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(5) FIVE RED BARN RECORDS FEATURING ELMO LINN
TWO ARE THE SAME TITLE "LORITA"
+++PLUS+++
A HANDBILL ADVERTISING ELMO LINN ON RED BARN RECORDS NO. 1197
"BROKEN VOWS" & "I'LL SHED NO TEARS OVER YOU"
ADVERTISMENT WAS LIKEL FOR A RECORD STORE OR RADIO STATION PROMOTION
ULTRA RARE EPHEMERA / PAPER
Elmo Linn – Heart Full Of Love / This Little World Of Mine
Label: Red Barn Records – RB1195
Format: Shellac, 10", 78 RPM
Country: US
Released: Genre: Folk, World, & Country
Style: Country, Western Swing
Tracklist
A Heart Full Of Love
Performer – Elmo Linn
Written-By – Arnold*, Soehnel*, Nelson*
B This Little World Of Mine
Performer – Elmo Linn & The Linn Trio*
Written-By – Elmo Kissee*
Matrix / Runout (Side A (etched)): JGL 2 1195-AR
Matrix / Runout (Side B (etched)): JGL 2 1195-BR
Elmo Linn – I'm Takin' It Easy Here / You're Always On My Mind
Label: Red Barn Records – RH1181
Format: Shellac, 10", 78 RPM
Country: US
Released: 1948
Genre: Folk, World, & Country
Style: Country, Western Swing
Tracklist
A I'm Takin' It Easy Here
Written-By – Ernie Lee (2)
B You're Always On My Mind
Written-By – Deb Dyer
Record Company – Red Barn Recording Co.
Steel Guitar – Curly Kelly
Vocals – Elmo Linn
Matrix / Runout (A runout, etched): RH 1181-AR
Matrix / Runout (B runout, etched): RH 1181-BR
(TWO OF THIS SAME RECORD, ONE HAS SPLIT BUT PLAYS)
Elmo Linn – Lorita / Line On The Highway
Label: Red Barn Records – RH-1188
Format: Shellac, 10", 78 RPM
Country: US
Released: 1948
Genre: Folk, World, & Country
Style: Country, Western Swing
Tracklist
A Lorita
Written-By – Deb Dyer
B Line On The Highway
Written-By – Deb Dyer
Record Company – Red Barn Recording Co.
Vocals – Elmo Linn
Matrix / Runout (A-Side Runout): RH-1188-A M
Matrix / Runout (B-Side Runout): RH-1188-B M
(TWO OF THIS SAME RECORD, ONE HAS SPLIT BUT PLAYS)
Elmo Linn – Broken Vows / I'll Shed No Tears Over You
Label: Red Barn Records – RH-1197
Format: Shellac, 10", 78 RPM
Country: US
Released: 1948
Genre: Folk, World, & Country
Style: Country, Western Swing
Tracklist
A Broken Vows
Written-By – Elmo Kissee
B I'll Shed No Tears Over You
Written-By – Deb Dyer
Record Company – Red Barn Recording Co.
Vocals – Elmo Linn
Matrix / Runout (A-Side Runout): RH-1197-A M
Matrix / Runout (B-Side Runout): RH-1197-B M
RECORDS ARE VARIED VG+> EX
NO COVERS
(THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF ACTUAL RECORD PLAYING)
https://youtu.be/U-Nbkp05Dnc
https://youtu.be/QiTal3nqdOM
https://youtu.be/bTXtESD44bg
https://youtu.be/QYYi6rfcoYc
https://youtu.be/8fDh66hZ7ps
https://youtu.be/ZQPy9W5fL2A
https://youtu.be/lL5occBdg4A
https://youtu.be/-tGJFRPMkPA
https://youtu.be/OfOsQP8jlmU
(THE FOLLOWING ARE BLOGS ON LABEL AND ARTISTS)http://www.bopping.org/artist/linn-elmo/
http://hillbilly-researcher.blogspot.com/2010/10/
Elmo Linn
Born - December 31, 1925
Died - April 24, 1994
RED BARN RECORDS (AN OVERVIEW)
I don’t normally provide an introduction to these listings, but in this instance I feel that a brief preamble might assist us in trying to piece the RED BARN label together.
RED BARN appears to have run concurrently with the WHITE CHURCH label with both concerns utilising a common numerical progression for releases.
Initial releases on RED BARN give Chicago Illinois as the location of the label, and new releases on RED BARN could be heard on Randy Blake’s “Supper Time Frolic” show broadcast over Radio Station WJJD, from Chicago. Using Blake’s “Supper Time Frolic” as a vehicle for promoting new releases on the label continued when RED BARN relocated to 318 W. Tenth Street. Kansas City, Missouri.
WHITE CHURCH releases give Chicago, Illinois, as the labels location, yet in 1948 the label was reported at 318 W. Tenth Street. Kansas City, Missouri, with BILLBOARD having noted six months earlier (13th September 1947), that “Deb Dwyer had recently set up the WHITE CHURCH Record Company, in Kansas City. Missouri”.
By the time RED BARN ran a quarter page advert in BILLBOARD (April 10th 1948) the label had a reasonably large catalogue, roughly divided into two categories; the first, the so called “HIT TUNES” featuring offerings from Odis Echols; Jimmy Skinner; “The Arkansas Favourite” Elmo Linn; Dude Hank; Jack Holden; and “The Old Red Head” Bobby Dick. Whilst the second category, “JUKE BOX SPECIALS”, contained releases by, “The World’s Champion Fiddler” Tex Grimsley; Ted West; Jerome & Henry; The Shepard Of The Hills & His Kaw Valley Boys; and Bobby & Buddy “The Texas Saddle Pals”.
The RED BARN label appears to have run out of steam quite early, although in 1951 it was, on paper at least, still located in Kansas City. However, very few additional artists been had added to the list of performers that was given in the RED BARN advert that appeared in BILLBOARD three years earlier. WHITE CHURCH on the other hand seems to have gone from strength to strength, with the label moving to Los Angeles in 1952.
Red Barn was a regional Kansas City concern, important for example for the first Jimmie Skinner sides of the late ’40s. The name ELMO LINN may be an obscure one ; he had however two interesting issues on this label. « Lorita » (Red Barn 1188A) is a medium paced shuffler with steel. Vocal reminds a bit Ernest Tubb. The flipside « Line on the highway » is a fast guitar backed tune. « Heart full of love » (Red Barn 1195) comes next, with again that shuffling rhythm. Later on Linn went to Westport (pop country).
thanks Hillbilly-Researcher
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A honky-tonk (also called honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk) is both a bar that provides country music for the entertainment of its patrons and the style of music played in such establishments. It can also refer to the type of piano (tack piano) used to play such music. Bars of this kind are common in the South and Southwest United States. Many eminent country music artists, such as Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Horton, and Merle Haggard, began their careers as amateur musicians in honky-tonks.
The origin of the term "honky-tonk" is disputed, originally referring to bawdy variety shows in areas of the old West (Oklahoma, the Indian Territories and mostly Texas) and to the actual theaters showing them.
The first music genre to be commonly known as honky-tonk was a style of piano playing related to ragtime but emphasizing rhythm more than melody or harmony; the style evolved in response to an environment in which pianos were often poorly cared for, tending to be out of tune and having some nonfunctioning keys. This honky-tonk music was an important influence on the boogie-woogie piano style. Before World War II, the music industry began to refer to hillbilly music being played from Texas and Oklahoma to the West Coast as "honky-tonk" music. In the 1950s, honky-tonk entered its golden age, with the popularity of Winifred Atwell, Webb Pierce, Hank Locklin, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Faron Young, George Jones, and Hank Williams.
Etymology
The origin of the term honky-tonk is unknown. The earliest known use in print is an article in the Peoria Journal dated June 28, 1874, stating, "The police spent a busy day today raiding the bagnios and honkytonks." The capitalization of the term suggests that it may have been the proper name of the theater; it is not known whether the name was taken from a generic use of the term or whether the name of the theater became a generic term for similar establishments.
There are subsequent citations from 1890 in The Dallas Morning News, 1892 in the Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) (which used the term to refer to an adult establishment in Fort Worth), and in 1894 in The Daily Ardmoreite in Oklahoma, Early uses of the term in print mostly appear along a corridor roughly coinciding with cattle drive trails extending from Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, into south central Oklahoma, suggesting that the term may have been a localism spread by cowboys driving cattle to market. The sound of honky-tonk (or honk-a-tonk) and the types of places that were called honky-tonks suggests that the term may be an onomatopoeic reference to the loud, boisterous music and noise heard at these establishments.
One theory is that the "tonk" portion of the name may have come from the brand name of piano made by William Tonk & Bros., an American manufacturer of large upright pianos (established 1881), which made a piano with the decal "Ernest A. Tonk". The Tonk brothers, William and Max, established the Tonk Bros. Manufacturing Company in 1873, so such an etymology is possible, however, these pianos were not manufactured until 1889, at which point the term seems to have already been established.
An early source purporting to explain the derivation of the term (spelled honkatonk) was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun and widely reprinted in other newspapers. The article, however, reads more like a humorous urban (or open range) legend or fable, so its veracity is questionable.
History
An article in the Los Angeles Times of July 28, 1929, with the headline "'Honky-Tonk' Origin Told", which was probably in response to the Sophie Tucker movie musical, Honky Tonk (1929), reads: Do you know what a honky tonk is?
Seafaring men of a few years ago knew very well, as the honky-tonks of San Francisco's Barbary Coast constituted perhaps the most vivid spots in their generally uneventful lives.
The name originated on the Barbary Coast and was applied to the low "dives" which formed so great a part of this notorious district. In these establishments, which were often of enormous size, much liquor was dispensed at the tables which crowded the floor, and entertainment of doubtful quality was given on a stage at one end of the room.
The honky tonk, as a matter of fact, was the predecessor of the present-day cabaret or night club, the principal differences being that the prices were lower and that the former establishment made no pretense of "class."
Honky-tonks were rough establishments, providing country music in the Deep South and Southwest and serving alcoholic beverages to a working-class clientele. Some honky-tonks offered dancing to music played by pianists or small bands, and some were centers of prostitution. Katrina Hazzard-Gordon wrote that the honky-tonk was "the first urban manifestation of the jook", and that "the name itself became synonymous with a style of music. Related to the classic blues in tonal structure, honky-tonk has a tempo that is slightly stepped up. It is rhythmically suited for many African-American dance."
As Chris Smith and Charles McCarron wrote in their 1916 hit song "Down in Honky Tonk Town", "It's underneath the ground, where all the fun is found."
Origins of the establishment
Although the derivation of the term is unknown, honky tonk originally referred to bawdy variety shows in the West (Oklahoma and Indian Territories and Texas) and to the theaters housing them. The earliest mention of them in print refers to them as "variety theaters" and describe the entertainment as "variety shows". The theaters often had an attached gambling house and always a bar.
In recollections long after the frontiers closed, writers such as Wyatt Earp and E.C. Abbott referred to honky-tonks in the cowtowns of Kansas, Nebraska, and Montana in the 1870s and 1880s. Their recollections contain lurid accounts of the women and violence accompanying the shows. However, in contemporary accounts these were nearly always called hurdy-gurdy shows, possibly derived from the term hurdy-gurdy, which was sometimes mistakenly applied to a small, portable barrel organ that was frequently played by organ grinders and buskers.
As late as 1913, Col. Edwin Emerson, a former Rough Rider commander, hosted a honky-tonk party in New York City. The Rough Riders were recruited from the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territories, so the term was still in popular use during the Spanish–American War.
---------------
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass with rock and roll. The term "rockabilly" itself is a portmanteau of "rock" (from "rock 'n' roll") and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music (often called "hillbilly music" in the 1940s and 1950s) that contributed strongly to the style. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and electric blues.
Defining features of the rockabilly sound included strong rhythms, vocal twangs, and common use of the tape echo; but progressive addition of different instruments and vocal harmonies led to its "dilution". Initially popularized by artists such as Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, the rockabilly style waned in the late 1950s; nonetheless, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a revival. An interest in the genre endures even in the 21st century, often within musical subcultures. Rockabilly has spawned a variety of sub-styles and has influenced the development of other genres such as punk rock.
History
There was a close relationship between blues and country music from the very earliest country recordings in the 1920s. The first nationwide country hit was "Wreck of the Old 97", backed with "The Prisoner's Song", which also became quite popular. Jimmie Rodgers, the "first true country star", was known as the "Blue Yodeler", and most of his songs used blues-based chord progressions, although with very different instrumentation and sound from the recordings of his black contemporaries like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Bessie Smith.
During the 1930s and 1940s, two new sounds emerged. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were the leading proponents of Western Swing, which combined country singing and steel guitar with big band jazz influences and horn sections; Wills's music found massive popularity. Recordings of Wills's from the mid 1940s to the early 1950s include "two beat jazz" rhythms, "jazz choruses", and guitar work that preceded early rockabilly recordings. Wills is quoted as saying "Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!... But it's just basic rhythm and has gone by a lot of different names in my time. It's the same, whether you just follow a drum beat like in Africa or surround it with a lot of instruments. The rhythm's what's important."
After blues artists like Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson launched a nationwide boogie craze starting in 1938, country artists like Moon Mullican, the Delmore Brothers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, and the Maddox Brothers and Rose began recording what was then known as "hillbilly boogie", which consisted of "hillbilly" vocals and instrumentation with a boogie bass line.
After World War II, The Maddox Brothers and Rose were at "the leading edge of rockabilly with the slapped bass that Fred Maddox had developed". They had shifted into higher gear leaning toward a whimsical honky-tonk feel, with a heavy, manic bottom end and high volume. The Maddoxes were known for their lively, antic-filled shows, which were an influential novelty for white listeners and musicians alike.
Along with country, swing and boogie influences, jump blues artists such as Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown, and electric blues acts such as Howlin' Wolf, Junior Parker, and Arthur Crudup, influenced the development of rockabilly. The Memphis blues musician Junior Parker and his electric blues band, Little Junior's Blue Flames, featuring Pat Hare on the guitar, were a major influence on the rockabilly style, particularly with their songs "Love My Baby" and "Mystery Train" in 1953.
Zeb Turner's February 1953 recording of "Jersey Rock" with its mix of musical styles, lyrics about music and dancing, and guitar solo, is another example of the mixing of musical genres in the first half of the 1950s.
Bill Monroe is known as the Father of Bluegrass, a specific style of country music. Many of his songs were in blues form, while others took the form of folk ballads, parlor songs, or waltzes. Bluegrass was a staple of country music in the early 1950s and is often mentioned as an influence in the development of rockabilly, in part owing to its favouring of fast tempos.
The Honky Tonk sound, which "tended to focus on working-class life, with frequently tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism, and self-pity", also included songs of energetic, uptempo Hillbilly Boogie. Some of the better known musicians who recorded and performed these songs are: the Delmore Brothers, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Merle Travis, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Use of the term "rockabilly"
Early rockabilly singer Barbara Pittman told Experience Music Project that "Rockabilly was actually an insult to the southern rockers at that time. Over the years it has picked up a little dignity. It was their way of calling us 'hillbillies'."
One of the first written uses of the term rockabilly was in a press release describing Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula". Three weeks later, it was also used in a June 23, 1956, Billboard review of Ruckus Tyler's "Rock Town Rock".
The first record to contain the word rockabilly in a song title was "Rock a Billy Gal", issued in November 1956. The Burnette brothers had been playing a song called "Rock Billy Boogie" since 1953, but did not record or release it until 1956 and 1957, respectively.
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Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily southern Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term can be offensive to those Americans of Appalachian heritage.
History
Origins of the term "hillbilly" are obscure. According to Anthony Harkins in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, the term first appeared in print in a 1900 New York Journal article, with the definition: "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him."
The Appalachian region was largely settled in the 18th century by the Scotch-Irish, the majority of whom originated in the lowlands of Scotland. Harkins believes the most credible theory of the term's origin is that it derives from the linkage of two older Scottish expressions, "hill-folk" and "billie" which was a synonym for "fellow", similar to "guy" or "bloke".
Although the term is not documented until 1900, a conjectural etymology for the term is that it originated in 17th century Ireland for Protestant supporters of King William III during the Williamite War. The Irish Catholic supporters of James II referred to these northern Protestant supporters of "King Billy", as "Billy Boys". However, Michael Montgomery, in From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English, states "In Ulster in recent years it has sometimes been supposed that it was coined to refer to followers of King William III and brought to America by early Ulster emigrants…, but this derivation is almost certainly incorrect… In America hillbilly was first attested only in 1898, which suggests a later, independent development."
Harkins theorizes that use of the term outside the Appalachians arose in the years after the American Civil War, when the Appalachian region became increasingly bypassed by technological and social changes taking place in the rest of the country. Until the Civil War, the Appalachians were not significantly different from other rural areas of the country. After the war, as the frontier pushed further west, the Appalachian country retained its frontier character, and the people themselves came to be seen as backward, quick to violence, and inbred in their isolation. Fueled by news stories of mountain feuds, such as that in the 1880s between the Hatfields and McCoys, the hillbilly stereotype developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The "classic" hillbilly stereotype – the poor, ignorant, feuding family with a huge brood of children tending the family moonshine still – reached its current characterization during the years of the Great Depression, when many mountaineers left their homes to find work in other areas of the country. It was during these years that comic strips such as Li'l Abner and films such as Ma and Pa Kettle made the "hillbilly" a common stereotype.
The period of Appalachian out-migration, roughly from the 1930s through the 1950s, saw many mountain residents moving north to the midwestern industrial cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Akron, and particularly Detroit, where jobs in the automotive industry were plentiful. This movement north became known as the "Hillbilly Highway".
The advent of the interstate highway system and television brought many previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture in the 1950s and 1960s. The Internet continues this integration.
Hillbilly music was at one time considered an acceptable label for what is now known as country music. The label, coined in 1925 by country pianist Al Hopkins, persisted until the 1950s.
Although some artists and fans, notably Hank Williams Sr., found the term offensive even in its heyday, the term hillbilly music is still used on occasion to refer to old-time music or bluegrass. For example, a popular, long-running weekly show at radio station WHRB titled "Hillbilly at Harvard" is devoted to playing a mix of old-time music, bluegrass, and traditional country and western.
An early tune that contained the word hillbilly was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, there were records by a band called the Beverly Hillbillies. In 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and were marketed to a white audience. Also during the 1920s, an old-time music band known as the Hill Billies featuring Al Hopkins and Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman, achieved acclaim as recording artists for Columbia Records. By the late forties, radio stations broadcast music described as "hillbilly," originally to describe fiddlers and string bands, but was then used to describe the traditional music of the people of the Appalachian Mountains. The people who actually sang these songs and lived in the Appalachian Mountains never used these terms to describe their own music.
Popular songs whose style bore characteristics of both hillbilly and African American music were referred to, in the late 1940s and early 1950s as hillbilly boogie, and in the mid-1950s as rockabilly. Elvis Presley was a prominent player of the latter genre and was known early in his career as the "Hillbilly Cat". When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term hillbilly music gradually fell out of use. However, the term rockabilly is still in common use.
Later, the music industry merged hillbilly music, Western Swing, and Cowboy music, to form the current category C&W, Country and Western.
The famous bluegrass fiddler Vassar Clements described his style of music as "hillbilly jazz."
In fiction and popular culture
The stereotypical hillbilly has inspired many fictional accounts in a variety of media, from novels and comic strips to movies and television. These accounts introduced the hillbilly to the general American public as a uniquely American type. Comic strips such as Li’l Abner and Snuffy Smith, and radio programs such as Lum and Abner brought the stereotype of lazy, simple-minded hillbillies into American homes.
Film and television have portrayed the hillbilly in both derogatory and sympathetic terms. Films such as Sergeant York or the Ma and Pa Kettle series portrayed the hillbilly as wild but good-natured, and television programs of the 1960s, such as The Real McCoys, The Andy Griffith Show, and especially The Beverly Hillbillies portrayed the hillbilly as somewhat backward but with a wisdom that always outwitted more sophisticated city folk. The popular 1970s television variety show Hee Haw starred several well-known country and western singers and regularly lampooned the stereotypical hillbilly lifestyle. A darker image of the hillbilly is found in the film Deliverance (1972), based on a novel by James Dickey, which depicted the hillbilly as genetically deficient and murderous.
In the Appalachian and Ozark regions, the hillbilly stereotype formed the basis for financially lucrative commercial interpretations of traditional culture through theme parks and theaters, such as Dogpatch USA in Arkansas, and Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Local pride
The Springfield, Missouri Chamber of Commerce once presented dignitaries visiting the city with an "Ozark Hillbilly Medallion" and a certificate proclaiming the honoree a "hillbilly of the Ozarks." On June 7, 1952, President Harry S. Truman received the medallion after a breakfast speech at the Shrine Mosque for the 35th Division Association. Other recipients included US Army generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgeway, J. C. Penney, Johnny Olsen and Ralph Story.
Hillbilly Days is an annual festival held in mid-April in Pikeville, Kentucky celebrating the best of Appalachian culture. The event began by local Shriners as a fundraiser to support the Shriners Children's Hospital. It has grown since its beginning in 1976 and now is the second largest festival held in the state of Kentucky. Artists and craftspeople showcase their talents and sell their works on display. Nationally renowned musicians as well as the best of the regional mountain musicians share six different stages located throughout the downtown area of Pikeville. Want-to-be hillbillies from across the nation compete to come up with the wildest Hillbilly outfit. The event has earned its name as the Mardi Gras of the Mountains. Fans of "mountain music" come from around the United States to hear this annual concentrated gathering of talent. Some refer to this event as the equivalent of a "Woodstock" for mountain music.
The origin of the term "honky-tonk" is disputed, originally referring to bawdy variety shows in areas of the old West (Oklahoma, the Indian Territories and mostly Texas) and to the actual theaters showing them.
The first music genre to be commonly known as honky-tonk was a style of piano playing related to ragtime but emphasizing rhythm more than melody or harmony; the style evolved in response to an environment in which pianos were often poorly cared for, tending to be out of tune and having some nonfunctioning keys. This honky-tonk music was an important influence on the boogie-woogie piano style. Before World War II, the music industry began to refer to hillbilly music being played from Texas and Oklahoma to the West Coast as "honky-tonk" music. In the 1950s, honky-tonk entered its golden age, with the popularity of Winifred Atwell, Webb Pierce, Hank Locklin, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Faron Young, George Jones, and Hank Williams.
Etymology
The origin of the term honky-tonk is unknown. The earliest known use in print is an article in the Peoria Journal dated June 28, 1874, stating, "The police spent a busy day today raiding the bagnios and honkytonks." The capitalization of the term suggests that it may have been the proper name of the theater; it is not known whether the name was taken from a generic use of the term or whether the name of the theater became a generic term for similar establishments.
There are subsequent citations from 1890 in The Dallas Morning News, 1892 in the Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas) (which used the term to refer to an adult establishment in Fort Worth), and in 1894 in The Daily Ardmoreite in Oklahoma, Early uses of the term in print mostly appear along a corridor roughly coinciding with cattle drive trails extending from Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, into south central Oklahoma, suggesting that the term may have been a localism spread by cowboys driving cattle to market. The sound of honky-tonk (or honk-a-tonk) and the types of places that were called honky-tonks suggests that the term may be an onomatopoeic reference to the loud, boisterous music and noise heard at these establishments.
One theory is that the "tonk" portion of the name may have come from the brand name of piano made by William Tonk & Bros., an American manufacturer of large upright pianos (established 1881), which made a piano with the decal "Ernest A. Tonk". The Tonk brothers, William and Max, established the Tonk Bros. Manufacturing Company in 1873, so such an etymology is possible, however, these pianos were not manufactured until 1889, at which point the term seems to have already been established.
An early source purporting to explain the derivation of the term (spelled honkatonk) was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun and widely reprinted in other newspapers. The article, however, reads more like a humorous urban (or open range) legend or fable, so its veracity is questionable.
History
An article in the Los Angeles Times of July 28, 1929, with the headline "'Honky-Tonk' Origin Told", which was probably in response to the Sophie Tucker movie musical, Honky Tonk (1929), reads: Do you know what a honky tonk is?
Seafaring men of a few years ago knew very well, as the honky-tonks of San Francisco's Barbary Coast constituted perhaps the most vivid spots in their generally uneventful lives.
The name originated on the Barbary Coast and was applied to the low "dives" which formed so great a part of this notorious district. In these establishments, which were often of enormous size, much liquor was dispensed at the tables which crowded the floor, and entertainment of doubtful quality was given on a stage at one end of the room.
The honky tonk, as a matter of fact, was the predecessor of the present-day cabaret or night club, the principal differences being that the prices were lower and that the former establishment made no pretense of "class."
Honky-tonks were rough establishments, providing country music in the Deep South and Southwest and serving alcoholic beverages to a working-class clientele. Some honky-tonks offered dancing to music played by pianists or small bands, and some were centers of prostitution. Katrina Hazzard-Gordon wrote that the honky-tonk was "the first urban manifestation of the jook", and that "the name itself became synonymous with a style of music. Related to the classic blues in tonal structure, honky-tonk has a tempo that is slightly stepped up. It is rhythmically suited for many African-American dance."
As Chris Smith and Charles McCarron wrote in their 1916 hit song "Down in Honky Tonk Town", "It's underneath the ground, where all the fun is found."
Origins of the establishment
Although the derivation of the term is unknown, honky tonk originally referred to bawdy variety shows in the West (Oklahoma and Indian Territories and Texas) and to the theaters housing them. The earliest mention of them in print refers to them as "variety theaters" and describe the entertainment as "variety shows". The theaters often had an attached gambling house and always a bar.
In recollections long after the frontiers closed, writers such as Wyatt Earp and E.C. Abbott referred to honky-tonks in the cowtowns of Kansas, Nebraska, and Montana in the 1870s and 1880s. Their recollections contain lurid accounts of the women and violence accompanying the shows. However, in contemporary accounts these were nearly always called hurdy-gurdy shows, possibly derived from the term hurdy-gurdy, which was sometimes mistakenly applied to a small, portable barrel organ that was frequently played by organ grinders and buskers.
As late as 1913, Col. Edwin Emerson, a former Rough Rider commander, hosted a honky-tonk party in New York City. The Rough Riders were recruited from the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Indian Territories, so the term was still in popular use during the Spanish–American War.
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Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass with rock and roll. The term "rockabilly" itself is a portmanteau of "rock" (from "rock 'n' roll") and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music (often called "hillbilly music" in the 1940s and 1950s) that contributed strongly to the style. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and electric blues.
Defining features of the rockabilly sound included strong rhythms, vocal twangs, and common use of the tape echo; but progressive addition of different instruments and vocal harmonies led to its "dilution". Initially popularized by artists such as Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, the rockabilly style waned in the late 1950s; nonetheless, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a revival. An interest in the genre endures even in the 21st century, often within musical subcultures. Rockabilly has spawned a variety of sub-styles and has influenced the development of other genres such as punk rock.
History
There was a close relationship between blues and country music from the very earliest country recordings in the 1920s. The first nationwide country hit was "Wreck of the Old 97", backed with "The Prisoner's Song", which also became quite popular. Jimmie Rodgers, the "first true country star", was known as the "Blue Yodeler", and most of his songs used blues-based chord progressions, although with very different instrumentation and sound from the recordings of his black contemporaries like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Bessie Smith.
During the 1930s and 1940s, two new sounds emerged. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were the leading proponents of Western Swing, which combined country singing and steel guitar with big band jazz influences and horn sections; Wills's music found massive popularity. Recordings of Wills's from the mid 1940s to the early 1950s include "two beat jazz" rhythms, "jazz choruses", and guitar work that preceded early rockabilly recordings. Wills is quoted as saying "Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!... But it's just basic rhythm and has gone by a lot of different names in my time. It's the same, whether you just follow a drum beat like in Africa or surround it with a lot of instruments. The rhythm's what's important."
After blues artists like Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson launched a nationwide boogie craze starting in 1938, country artists like Moon Mullican, the Delmore Brothers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, and the Maddox Brothers and Rose began recording what was then known as "hillbilly boogie", which consisted of "hillbilly" vocals and instrumentation with a boogie bass line.
After World War II, The Maddox Brothers and Rose were at "the leading edge of rockabilly with the slapped bass that Fred Maddox had developed". They had shifted into higher gear leaning toward a whimsical honky-tonk feel, with a heavy, manic bottom end and high volume. The Maddoxes were known for their lively, antic-filled shows, which were an influential novelty for white listeners and musicians alike.
Along with country, swing and boogie influences, jump blues artists such as Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown, and electric blues acts such as Howlin' Wolf, Junior Parker, and Arthur Crudup, influenced the development of rockabilly. The Memphis blues musician Junior Parker and his electric blues band, Little Junior's Blue Flames, featuring Pat Hare on the guitar, were a major influence on the rockabilly style, particularly with their songs "Love My Baby" and "Mystery Train" in 1953.
Zeb Turner's February 1953 recording of "Jersey Rock" with its mix of musical styles, lyrics about music and dancing, and guitar solo, is another example of the mixing of musical genres in the first half of the 1950s.
Bill Monroe is known as the Father of Bluegrass, a specific style of country music. Many of his songs were in blues form, while others took the form of folk ballads, parlor songs, or waltzes. Bluegrass was a staple of country music in the early 1950s and is often mentioned as an influence in the development of rockabilly, in part owing to its favouring of fast tempos.
The Honky Tonk sound, which "tended to focus on working-class life, with frequently tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism, and self-pity", also included songs of energetic, uptempo Hillbilly Boogie. Some of the better known musicians who recorded and performed these songs are: the Delmore Brothers, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Merle Travis, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
Use of the term "rockabilly"
Early rockabilly singer Barbara Pittman told Experience Music Project that "Rockabilly was actually an insult to the southern rockers at that time. Over the years it has picked up a little dignity. It was their way of calling us 'hillbillies'."
One of the first written uses of the term rockabilly was in a press release describing Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula". Three weeks later, it was also used in a June 23, 1956, Billboard review of Ruckus Tyler's "Rock Town Rock".
The first record to contain the word rockabilly in a song title was "Rock a Billy Gal", issued in November 1956. The Burnette brothers had been playing a song called "Rock Billy Boogie" since 1953, but did not record or release it until 1956 and 1957, respectively.
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Hillbilly is a term (often derogatory) for people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily southern Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term can be offensive to those Americans of Appalachian heritage.
History
Origins of the term "hillbilly" are obscure. According to Anthony Harkins in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, the term first appeared in print in a 1900 New York Journal article, with the definition: "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him."
The Appalachian region was largely settled in the 18th century by the Scotch-Irish, the majority of whom originated in the lowlands of Scotland. Harkins believes the most credible theory of the term's origin is that it derives from the linkage of two older Scottish expressions, "hill-folk" and "billie" which was a synonym for "fellow", similar to "guy" or "bloke".
Although the term is not documented until 1900, a conjectural etymology for the term is that it originated in 17th century Ireland for Protestant supporters of King William III during the Williamite War. The Irish Catholic supporters of James II referred to these northern Protestant supporters of "King Billy", as "Billy Boys". However, Michael Montgomery, in From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English, states "In Ulster in recent years it has sometimes been supposed that it was coined to refer to followers of King William III and brought to America by early Ulster emigrants…, but this derivation is almost certainly incorrect… In America hillbilly was first attested only in 1898, which suggests a later, independent development."
Harkins theorizes that use of the term outside the Appalachians arose in the years after the American Civil War, when the Appalachian region became increasingly bypassed by technological and social changes taking place in the rest of the country. Until the Civil War, the Appalachians were not significantly different from other rural areas of the country. After the war, as the frontier pushed further west, the Appalachian country retained its frontier character, and the people themselves came to be seen as backward, quick to violence, and inbred in their isolation. Fueled by news stories of mountain feuds, such as that in the 1880s between the Hatfields and McCoys, the hillbilly stereotype developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The "classic" hillbilly stereotype – the poor, ignorant, feuding family with a huge brood of children tending the family moonshine still – reached its current characterization during the years of the Great Depression, when many mountaineers left their homes to find work in other areas of the country. It was during these years that comic strips such as Li'l Abner and films such as Ma and Pa Kettle made the "hillbilly" a common stereotype.
The period of Appalachian out-migration, roughly from the 1930s through the 1950s, saw many mountain residents moving north to the midwestern industrial cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Akron, and particularly Detroit, where jobs in the automotive industry were plentiful. This movement north became known as the "Hillbilly Highway".
The advent of the interstate highway system and television brought many previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture in the 1950s and 1960s. The Internet continues this integration.
Hillbilly music was at one time considered an acceptable label for what is now known as country music. The label, coined in 1925 by country pianist Al Hopkins, persisted until the 1950s.
Although some artists and fans, notably Hank Williams Sr., found the term offensive even in its heyday, the term hillbilly music is still used on occasion to refer to old-time music or bluegrass. For example, a popular, long-running weekly show at radio station WHRB titled "Hillbilly at Harvard" is devoted to playing a mix of old-time music, bluegrass, and traditional country and western.
An early tune that contained the word hillbilly was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, there were records by a band called the Beverly Hillbillies. In 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and were marketed to a white audience. Also during the 1920s, an old-time music band known as the Hill Billies featuring Al Hopkins and Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman, achieved acclaim as recording artists for Columbia Records. By the late forties, radio stations broadcast music described as "hillbilly," originally to describe fiddlers and string bands, but was then used to describe the traditional music of the people of the Appalachian Mountains. The people who actually sang these songs and lived in the Appalachian Mountains never used these terms to describe their own music.
Popular songs whose style bore characteristics of both hillbilly and African American music were referred to, in the late 1940s and early 1950s as hillbilly boogie, and in the mid-1950s as rockabilly. Elvis Presley was a prominent player of the latter genre and was known early in his career as the "Hillbilly Cat". When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term hillbilly music gradually fell out of use. However, the term rockabilly is still in common use.
Later, the music industry merged hillbilly music, Western Swing, and Cowboy music, to form the current category C&W, Country and Western.
The famous bluegrass fiddler Vassar Clements described his style of music as "hillbilly jazz."
In fiction and popular culture
The stereotypical hillbilly has inspired many fictional accounts in a variety of media, from novels and comic strips to movies and television. These accounts introduced the hillbilly to the general American public as a uniquely American type. Comic strips such as Li’l Abner and Snuffy Smith, and radio programs such as Lum and Abner brought the stereotype of lazy, simple-minded hillbillies into American homes.
Film and television have portrayed the hillbilly in both derogatory and sympathetic terms. Films such as Sergeant York or the Ma and Pa Kettle series portrayed the hillbilly as wild but good-natured, and television programs of the 1960s, such as The Real McCoys, The Andy Griffith Show, and especially The Beverly Hillbillies portrayed the hillbilly as somewhat backward but with a wisdom that always outwitted more sophisticated city folk. The popular 1970s television variety show Hee Haw starred several well-known country and western singers and regularly lampooned the stereotypical hillbilly lifestyle. A darker image of the hillbilly is found in the film Deliverance (1972), based on a novel by James Dickey, which depicted the hillbilly as genetically deficient and murderous.
In the Appalachian and Ozark regions, the hillbilly stereotype formed the basis for financially lucrative commercial interpretations of traditional culture through theme parks and theaters, such as Dogpatch USA in Arkansas, and Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Local pride
The Springfield, Missouri Chamber of Commerce once presented dignitaries visiting the city with an "Ozark Hillbilly Medallion" and a certificate proclaiming the honoree a "hillbilly of the Ozarks." On June 7, 1952, President Harry S. Truman received the medallion after a breakfast speech at the Shrine Mosque for the 35th Division Association. Other recipients included US Army generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgeway, J. C. Penney, Johnny Olsen and Ralph Story.
Hillbilly Days is an annual festival held in mid-April in Pikeville, Kentucky celebrating the best of Appalachian culture. The event began by local Shriners as a fundraiser to support the Shriners Children's Hospital. It has grown since its beginning in 1976 and now is the second largest festival held in the state of Kentucky. Artists and craftspeople showcase their talents and sell their works on display. Nationally renowned musicians as well as the best of the regional mountain musicians share six different stages located throughout the downtown area of Pikeville. Want-to-be hillbillies from across the nation compete to come up with the wildest Hillbilly outfit. The event has earned its name as the Mardi Gras of the Mountains. Fans of "mountain music" come from around the United States to hear this annual concentrated gathering of talent. Some refer to this event as the equivalent of a "Woodstock" for mountain music.
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