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Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. They brought some of their most important valuables with them, and to most of them this was an instrument: “Early Scottish settlers enjoyed the fiddle because it could be played to sound sad and mournful or bright and bouncy”. The Irish fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the European double bass and accordion, the Spanish guitar and the West African banjo were the most common musical instruments. The interactions among musicians from different ethnic groups produced music unique to this region of North America. Appalachian string bands of the early 20th century primarily consisted of the fiddle, guitar, and banjo. This early country music along with early recorded country music is often referred to as old-time music. This is where our story about Country music begins and where the TCMA proposes to inaugurate.

All along the Appalachian Mountain range , folk music was a combination of cultural strains, combining musical traditions of a variety of ethnic groups in that region. For example, some instrumental pieces from Anglo-British and Irish immigrants were the basis of folk songs and ballads that form what is now known as old time music, from which country music descended. It is commonly accepted that British and Irish folk music influenced the development of old time music. British and Irish arrivals to the Southern U.S. included immigrants from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England. Often, when many people think of or hear country music, they think of it as a creation of European-Americans. However, a great deal of style—and of course, the banjo, a major instrument in most early American folk songs—came from African Americans. One of the reasons country music was created by African-Americans, as well as European-Americans, is because blacks and whites in rural communities in the south often worked and played together. Throughout the 19th century, several immigrant groups from Europe, most notably from Ireland, Germany, Spain, and Italy moved to Texas. These groups interacted with Mexican

and Native American, and U.S. communities that were already established in Texas. As a result of this cohabitation and extended contact, Texas had developed unique cultural traits that are rooted in the culture of all of its founding communities. During that era, the music being played in that part of America was also known as old time music or Western.

Local performers from Atlanta and Fort Worth were being played on radio stations in 1922. Along with local performers, barn-dance programs became popular among radio stations as well. The first commercial recording of what was considered country music was "Sallie Gooden" by fiddlist A.C. (Eck) Robertson in 1922 for Victor Records. Columbia Records began issuing records with "hillbilly" music (series 15000D "Old Familiar Tunes") as early as 1924. A year earlier on June 14, 1923, Fiddlin' John Carson recorded "Little Log Cabin in the Lane" for Okeh Records. Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have a nationwide hit in May 1924 with "Wreck of the Old '97". In April 1924, "Aunt" Samantha Bumgarner and Eva Davis became the first female musicians to record and release country songs.

Many "hillbilly" musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the decade and into the 30s. Other important early recording artists were Riley Puckett, Don Richardson, Fiddlin' John Carson, Uncle Dave Macon, Al Hopkins, Ernest V. Stoneman, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers and The Skillet Lickers. The steel guitar entered country music as early as 1922, when Jimmie Tarlton met famed Hawaiian guitarist Frank Ferera on the West Coast.

Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family are widely considered to be important early country musicians. Their songs were first captured at a historic recording session in Bristol on August 1, 1927. Rodgers fused hillbilly country, gospel, jazz, blues, cowboy, and folk; and many of his best songs were his compositions, including “Blue Yodel”, which sold over a million records and established Rodgers as the premier singer of early country music.

Beginning in 1927, and for the next 17 years the Carters recorded some 300 old-time ballads, traditional tunes, country songs and Gospel hymns, all representative of America's southeastern folklore and heritage.

One effect of the Great Depression was to make Radio, and broadcasting a popular source of entertainment, and "barn dance" shows featuring country music were started all over the South, as far north as Chicago, and as far west as California. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM-AM in Nashville to the present day. Some of the early stars on the Opry were Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff and African American harmonica player DeFord Bailey.

In 1935, Western swing big band leader Bob Wills had added drums to his band, the Texas Playboys. Country musicians began recording a hillbilly boogie style in 1939. By the end of World War II, "mountaineer" string band music known as bluegrass had emerged when Bill Monroe joined with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, introduced by Roy Acuff at the Grand Ole Opry. Another type of stripped down and raw Country music with a variety of moods and a basic ensemble of guitar, bass, dobro or steel guitar (and later) drums became popular, especially among poor white southerners. It became known as honky tonk and had its roots in Texas. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, and honky tonk was played by most country bands. Rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Rockabilly was a mixture of rock-and-roll and hillbilly music. During this period Elvis Presley converted over to country music.
The late 1950s saw the emergence of the Lubbock sound, but by the end of the decade, backlash as well as traditional artists such as Ray Price, Marty Robbins, and Johnny Horton began to shift the industry away from the rock n' roll influences of the mid-50s. Beginning in the mid 1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the Nashville sound turned country music into a multimillion-dollar industry centered in Nashville, Tennessee. Under the direction of producers such as Chet Atkins, Owen Bradley, and later Billy Sherrill, the sound brought country music to a diverse audience and helped revive country as it emerged from a commercially fallow period. Another genre of country music grew out of hardcore honky tonk with elements of Western swing and originated 112 miles (180 km) north-northwest of Los Angeles in Bakersfield, California. Derived from the traditional and honky tonk sounds of the late 1950s and 1960s, including Ray Price (whose band, the "Cherokee Cowboys", included Willie Nelson and Roger Miller) and mixed with the anger of an alienated subculture of the nation during the period, outlaw country revolutionized the genre of country music.
During the mid-1980s, a group of new artists began to emerge who rejected the more polished country-pop sound that had been prominent on radio and the charts, in favor of more, traditional, "back-to-basics" production. Led by Randy Travis, whose 1986 debut album Storms of Life, sold four million copies and was Billboard's year-end top country album of 1987, many of the artists during the latter half of the '80s drew on traditional honky tonk, bluegrass, folk and western swing. Artists who typified this sound included Travis Tritt, Ricky Skaggs, Kathy Mattea, George Strait and The Judds.

In the mid 1990s, country and western music was influenced by the popularity of line dancing. This influence was so great that Chet Atkins was quoted as saying "The music has gotten pretty bad, I think. It's all that damn line dancing." By the end of the decade, however, at least one line dance choreographer complained that good country line dance music was no longer being released.

Then began the era when the music executives gradually began eliminating Country music as we knew it for the New country music sound, that was clearly not unlike the current Pop and Rock sound of the day. This extermination of Country music has created an ever increasing movement demanding for the return of “real” Traditional Country music and a forum for recognition plus a platform for promotion.

The TCMA proposes to fill that void by restoring “real” Country music to its appropriate stature and place in the world that it created.

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TCMA
Member since:
Apr 26 2011
Active over 1 month ago
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http://www.tcma.us.com/

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