is, the various sound components were carefully overlaid and spliced to yield a perfected studio sound.
The producers relied on a small group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability and creative input made them vital to the hit-making process. The Anita Kerr Quartet was used extensively by RCA in the early 1960s. Also heavily used on backup vocals during that transition period was the Southern gospel group The Jordanaires.
One tale has it that when asked what the Nashville Sound was, Atkins put his hand in his pocket, shook some loose change, and said, "That's what it is. It's the sound of money."
It has been suggested that Presley's non-country hit of 1956, "Don't Be Cruel," influenced Atkins and his colleagues into developing the "new sound."
It should be emphasized that outside RCA's Nashville studios there were few hard and fast rules on what constituted acceptable Country instruments, as we see from telecasts of the era. Check the Country Music Hall of Fame site,
Instruments found in Country
https://countrymusichalloffame.org/education/instruments/
Also check,
The Country Music Project
https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/countrymusic/the-history/the-nashville-sound/
COUNTRYPOLITAN POPS UP
In any case, that new form quickly morphed into something else, which was dubbed Countrypolitan. Shaken by the sudden deaths of money-earners Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, Nashville saw Atkins's tight-fisted grip loosened. Nashville brought more variety to Country in what is fairly described as a fusion of the Nashville Sound and pop. The idea was to target mainstream markets. This new Countrypolitan wave sold well during the 1960s and first half of the 1970s.
Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill -- who promoted Tammy Wynette's [1] early career -- and Glenn Sutton. Artists who typified Countrypolitan included Wynette, Charlie Rich and Charley Pride, along with Los Angeles-based singers Lynn Anderson and Glen Campbell. George Jones's mature style fused Countrypolitan with the Honky Tonk (also called Hillbilly) that had made him famous.
Wynette's hits usually follow the maxim that a country song requires "three chords and a story." [6] Her brilliant vocal artistry made these little human stories into powerhouse music, though her vocal skill is generally underappreciated. She often followed songwriter Harlan Howard's formula that songs about love should have some drama in them.
According to Howard,
POOR GIRL MAKES GOOD
Like Wynette, Dolly Parton [2] started out as a dirt poor country girl.
Parton is the real deal: She grew up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, where she absorbed the Appalachian music handed down from her Welsh ancestors. Fiddles and mandolins were prized among Appalachians. Yet, when she began her songwriting and singing career in Nashville upon graduation from high school, she immediately plunged into the Nashville Sound.
For example, a televised performance by Bill Phillips and Ruby Wright of "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" from the 1960s shows a band with no fiddle, steel guitar or mandolin. Parton and her songwriter uncle, Bill Owens, wrote that song.
Phillips & Wright: Put It Off Until Tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbltZuYTDk
As a woman who hit the big time in Country, Skeeter Davis was a top influence on Parton and Wynette. Parton and Owens wrote Davis's 1967 hit, "Fuel to the Flame."
Skeeter Davis: Fuel to the Flame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1Oq7ZoluY
Davis's vocal and instrumental backup is "pop mild" and the record could easily be viewed as a crossover playable in northern urban markets.
Parton's career breakthrough came when Porter Wagoner added her to his band as a singer. Wagoner persuaded his label, RCA, to give Parton a record deal. Her first record featured a duet with Wagoner of Tom Paxton's 1964 hit, "The Last Thing on My Mind."
Tom Paxton: The Last Thing On My Mind (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o146K6cGLk
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoOeq8oEi6U
On the other hand, a telecast of a Parton-Wagoner duet shows Wagoner's band WITH fiddle and steel guitar. But there are no solo breaks -- not that all Bluegrass numbers include breaks.
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (telecast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhgPo62eLyQ
On that RCA single, time is kept by a fairly strong sounding instrument that serves as a drum beat but is not from a drum. What is it? You tell me. That strong a beat is generally avoided in Bluegrass. Whatever the backup band's instruments, the instrumental sound is toned down and blended. No instrumental bridge. In fact, I find it difficult to distinguish instruments, something that would not happen with a Bluegrass band.
On listening to a number of 1970s Countrypolitan numbers, I would guess that the backbeat was generally issued by a metronome. That is, what else would go "tock, tock, tock..." with impecabble timing?
Yet a telecast version of Loretta Lynn's "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind" gives the impression that the "tock, tock" is from her guitar...but I'm skeptical. (And note the brevity of the steel guitar and fiddle breaks.)
We have as evidence the studio version of the smash Country hit "D.I.V.O.R.C.E" -- written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman and released by Wynette in 1968. The metronomish tock-tock is very apparent.
Though the producers had no problem including a bold steel guitar sound for the intro, the rest of the instrumentals are pretty much mellowed out with no sign of a steel guitar that I noticed.
Tammy Wynette: D.I.V.O.R.C.E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVgb5aPhDQ
Loretta Lynn: Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBnkAkmLtaw
Compare three versions of the iconic Country hit "Satin Sheets."
The song, by Jan Howard and Bill Anderson, appeared in their 1972 album "Country Essentials." That version used the team's original lyrics, which, when sung in a duet confused the hearer as to who was who. A year later Jeanne Pruett [8], who had finally escaped RCA's strict control, revised the lyrics to reflect a woman's perspective. The result was a sensation and her stymied career took off. Pruett had also artfully promoted her song to radio stations across the country, obtaining major crossover airplay.
Wynette's 1974 version is a direct knock-off of Pruett's, including the intro instrumentals, the singing style and, yes, even the...errh...metronome.
Yet one must concede that Wynette brought her full vocal artistry to bear on that song, and probably outpoints Pruett in that regard. She followed Pruett, but subtly.
Bill and Jan: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMRaBO7FU0
Jeanne Pruett: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6n-UQ9k8rI
Tammy Wynette: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4bPcKCmvEE
'ROCKY TOP' STUNS NASHVILLE
Lynn Anderson once said that as a Californian, she had been given the blow-off by the Nashville elite. So she covered "Rocky Top," written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and first performed by the Osborne Brothers, a Bluegrass band, and scored herself a big hit. The first version had less of a Bluegrass backup sound than the second. In any case, the Californian had pushed a button among Tennesseans, and many Nashville performers, such as Dolly Parton, followed her in covering what is really a fun, novelty song that is iconic among Bluegrass fans and all over the South.
Lynn Anderson: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROkIhZJLSY
The distinction between Countrypolitan and Bluegrass is well illustrated by Anderson's 1970 release of "Rose Garden," a song written by Joe South, which quickly obtained crossover status.
Lynn Anderson: Rose Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHHCZTvQco
Similarly, the distinction is drawn by Crystal Gayle's [3] versions of her "orchestral style" number "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" which attained crossover status, and "Rocky Top," which is straight Bluegrass, solo breaks and all.
Crystal Gayle: Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9lz_yzrGZw
Crystal Gayle: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nm2atrRqcY
Likewise, Kitty Wells 1952 versus Kitty Wells 1961 demonstrates the shift away from Honky Tonk to Countrypolitan. The Nashville native [5] hit the jackpot in 1952 when, in her early thirties, she recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a song written by J.D. Miller. The Decca number stunned her by about-facing her flagging career. A decade later "Heartbreak USA," written by Harlan Howard, scored her a hit. Its early Countrypolitan sound is very apparent.
Kitty Wells: It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKleTa94dC8
Note the steel guitar in that video.
Kitty Wells: Heartbreak USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pChL_SAB60U
TAMMY'S ADAPTABILITY
Tammy Wynette had no problem singing Honky Tonk or Bluegrass and did so regularly.
Tammy Wynette: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z-EU5Sx8-k
On the Bluegrass number "Rocky Top" she demonstrates the patient good humor of an artist singing something that requires vocal skills far below her level.
A young Hank Jr. teams with Tammy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTC82ZeRi-A
Here Wynette comfortably airs her parts of a medley of Hank Sr. hits. (Interesting that the youthful Hank Jr. sounds remarkably like his dad when singing this medley.)
The distinction between Honky Tonk and the Nashville Sound is artfully blurred in Tammy's version of "Your Cheating Heart." A youthful Wynette revised Hank Sr.'s lyrics to make them more in step with her time, clipping some of the rural verbiage that lent the song a Honky Tonk flavor. She also felt at liberty to change the verb "will" to "is gonna," which had become popular idiomatically. The background instrumental is pop mild, with no trace of the banished "twang." That is, she had made a Honky Tonk number into a Nashville Sound number.
Tammy Wynette: Your Cheating Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X17_FUxUccM
LORETTA BLENDS TWO WORLDS
Another poor girl made good: Loretta Lynn [4], whose 1971 hit "Coal Miner's Daughter" tells her tale of growing up in an impoverished rural Kentucky mining settlement.
In 1960, she caught a break when a Canadian admirer financed her first recording, "I'm a Honky Tonk Woman," on his Zero Records label. She and her husband Oliver (Doolittle) Lynn then toured radio stations, often sleeping in their car, to promote her record. As she was at the time West Coast-based, she had not fallen into step with the Nashville Sound, though it wasn't long before Decca gave her a contract and issued a new version of "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl."
Her Zero backup included steel guitar, fiddle, guitar, bass and -- drums! Evidently West Coast Honky Tonk wasn't inflexible. "Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville Sound," said Lynn. "It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat."
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Decca)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLQw6I5VCac
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Zero)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgE-gwZDbb0
On both versions we hear a Honky Tonk sound, but Decca producer Owen Bradley's production is better arranged. In particular, the Zero version's steel guitar is too loud and overwhelms the vocals rather than enhancing them. Bradley greatly curbs the steel guitar's volume and makes sure its strains only fill the vocal eddies without competing with vocal surges. Bradley, the real inventor of the Nashville Sound, took the top job at Decca Nashville in 1958, but seems not to have been quite as controlling as RCA's Atkins.
Neither record has any Bluegrass-style solo breaks. Such breaks are rarely heard in the Honky Tonk or Bakersfield styles.
On Decca's "Coal Miner's Daughter," the instrumental backup takes a Bluegrass mode, with the banjo given moderate prominence. I didn't detect a fiddle, and if there is any steel guitar, its role has been greatly reduced. No breaks, of course. The backbeat tock-tock is almost unhearable. Clearly, a grassy backup made sense. Lynn projected as an authentic and very likable "hillbilly," despite having released a number of songs with a strong feminist point of view.
Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqkUaxFB-4
Yet, Bradley used an all-out Nashville Sound to back Decca recordings of Lynn's team-up with Conway Twitty (who had previously been in the Rockabilly camp). Sure enough, no metronome-like tock-tock on their number "It's Only Make-Believe." Egad! It's a drum -- though rather low-key, of course. And then there is the type of choral backing standard to the mainstream pop of the period.
Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty: It's Only Make Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVoWve7_Mg
FROM BAKERSFIELD TO OUTLAW
Before the rise of the Nashville Sound in 1957, what is now called the Bakersfield Sound aired Honky Tonk in the bars of Bakersfield, Calif. Those Central Valley musicians had inherited the music of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl refugees. Notable among them were Buck Owens ("Streets of Bakersfield") and Merle Haggard, who was a young prisoner in the Folsom prison audience when Johnny Cash sang there.
Still, one would be hard put to characterize Haggard's later career as Honky Tonk or Bakersfield. It is better termed Nashville style with a dash or two of Bakersfield.
After the Nashville Sound became dominant, the Bakersfield Sound still found good airplay.
In 1983 Okie-from-Muskogee Haggard went over to the enemy, in the eyes of many Country fans, by joining up with the despised Texas hippie Willie Nelson, on a high-selling album, "Pancho and Lefty." That title song rings more of Folk music than it does of Country. (What is Folk music? Good question. TTYL on that.) But by that time both performers needed to re-energize their careers.
In 1985, Nelson turned the tables on his demonizers by becoming a top man in what was billed as Outlaw Country, which was spurred by the supergroup The Highwaymen, consisting of Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, all of whom had been aging out of the music business and needed a new deal. The band released a folky album, "The Highwayman," which also does not have a "real Country" ring. Meanwhile, the Hag managed to cruise in the Outlaw world, with six collaborative albums with Nelson that are very hippie-like, while holding his tradition-minded fan base with a continuing stream of his brand of the Nashville Sound.
HIP MEETS BLUEGRASS
Yet, no one would say that Bluegrass is dead and gone. An example of a modern, highly expert, Bluegrass band is the Petersens. My opinion is that they are a cut above most grass bands because of the rigor of their rehearsals, led by Katie Petersen, the expertise of their arrangements, and the tightness of their music. And they put audiences at ease with their youthful banter. But it is their singing, both together and solo, that makes them so remarkable. Their harmonious voices are very finely framed by the expert instrumentals.
I think Ozarks-based band spotlights well Modern Bluegrass, though there are many fine current Bluegrass bands. But that group, rather than representing divergence of genres, represents a melding of genres into a new form of music, a form that represents a distinctive new form: Pop Bluegrass, artful, harmonious amd robust.
The Petersens are highly skilled in traditional Bluegrass but also are known for their ability to "grass up" Pop and Rock hits, or just about anything they like. Based in Branson, Mo., in the heart of the Ozarks, the band has been serving up its eclectic blend of old-timey and new wave Bluegrass to appreciative audiences for more than a decade.
Among their biggest Youtube sellers are "Country Roads" by John Denver, "Jolene" by Dolly Parton and "Carolina in My Mind" by James Taylor, which mught be regarded as Country or Country Rock numbers.
The Petersens: Country Roads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qap9Qm-Q894
The Petersens: Jolene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viQx4KDivPY
The Petersens: Carolina in My Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKeMIOhXjo
But then we have "Bohemian Rhapsody," a song by rocker Freddy Mercury.
The Petersens: Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XVrm6zXmw
But if you like old standbys, their "Rocky Top" is one of the best out there.
The Petersens: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQYtBaI7bU
And you'll even find old folk music numbers, like "Shenandoah."
The Petersens: Shenandoah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSjI8f5Zqw
Nor is there a shortage of standard Country fare. "Amarillo by Morning" is just one of many examples.
The Petersens: Amarillo by Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_Amx13hLI
Then there is "Tulsa Time," which has served both Country and Rock artists. Here is their fun grassed-up version.
The Petersens: Tulsa Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2DA-lSMj4E
The troubadors do not hide their faith, as we hear on one of their gospel videos.
All Glory Be to Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EexEDzJ6zIY
This essay obviously only gives a slice of the history of Country music and does not attempt to cover its entire evolution from ancient to modern times.
Also, many important Country and Bluegrass names are bypassed. The idea is to illustrate the divergence of these two genres with a few well-known names of the era.
Using suave strings and choruses, sophisticated background vocals and smooth styles associated with traditional pop, the Nashville Sound was intended to revive the sagging fortunes of Country-Western, which faced tremendous pressure from Elvis Presley-style Rockabilly and later forms of rock and roll.
The Nashville Sound took a lot of the twang -- as critics labeled it -- out of earlier forms of Country. Honky Tonk and its related genre, Bluegrass, used fiddle, mandolin and, frequently, steel guitar (similar to a dobro). Nashville did not ban the banjo, but its role in recordings was greatly reduced. Gone was Bill Monroe's nasal lead vocal style.
Also pretty much gone were the solo instrumental breaks made popular by Monroe.
JUST COOL STEEL
The steel guitar -- so-called for the sliding steel bar used on the strings -- was invented by a Hawaiian at the end of the 19th Century. Enthusiasm for it soon swept the music business because its sharp, distinct tones recorded well on 78 rpm records. Early 20th Century bands found it almost mandatory to have this instrument on hand. The dobro, invented in the 1920s, was a variant of the "steel" lap guitar. In the early thirties, musicians found that their steel guitars were swamped by other instruments in the big swing/jazz bands. Hence, the steel guitar was given electrical amplification.
One spin-off was the electric guitar, though it wasn't until the early fifties that Les Paul invented the solid body electric guitar of Rock and Roll fame.
Another spin-off was the table-top steel guitar. The instrument worked on the same principle as the electric shoulder-strap steel guitar, but musicians found it more flexible.
The table-top steel guitar was adopted by numerous Country groups, though, unlike the banjo and fiddle, it was certainly never mandatory. On many recordings from the 1940s and 1950s one can hear the almost overpowering sound of the steel guitar. But does this instrument complement the other instruments? Nashville studios came to doubt its value.
It's ironical that the electrified steel guitar's close relative, the solid body electric guitar, can be played with almost as much finesse as a violin -- though it often isn't. It's also ironical that in order to make Country more competitive with Rock, the steel guitar had to be sacrificed while Rock probably would never have existed without ithe electric ax.
Musical tastes, of course, change. With the rise of Rap and Hip Hop, many young fans never developed an ear for electric guitars. I recall a young DJ commenting with bemused scorn on all the electric guitars playing on some Rock number. He was a Hip Hop man. Electric guitar, steel guitar, dobro -- none meant much to him or his peers.
HANK'S A NICE GUY, BUT...
The year 1957 marks the split-off of Bluegrass from Country-Western, which was now renamed Country -- because cowboy yodeling songs were also not wanted.
That is the year that RCA Victor, the recording company, decided to scrap the music presented by the Grand Ole Opry of the 1940s and 1950s and replace it with a form deliberately designed and tightly controlled by Chet Atkins, who had served a lengthy stint at the Opry with the revived Carter Family.
The dead but not forgotten Hank Williams was out, a refashioned George Jones would soon enough be in. Reversed was Hank Sr.'s idea of calling his group The Drifting Cowboys as he and his bandmates dressed in cowboy attire, thus identifying as national Country-Western rather than as regional north Alabama hillbilly.
The year 1957 is when Atkins became RCA Victor's chief of Nashville operations and scrapped the old Opry sound, heeding the advice of producer Owen Bradley to ditch the fiddle and the steel guitar from the new form. Others on Atkins's team were producers Steve Sholes and Bob Ferguson, and recording engineer Bill Porter.
Now "in" were the smooth elements of 1950s pop: string sections, background vocals and crooning leads, along with pop music structures. All this was slickly produced -- some would say overproduced. That is, the various sound components were carefully overlaid and spliced to yield a perfected studio sound.
The producers relied on a small group of studio musicians known as the Nashville A-Team, whose quick adaptability and creative input made them vital to the hit-making process. The Anita Kerr Quartet was used extensively by RCA in the early 1960s. Also heavily used on backup vocals during that transition period was the Southern gospel group The Jordanaires.
One tale has it that when asked what the Nashville Sound was, Atkins put his hand in his pocket, shook some loose change, and said, "That's what it is. It's the sound of money."
It has been suggested that Presley's non-country hit of 1956, "Don't Be Cruel," influenced Atkins and his colleagues into developing the "new sound."
It should be emphasized that outside RCA's Nashville studios there were few hard and fast rules on what constituted acceptable Country instruments, as we see from telecasts of the era. Check the Country Music Hall of Fame site,
Instruments found in Country
https://countrymusichalloffame.org/education/instruments/
Also check,
The Country Music Project
https://sites.dwrl.utexas.edu/countrymusic/the-history/the-nashville-sound/
COUNTRYPOLITAN POPS UP
In any case, that new form quickly morphed into something else, which was dubbed Countrypolitan. Shaken by the sudden deaths of money-earners Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, Nashville saw Atkins's tight-fisted grip loosened. Nashville brought more variety to Country in what is fairly described as a fusion of the Nashville Sound and pop. The idea was to target mainstream markets. This new Countrypolitan wave sold well during the 1960s and first half of the 1970s.
Among the architects of this sound were producers Billy Sherrill -- who promoted Tammy Wynette's [1] early career -- and Glenn Sutton. Artists who typified Countrypolitan included Wynette, Charlie Rich and Charley Pride, along with Los Angeles-based singers Lynn Anderson and Glen Campbell. George Jones's mature style fused Countrypolitan with the Honky Tonk (also called Hillbilly) that had made him famous.
Tammy Wynette
Wynette's hits usually follow the maxim that a country song requires "three chords and a story." [6] Her brilliant vocal artistry made these little human stories into powerhouse music, though her vocal skill is generally underappreciated. She often followed songwriter Harlan Howard's formula that songs about love should have some drama in them.
According to Howard,
The toughest songs in the world to write are love songs. "I love you and I will forever, blah blah blah." I prefer a song about a relationship that’s a little bit shaky or even tragic. That represents country music and the drama of the man-woman thing. That’s the most fun to write. [7]Of course adherents of the Nashville Sound might on occasion cross the line and do a Bluegrass standard like "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms," as Jones and Wynette did for a TV show.
POOR GIRL MAKES GOOD
Like Wynette, Dolly Parton [2] started out as a dirt poor country girl.
Parton is the real deal: She grew up in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee, where she absorbed the Appalachian music handed down from her Welsh ancestors. Fiddles and mandolins were prized among Appalachians. Yet, when she began her songwriting and singing career in Nashville upon graduation from high school, she immediately plunged into the Nashville Sound.
Dolly Parton
For example, a televised performance by Bill Phillips and Ruby Wright of "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" from the 1960s shows a band with no fiddle, steel guitar or mandolin. Parton and her songwriter uncle, Bill Owens, wrote that song.
Phillips & Wright: Put It Off Until Tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbltZuYTDk
As a woman who hit the big time in Country, Skeeter Davis was a top influence on Parton and Wynette. Parton and Owens wrote Davis's 1967 hit, "Fuel to the Flame."
Skeeter Davis: Fuel to the Flame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ1Oq7ZoluY
Davis's vocal and instrumental backup is "pop mild" and the record could easily be viewed as a crossover playable in northern urban markets.
Parton's career breakthrough came when Porter Wagoner added her to his band as a singer. Wagoner persuaded his label, RCA, to give Parton a record deal. Her first record featured a duet with Wagoner of Tom Paxton's 1964 hit, "The Last Thing on My Mind."
Tom Paxton: The Last Thing On My Mind (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o146K6cGLk
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoOeq8oEi6U
On the other hand, a telecast of a Parton-Wagoner duet shows Wagoner's band WITH fiddle and steel guitar. But there are no solo breaks -- not that all Bluegrass numbers include breaks.
Parton and Wagoner: Last Thing on My Mind (telecast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhgPo62eLyQ
On that RCA single, time is kept by a fairly strong sounding instrument that serves as a drum beat but is not from a drum. What is it? You tell me. That strong a beat is generally avoided in Bluegrass. Whatever the backup band's instruments, the instrumental sound is toned down and blended. No instrumental bridge. In fact, I find it difficult to distinguish instruments, something that would not happen with a Bluegrass band.
On listening to a number of 1970s Countrypolitan numbers, I would guess that the backbeat was generally issued by a metronome. That is, what else would go "tock, tock, tock..." with impecabble timing?
Yet a telecast version of Loretta Lynn's "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind" gives the impression that the "tock, tock" is from her guitar...but I'm skeptical. (And note the brevity of the steel guitar and fiddle breaks.)
We have as evidence the studio version of the smash Country hit "D.I.V.O.R.C.E" -- written by Bobby Braddock and Curly Putman and released by Wynette in 1968. The metronomish tock-tock is very apparent.
Though the producers had no problem including a bold steel guitar sound for the intro, the rest of the instrumentals are pretty much mellowed out with no sign of a steel guitar that I noticed.
Tammy Wynette: D.I.V.O.R.C.E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVgb5aPhDQ
Loretta Lynn: Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' with Lovin' on Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBnkAkmLtaw
Loretta Lynn
Compare three versions of the iconic Country hit "Satin Sheets."
The song, by Jan Howard and Bill Anderson, appeared in their 1972 album "Country Essentials." That version used the team's original lyrics, which, when sung in a duet confused the hearer as to who was who. A year later Jeanne Pruett [8], who had finally escaped RCA's strict control, revised the lyrics to reflect a woman's perspective. The result was a sensation and her stymied career took off. Pruett had also artfully promoted her song to radio stations across the country, obtaining major crossover airplay.
Jeanne Pruett
Wynette's 1974 version is a direct knock-off of Pruett's, including the intro instrumentals, the singing style and, yes, even the...errh...metronome.
Yet one must concede that Wynette brought her full vocal artistry to bear on that song, and probably outpoints Pruett in that regard. She followed Pruett, but subtly.
Bill and Jan: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMRaBO7FU0
Jeanne Pruett: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6n-UQ9k8rI
Tammy Wynette: Satin Sheets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4bPcKCmvEE
'ROCKY TOP' STUNS NASHVILLE
Lynn Anderson once said that as a Californian, she had been given the blow-off by the Nashville elite. So she covered "Rocky Top," written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and first performed by the Osborne Brothers, a Bluegrass band, and scored herself a big hit. The first version had less of a Bluegrass backup sound than the second. In any case, the Californian had pushed a button among Tennesseans, and many Nashville performers, such as Dolly Parton, followed her in covering what is really a fun, novelty song that is iconic among Bluegrass fans and all over the South.
Lynn Anderson
Lynn Anderson: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROkIhZJLSY
The distinction between Countrypolitan and Bluegrass is well illustrated by Anderson's 1970 release of "Rose Garden," a song written by Joe South, which quickly obtained crossover status.
Lynn Anderson: Rose Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwHHCZTvQco
Similarly, the distinction is drawn by Crystal Gayle's [3] versions of her "orchestral style" number "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" which attained crossover status, and "Rocky Top," which is straight Bluegrass, solo breaks and all.
Crystal Gayle: Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9lz_yzrGZw
Crystal Gayle: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nm2atrRqcY
Crystal Gayle
Likewise, Kitty Wells 1952 versus Kitty Wells 1961 demonstrates the shift away from Honky Tonk to Countrypolitan. The Nashville native [5] hit the jackpot in 1952 when, in her early thirties, she recorded "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels," a song written by J.D. Miller. The Decca number stunned her by about-facing her flagging career. A decade later "Heartbreak USA," written by Harlan Howard, scored her a hit. Its early Countrypolitan sound is very apparent.
Kitty Wells: It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKleTa94dC8
Note the steel guitar in that video.
Kitty Wells: Heartbreak USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pChL_SAB60U
Kitty Wells
TAMMY'S ADAPTABILITY
Tammy Wynette had no problem singing Honky Tonk or Bluegrass and did so regularly.
Tammy Wynette: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z-EU5Sx8-k
On the Bluegrass number "Rocky Top" she demonstrates the patient good humor of an artist singing something that requires vocal skills far below her level.
A young Hank Jr. teams with Tammy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTC82ZeRi-A
Here Wynette comfortably airs her parts of a medley of Hank Sr. hits. (Interesting that the youthful Hank Jr. sounds remarkably like his dad when singing this medley.)
The distinction between Honky Tonk and the Nashville Sound is artfully blurred in Tammy's version of "Your Cheating Heart." A youthful Wynette revised Hank Sr.'s lyrics to make them more in step with her time, clipping some of the rural verbiage that lent the song a Honky Tonk flavor. She also felt at liberty to change the verb "will" to "is gonna," which had become popular idiomatically. The background instrumental is pop mild, with no trace of the banished "twang." That is, she had made a Honky Tonk number into a Nashville Sound number.
Tammy Wynette: Your Cheating Heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X17_FUxUccM
LORETTA BLENDS TWO WORLDS
Another poor girl made good: Loretta Lynn [4], whose 1971 hit "Coal Miner's Daughter" tells her tale of growing up in an impoverished rural Kentucky mining settlement.
In 1960, she caught a break when a Canadian admirer financed her first recording, "I'm a Honky Tonk Woman," on his Zero Records label. She and her husband Oliver (Doolittle) Lynn then toured radio stations, often sleeping in their car, to promote her record. As she was at the time West Coast-based, she had not fallen into step with the Nashville Sound, though it wasn't long before Decca gave her a contract and issued a new version of "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl."
Her Zero backup included steel guitar, fiddle, guitar, bass and -- drums! Evidently West Coast Honky Tonk wasn't inflexible. "Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville Sound," said Lynn. "It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat."
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Decca)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLQw6I5VCac
Loretta: I'm a Honky Tonk Girl (Zero)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgE-gwZDbb0
On both versions we hear a Honky Tonk sound, but Decca producer Owen Bradley's production is better arranged. In particular, the Zero version's steel guitar is too loud and overwhelms the vocals rather than enhancing them. Bradley greatly curbs the steel guitar's volume and makes sure its strains only fill the vocal eddies without competing with vocal surges. Bradley, the real inventor of the Nashville Sound, took the top job at Decca Nashville in 1958, but seems not to have been quite as controlling as RCA's Atkins.
Neither record has any Bluegrass-style solo breaks. Such breaks are rarely heard in the Honky Tonk or Bakersfield styles.
On Decca's "Coal Miner's Daughter," the instrumental backup takes a Bluegrass mode, with the banjo given moderate prominence. I didn't detect a fiddle, and if there is any steel guitar, its role has been greatly reduced. No breaks, of course. The backbeat tock-tock is almost unhearable. Clearly, a grassy backup made sense. Lynn projected as an authentic and very likable "hillbilly," despite having released a number of songs with a strong feminist point of view.
Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rqkUaxFB-4
Yet, Bradley used an all-out Nashville Sound to back Decca recordings of Lynn's team-up with Conway Twitty (who had previously been in the Rockabilly camp). Sure enough, no metronome-like tock-tock on their number "It's Only Make-Believe." Egad! It's a drum -- though rather low-key, of course. And then there is the type of choral backing standard to the mainstream pop of the period.
Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty: It's Only Make Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzVoWve7_Mg
FROM BAKERSFIELD TO OUTLAW
Before the rise of the Nashville Sound in 1957, what is now called the Bakersfield Sound aired Honky Tonk in the bars of Bakersfield, Calif. Those Central Valley musicians had inherited the music of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl refugees. Notable among them were Buck Owens ("Streets of Bakersfield") and Merle Haggard, who was a young prisoner in the Folsom prison audience when Johnny Cash sang there.
Still, one would be hard put to characterize Haggard's later career as Honky Tonk or Bakersfield. It is better termed Nashville style with a dash or two of Bakersfield.
After the Nashville Sound became dominant, the Bakersfield Sound still found good airplay.
In 1983 Okie-from-Muskogee Haggard went over to the enemy, in the eyes of many Country fans, by joining up with the despised Texas hippie Willie Nelson, on a high-selling album, "Pancho and Lefty." That title song rings more of Folk music than it does of Country. (What is Folk music? Good question. TTYL on that.) But by that time both performers needed to re-energize their careers.
In 1985, Nelson turned the tables on his demonizers by becoming a top man in what was billed as Outlaw Country, which was spurred by the supergroup The Highwaymen, consisting of Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, all of whom had been aging out of the music business and needed a new deal. The band released a folky album, "The Highwayman," which also does not have a "real Country" ring. Meanwhile, the Hag managed to cruise in the Outlaw world, with six collaborative albums with Nelson that are very hippie-like, while holding his tradition-minded fan base with a continuing stream of his brand of the Nashville Sound.
HIP MEETS BLUEGRASS
Yet, no one would say that Bluegrass is dead and gone. An example of a modern, highly expert, Bluegrass band is the Petersens. My opinion is that they are a cut above most grass bands because of the rigor of their rehearsals, led by Katie Petersen, the expertise of their arrangements, and the tightness of their music. And they put audiences at ease with their youthful banter. But it is their singing, both together and solo, that makes them so remarkable. Their harmonious voices are very finely framed by the expert instrumentals.
I think Ozarks-based band spotlights well Modern Bluegrass, though there are many fine current Bluegrass bands. But that group, rather than representing divergence of genres, represents a melding of genres into a new form of music, a form that represents a distinctive new form: Pop Bluegrass, artful, harmonious amd robust.
From left, Emmett Franz, dobro; Karen Petersen, bass, and her offspring: Ellen Haygood, banjo; Julianne, mandolin; Matt, guitar; and Katie, fiddle.
The Petersens are highly skilled in traditional Bluegrass but also are known for their ability to "grass up" Pop and Rock hits, or just about anything they like. Based in Branson, Mo., in the heart of the Ozarks, the band has been serving up its eclectic blend of old-timey and new wave Bluegrass to appreciative audiences for more than a decade.
Among their biggest Youtube sellers are "Country Roads" by John Denver, "Jolene" by Dolly Parton and "Carolina in My Mind" by James Taylor, which mught be regarded as Country or Country Rock numbers.
The Petersens: Country Roads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qap9Qm-Q894
The Petersens: Jolene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viQx4KDivPY
The Petersens: Carolina in My Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yKeMIOhXjo
But then we have "Bohemian Rhapsody," a song by rocker Freddy Mercury.
The Petersens: Bohemian Rhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XVrm6zXmw
But if you like old standbys, their "Rocky Top" is one of the best out there.
The Petersens: Rocky Top
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GQYtBaI7bU
And you'll even find old folk music numbers, like "Shenandoah."
The Petersens: Shenandoah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHSjI8f5Zqw
Nor is there a shortage of standard Country fare. "Amarillo by Morning" is just one of many examples.
The Petersens: Amarillo by Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb_Amx13hLI
Then there is "Tulsa Time," which has served both Country and Rock artists. Here is their fun grassed-up version.
The Petersens: Tulsa Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2DA-lSMj4E
The troubadors do not hide their faith, as we hear on one of their gospel videos.
All Glory Be to Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EexEDzJ6zIY
This essay obviously only gives a slice of the history of Country music and does not attempt to cover its entire evolution from ancient to modern times.
Also, many important Country and Bluegrass names are bypassed. The idea is to illustrate the divergence of these two genres with a few well-known names of the era.
