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Western swing, also known as country jazz, is a subgenre of country music.
The movement was an outgrowth of country music and jazz.Boyd, Jazz of the Southwest, p. ix-x.Townsend, San Antonio Rose, p. 63: "Without exception, every former member of Wills's band interviewed for this study concluded, as Wills himself did, that what they were playing was always closer in music, lyrics, and style to jazz and swing that any other genre."Price, "Jazz Guitar and Western Swing", p. 81. The music is an amalgamation of rural, cowboy, polka, early Honky-tonk, Old-time music, Dixieland jazz, and blues blended with swing music;Price, "Jazz Guitar and Western Swing", p. 82. and played by a hot string band often augmented with drums, saxophones, pianos and, notably, the steel guitar.Coffey, Merl Lindsay and His Oklahoma Nite Riders, pp. 3-4. The electrically amplified stringed instruments, especially the steel guitar, give the music a distinctive sound.Wolff, Country Music, "Big Balls in Cowtown: Western Swing From Fort Worth to Fresno", p. 71.
Western swing differs in several ways from the music played by the nationally popular horn-driven Big band of the same era. In Western bands, even fully orchestrated bands, vocals, and other instruments followed the fiddle's lead, though like popular horn-led bands that arranged and scored their music, most Western bands improvised freely, either by soloists or collectively.Boyd, "Western Swing", p. 208.
According to country singer Merle Travis, "Western swing is nothing more than a group of talented country boys, unschooled in music, but playing the music they feel, beating a solid two-four rhythm to the harmonies that buzz around their brains. When it escapes in all its musical glory, my friend, you have Western swing."
In the early 1930s, Bob Wills and Milton Brown co-founded the string band that became the Light Crust Doughboys, the first professional Western swing band. The group, with Fred "Papa" Calhoun on piano, played dance halls and was heard on radio. Photographs of the Light Crust Doughboys taken as early as 1931 show two guitars along with fiddle player Wills, although by 1933 they had three guitarists. San Antonio Rose - The Life and Music of Bob Wills. Charles R. Townsend. 1976. University of Illinois. between pages 74-75.
On February 9, 1932, Brown, his brother Derwood, Bob Wills, and C.G. "Sleepy" Johnson were recorded by Victor Records at the Jefferson Hotel in Dallas, Texas under the name The Fort Worth Doughboys. Derwood Brown played guitar and Johnson played tenor guitar. Both "Sunbonnet Sue" and "Nancy Jane" were recorded that day. The group was credited as "Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies".Townsend, p. 339.
When Brown left the Doughboys later in 1932, he took his brother to play rhythm guitar in what became The Musical Brownies.Townsend, between pp. 73 and 74. In January 1933, fiddler Cecil Brower, playing harmony, joined Jesse Ashlock to create the first example of harmonizing twin fiddles in a Western swing recording. Brower, a classically trained violinist, was the first to master Joe Venuti's double shuffle and his improvisational style was a major contribution to the genre.
In late 1933, Wills organized the Texas Playboys in Waco, Texas. Recording rosters show that beginning in September 1935, Wills utilized two fiddles, two guitars, and Leon McAuliffe playing steel guitar, banjo, drums and other instruments during recording sessions.Townsend, pp. 339 and 340. The amplified stringed instruments, especially the steel guitar, gave the music its distinctive sound. As early as 1934 or 1935 Bob Dunn electrified a Martin O-series acoustic guitar while playing with Milton Brown's Brownies, an idea he may have picked up from a Black guitarist he met while working at Coney Island in New York. Workin' Man Blues - Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. page 74. . Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing. Cary Ginell. 1994. University of Illinois Press. page 109.
By the mid-1930s, Fort Worth was a hub for Western swing, particularly at the Crystal Springs Dance Pavilion, a country music dance venue that was popular until the 1950s. Bands like Brown and His Musical Brownies played there, interspersing waltzes and ballads with faster songs. Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing. Cary Ginell. 1994. University of Illinois Press. page 131. Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing. Cary Ginell. 1994. University of Illinois Press. page 134.
A documented instance of a Western swing group adopting the newer, by then mainstream meter swing jazz style, replacing the style, was when producer Art Satherley required it at a September 1936 Light Crust Doughboy recording session. We're the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill: an oral history. Jean Ann Boyd. University of Texas Press. 2003. page 54.
1938 session rosters for Wills recordings show both lead guitar and electric guitar in addition to guitar and steel guitar.Townsend, pp. 342 and 343. The "front line" of Wills' orchestra consisted of either fiddles or guitars after 1944.Townsend, p.237.
Wills recalled the early days of Western swing music in a 1949 interview. Speaking of Milton Brown and himself—working with popular songs done by Jimmie Davis, the Skillet Lickers, Jimmie Rodgers, songs he had learned from his father and others—Wills said, "We'd...pull these tunes down an set 'em in a dance category. ...They wouldn't be a runaway...and just lay a real beat behind it an' the people would began to really like it. ...It was nobody intended to start anything in the world. We was just tryin' to find enough tunes to keep 'em dancin' to not have to repeat so much."Wills, Bob, part 9 of Honky Tonks, Hymns and the Blues on National Public Radio. Series published 2003, archival interview from 1949.
Phillips developed a circuit of dance halls and bands to play for them. Among these halls in 1942 were the Los Angeles County Barn Dance at the Venice Pier Ballroom, the Town Hall Ballroom in Compton, the Plantation in Culver City, the Baldwin Park Ballroom, and the Riverside Rancho. These Western dances were a huge success. Workin' Man Blues - Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. page 87. . Workin' Man Blues - Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. pages 111,112. .
One group which played at the Venice Pier Ballroom was led by Jimmy Wakely with Spade Cooley, his successor as bandleader, on fiddle. Several thousand dancers would turn out on Saturday nights. L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times. John Gilmore. 2005. Amok Books. Page 313. When Bob Wills played the Los Angeles Country Barn Dance at the Venice Pier for three nights shortly before he broke up his band to join the U.S. Army during World War II, the attendance was above 15,000. Fearing the dance floor would collapse, police stopped ticket sales at 11 p.m. The line outside at that time was ten deep and stretched into Venice. The King of Western Swing - Bob Wills Remembered. Rosetta Wills. 1998. Billboard Books. page 119. . Another source states Wills attracted 8,600 fans. Country Music, U.S.A.: Second Revised Edition. By Bill C. Malone. University of Texas Press. 2002. page 186. ,
In 1950, Hank Penny and Armand Gautier opened the Palomino in North Hollywood, which became a major venue for country fans in Hollywood. "Western jazz" brought it its initial popularity. Workin' Man Blues - Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. page 111. . Western swing bandleader Hank Thompson, who was stationed in San Pedro during World War II, said it was not uncommon to see "ten thousand people at the pier" at Redondo Beach. Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'n' Roll. By Nick Tosches. Da Capo Press. 1996. page 159. ,
Fred "Poppa" Calhoun, piano player for Milton Brown, vividly remembered how people in Texas and Oklahoma danced when Bob Wills played. "They were pretty simple couples dances, two steps and the Lindy Hop with a few Western twirls added for good measure. By 1937 the jitterbug hit big in the West and allowed much greater freedom of movement. But the jitterbug was different in the West. It wasn't all out boogie woogie; it was 'swingier'—more smooth and subdued." The Complete Book of Country Swing & Western Dancing and a Bit about Cowboys Peter Livingston, Boulder Books 1981 page 44
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys remained popular after the war, and could not provide enough new recordings to fill demand. In 1947 Columbia reissued 70 of their older recordings.Townsend, Charles. San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills. University of Illinois Press, 1986. pages 240, 241. In January 1953 Billboard reported Spade Cooley played to 192,000 payees over 52 Saturday night dates at the Santa Monica Ballroom, grossing $220,000. Billboard, January 30, 1954, p. 26
In 1955, Decca Records, in what Billboard called "an ambitious project", issued seven albums of "country dance music" featuring "swingy arrangements of your customers 'c&w' dance favorites". Milton Brown and His Brownies, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Spade Cooley and His Buckle-Busters, Adolph Hofner and His San Antonians, Tex Williams and His String Band, Grady Martin and His Winging Strings, and Billy Gray and His Western Okies all had their own albums. Billboard, October 15, 1955, p. 31. In November, Billboard reported Decca was rushing out three more albums in the series, albeit with less of a Western swing flavor. Billboard, November 5, 1955, p. 17.
Bob Wills and others believed the term Western swing was first used for his music while he and his band were still in Tulsa, Oklahoma between 1939 and 1942.Townsend, Charles R. San Antonio Rose - The Life and Music of Bob Wills (University of Illinois, 1976), p. 203. The Los Angeles-area Wilmington Press carried ads for an unidentified "Western Swing Orchestra" at a local nightspot in April 1942. That winter, influential LA-area jazz and swing disc jockey Al Jarvis held a radio contest for top popular band leaders. The winner would be named "the King of Swing". When Spade Cooley unexpectedly received the most votes, besting favorites Benny Goodman and Harry James, Jarvis declared Cooley to be the King of Western Swing. Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California. Peter La Chapelle. 2007. University of California Press. pages 81, 262. citing an article in National Hillbilly News, 1946.
Around 1942, Cooley's promoter, disc jockey Burt Phillips, began using "Western swing" to advertise his client.Logsdon, "The Cowboy's Bawdy Music," p.137.Komorowski, Spade Cooley, p. 4. By 1944, the term had become solidified. On May 6, 1944, Billboard magazine contained the following: "Spade Cooley, who moved in with his Western swing boys several months ago, has released the Breakfast Club." On June 10, 1944, the same magazine wrote: "...what with the trend to Western music in this section, Cooley's Western swing band is a natural." A more widely-known "first use" was an October 1944 Billboard item mentioning a forthcoming songbook by Cooley titled Western Swing.Lang, Smile When You Call Me a Hillbilly, p. 89. After that, the style became known as Western swing.
In 2011, the Texas Legislature adopted a resolution designating Western swing as the official "State Music of Texas".
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