Music City Barn Dance
“Momma! Daddy! It’s time for the Grand Ole Opry!” In the early twenties, during the Great Depression, it was a time when the family would gather around the radio to listen to music of all types. It was a small piece of happiness brought into the lives of people who were living thru hard times. There was gospel music, rock and roll, jazz, and yes, country music being played on a simple radio.
Let's go back to the beginning. It all started on November 28, 1925, on the fifth floor of the National Life & Accident Insurance Building. The room was Studio A. WSM Radio was created for advertising promotions, but also played music. In the interest of trying something new, WSM Barn Dance began with the first live performer, a fiddler by the name of "Uncle" Jimmy Thompson. It was something that was known to the Southerners as honky tonk or western music. As more people started listening to this style of music, it became known as country music. In this small studio in Nashville, Tennessee, music of all kinds was being broadcast to a world which was fighting a war and coming out of a depression.
People began crowding into the studio to watch the Barn Dance. The live audiences grew so large, that within two years they moved to a larger Studio B. In an attempt to deter the audience sizes, the Opry started charging twenty-five cents, which following the depression they felt many would not pay that price. Yet the desire for the music was so great, people paid the price and audiences grew.
The type of music playing each evening before the Barn Dance was opera from New York. In an accidental comment one evening, George D. Hay stated, "For the last hour you’ve been hearing music taken largely fro...
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...ther to rebuild the damaged portions of the Opry, to make sure that music would once again return.
The influences of long ago have come and gone from the radio air waves, but the extreme driving force of the country music industry, WSM Radio and the Grand Ole Opry turned a small town into a big city, nicknamed "Music City". Today, seventy-five plus years later, the Opry still broadcasts to listeners on the same radio station.
Although the Opry is best known for its country music, its history has provided honky tonk, gospel, comedy and rock 'n' roll. Audiences have listened to the music thru wars and depression. Floods have brought support from the world all over. The desire for music flourished from the beginning of the Grand Ole Opry. The Grand Ole Opry may be the most influential and inspirational program in the history of American music (Jessen, Wade).
I have listened to country music since I was a little, as did my husband. For him, it's a reminder of a simpler time, helping his father farm, plowing fields into the night. For me, it's a reminiscence of sunning myself in my backyard over summer vacation. The twangy sounds of the guitars and the fiddles always seemed to make me feel at home. For me, country music is a way of life, therefore the reasons I will use in an attempt to persuade you that country music is better than other music include its deep history in America, the quality and content of the music and its relatability.
The Grand Ole Opry began shortly after National Life and Accident Insurance Company Vice President Edwin Craig launched WSM radio on October 5, 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee. In those early days, however, The Grand Ole Opry went by a much different name. Known as the WSM Barn Dance, the radio program was named after National Life and Accident Insurance Company's slogan, “We Shield Millions” (Escott 4; Hagan 5).
Ragtime started its wide spread after the abolition of slavery in 1865 and during the times of segregation. During those times African Americans did not have access to most employment opportunities and were mostly able to find work in entertainment. “Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows, and in vaudeville, during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs and brothels, as ragtime
It was a great time of despair for the Native American people as the defeat of their nations by the ever westward expanding United States and subsequent placement onto reservations disrupted their culture and way of life as it had existed for hundreds of years. The decade leading up to 1890, which was a main focal point in the history of Native Americans, saw the passing of the 1887 Dawes Severalty Act which called for the breaking up of reservations and offering the Indians an opportunity to become citizens and giving them an allotment of land to farm or graze livestock on (Murrin 628). This breaking up of the different tribes’ social structure was just one of the many causes which led to the spiritual movement known as the Ghost Dance (or Lakota Ghost Dance) that swept across what remained of the Native American people in their various reservations. Other reasons for the Indian’s dysphoria at this time in their history included: lack of hunting, decease of the buffalo, forced abandonment of their religion, nearly forced conversion to Christianity, westernization, and having to farm for the very first time.
People were imagining and seeking a way out of the chaos. From this, came the singing cowboy idea into Hillbilly music. Fans adored the idea of the singing cowboy: the free feeling, being one’s own boss, no worries, and the vast country-side absent from the rest of the chaotic world. People saw that these cowboy artists had beautiful women, loved singing, played the guitar and were quickly becoming famous. The cowboy/western trend quickly spread across Hillbilly music. In Nashville, the industrial center for Southern music, the Grand Ole Opry was formed. The Opry’s vast broadcasting helped to disperse Hillbilly music to the nation. It stands as a monument to the original upbringing and tradition of country music still today. The Opry began using this cowboy/western trend to show fans that Hillbilly music was about the working-class family. They used hay bells, overalls, flannel clothing and boots in most of the performances. This gave fans, still mostly Southerners, a sense of pride and acceptance of who they were and what they stood for in society. They no longer had to feel any less than their Northern brothers and sisters. The Southern, lower-class people took on the role of certain pastimes and traditions that would last throughout American
-By 1939, the Grand Ole Opry had become the most popular and important music show on the radio.
For many Americans, country isn’t just a type of music. It’s a lifestyle. From sippin’ sweet tea on the porch, drinking beer at a tailgate or driving a pick up down the backroads, country music has made its way into the hearts and minds of many Americans. It is one of the only truly home grown American art forms. Its relatability and wide appeal has made country music one of the most commercially successful and popular genres in the United States. Using the work of scholars Tichi, Pecknold, and Ellison, I will show how country music grew from its rural southern roots into an integral part of American culture.
According to The Nashville Sound, markers that include “rural origins, stylized sets, seemingly spontaneous performance, accessible performers, and heartfelt songs can characterize country music’s authenticity” (13). The foundations of what country music has originated from are incorporated within these markers and are used to separate the real from the fake. Early country music was a means of coping with a life of work and worries; it also brought communities of the impoverished together in fellowship. The establishment of these markers glimpses into the culture and realities of many country music artists before their fame. Take for instance a family sitting huddled together on a porch on a cool summer evening listening to a family member play the banjo while another sings along. Everyone is enjoying and living in that moment and all worries are far from mind. Country music made people feel at ease and comfortable, it brought people back to their memories of the good old days. This is the way country music sh...
Folk Music is History in song: Tells about daily life. Tells about special events - often tragedies, themes of romance, battle, adventure, and history. Purpose of folk music: Entertainment, recreation, socializing, dancing, games. Teaching, make work go faster, religious. Tells a story (ballads). Origins of Appalachian people: Ireland Scotland England Ireland &n Music influenced by folk and mountain music: Country Bluegrass Modern folk music &nb Musical instruments used (folk instruments): Dulcimer, fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, autoharp, mouth bow, washtub bass.
Country music was brought over by the first European settlers. In medieval times, storytelling was a tradition that allowed history to be recorded when few were able to read and write. When the first British settlers came to America, they brought this tradition with them, along with songs that they had learned in Europe. The people who settled the Appalachian Mountains and the West did not have an easy life and their music gave them an outlet to express their hardships.
Back in the day, music is not readily available online at the tip of your fingertips. Fifty years ago, you would listen to the radio and that’s how you knew what records to buy. Radio stations in large music cities such as Los Angeles, New York or Nashville normally set the standard for the most popular music. New music emerges in their city, than gets released on their local radio stations, and the music becomes a smash hit. This is not the case for the small town radio station of CKLW in Windsor, Ontario. As television was drastically changing the radio industry, CKLW had to change to keep up. This change is what resulted into CKLW- The Big 8, a radio station that created new standards of radio hosting as well as rock and roll music. CKLW influenced not only music throughout North America but the entire music industry such as Bill Drake's "Boss Radio” technique, and how this station influenced its home city of Windsor, Ontario. CKLW evolved from a small city radio station to become “The Big 8” a huge nationwide music icon that was responsible for not only changing the music industry but changing the face of radio forever.
Today, CKLW is a news and information station for the Windsor-Essex community. Now in Windsor, Detroit radio dominates once again. Now, 68% of Windsorites listen to Detroit radio stations. The Big 8 still had a tremendous influence in shaping the face of radio, in creating megahits in music industry, and held a huge community presence in its hometown of Windsor, Ontario. CKLW was a small town radio station that became one of the biggest radio sensations of the 1960’s and1970’s. The Big 8 developed into an icon for not only music and radio; but, also brought out the music fanatic in everyone.
The 1920's brought many advancements in technology which allowed Americans to entertain themselves at home; the radio was one of them. The radio was actually developed before the 1920's; however, it was banned during World War I and allowed to reappear after the Prohibition ended in 1919 (Events 72). After the Prohibition ended, and radio broadcasting was being brought back to life, many people started up their first stations, like Frank Conrad (Events 72). Frank Conrad's first broadcast consisted of the Presidential Election results (Events 72). As Conrad was one of the first people to broadcast, KDKA was one of the first radio stations to appear in the Unite...
Music is an important aspect of every society. Music can tell stories, release emotions, build bridges and break down barriers, but above all, music is entertaining. There are various forms of music, but not many have as rich a history as gospel music. The importance of gospel music has been relevant in American music for more than a century, and its importance to society is still relevant to this day (See Appendix A). Gospel music helped slaves escape to freedom and paved the way for other styles of music.
Urban Music, also commonly referred to as Urban Contemporary Music, is an aggregate of musical genres that developed in the 1970s in the United States as a form of music radio programming. The programming category gained particular traction in the 1980s and 1990s as an alternative to both Afro-American orientated stations that featured hard soul, funk, hiphop and rap material and to mainstream, white-orientated popular music radio programming, which only featured a small number of Afro-American acts, many of whom had gained mainstream acceptance through exposure on the music video channel MTV. DJ Frankie Crocker is commonly regarded to have pioneered the approach through his work as music programmer for Manhattan-based radio station WLIB-FM, which commenced broadcasting in 1974. His early programming combined established R&B material with the burgeoning style of Disco and later went on to include elements of rap, hip hop and reggae, both in general programming and niche slots. This approach proved highly successful with radio audiences and was ...