The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum - The encyclopedia of country music : the ultimate guide to the music

THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
COUNTRY MUSIC

SECOND EDITION

Edited by PAUL KINGSBURY, MICHAEL McCALL,
and JOHN W. RUMBLE

with the assistance of Michael Gray and Jay Orr

FIRST EDITION

Edited by PAUL KINGSBURY

with the assistance of Daniel Cooper, Laura Garrard, and John W. Rumble

THE
ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
COUNTRY MUSIC
SECOND EDITION

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO THE MUSIC

COMPILED BY THE STAFF OF THE

COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford Universitys objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.

Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

Copyright 2012 Country Music Foundation, Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
www.oup.com

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The encyclopedia of country music: the ultimate guide to the music/compiled by the staff of the
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum; edited by Paul Kingsbury, Michael McCall, and John W. Rumble
with the assistance of Michael Gray and Jay Orr.2nd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-539563-1
1. Country musicEncyclopedias. I. Kingsbury, Paul. II. McCall, Michael. III. Rumble, John Woodruff.
IV. Gray, Michael. V. Orr, Jay. VI. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (Nashville, Tenn.)
ML102.C7E54 2012
781.64203dc22
2010045104

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

Color section follows page

For me, country music has always been connected to family. I remember falling in love with music as my grandmother played the piano and my mother blew on the harmonica. I remember tagging along with my father to local hoedowns. I remember my older brother helping me learn my first chords on the guitar. I cherish those memories like I cherish my family photo albums.

Since moving to Nashville, I have looked at the country music community as family, too. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is the keeper of that family history. The museums vast collection, the largest and finest of its kind, is like a big family album for those of us who love country music.

That is why the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is so important to me. In country music, as in many things, its crucial that we comprehend and hold onto what preceded us. We must collect, study, and cherish the music and musicians of the past, not just because they brought us to where we are now, but because their triumphs and trials tell an amazing American story. We need to know about their lives as much as we need to know their music. Every item the museum collectsevery instrument, every article of clothing, every book, every film and video, every interview, every note of musichelps make that story clearer and more real to us.

But the museums mission isnt just to collect; it also is to study, to translate, to exhibitand to publish. The beautiful museum in downtown Nashville is only one way this great institution shares its collective knowledge with the public. This grand book is yet another important way that information reaches fans and researchers worldwide.

Ive always considered the Encyclopedia of Country Music as the greatest of family albums. Here are the most important careers and stories, through the ages, and all together, complete with photos and well-researched details that compile the facts and statistics while adding context and perspective.

Im proud to say this fine, immense book has been updated with a second edition. It brings the story of my country music family forward another generation.

VINCE GILL

The first edition of this work, published by Oxford University Press in 1998, was compiled by the staff of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and edited by Paul Kingsbury, with the assistance of Daniel Cooper, Laura Garrard, and John W. Rumble. This revised and updated edition builds on that pioneering effort. As Kingsbury noted in his introduction to the original edition, performers, broadcasters, record companies, and journalists have been debating what to call country music and how to define it ever since the music emerged as a commercial form in the 1920s. Because our diverse society has engendered many different kinds of music and because musicians typically borrow from each other, there have never been rigid boundaries among American musical styles, and performers have delighted in crossing these porous borders. Still, the advantage of hindsight brings countrys evolution into focus.

After World War I, an economic depression led recording executives to seek new markets outside the realms of Tin Pan Alley pop tunes, John Philip Sousa marches, and operatic performances by the likes of Enrico Caruso. The advent of commercial radio broadcasting in 1920 gave this quest new urgency; after all, why pay for recordings when one could buy a radio set and be entertained for free? As a result, record companies began developing two overlapping streams of American vernacular music: blues and jazz, on the one hand, and what would come to be called country music on the other.

Although black and white musicians alike embraced these traditions and sometimes performed together, record catalogs often listed jazz and blues artists under the heading Race Music, and record labels typically marketed black performers to African American audiences. Likewise, labels aimed recordings by white rural fiddlers, stringbands, ballad singers, and sacred quartets at white consumers. Pioneering artists of both races drew on many sources: fiddle tunes and folk songs brought from the British Isles and handed down through generations; American story songs recounting murders, train wrecks, and natural disasters; Tin Pan Alley songs penned for touring vaudeville performers and minstrel troupes and spread into the hinterlands by medicine shows and tent shows; African American folk music and the commercial styles it inspired, including blues, ragtime, and jazz; and gospel music disseminated through itinerant singing school teachers and traveling quartets sponsored by hymnal publishers. Much of this music was absorbed into rural folk tradition, especially in the South.