Western / Cowboy / Ranch Country
This family covers the cowboy-and-Southwest side of country music: songs of the open range, cattle drives, deserts, mesas, and trail life, set apart from the rural Southeastern "hillbilly" tradition that became Nashville country. The sound favors clean, ringing acoustic and Spanish-style guitars, fiddle, accordion and steel, gentle gallop or waltz tempos, and yodels, falsetto breaks, and tight three- and four-part close harmony evoking wide-open spaces. Moods run from lonesome and elegiac to sprightly and heroic, with Mexican/Tejano color in the form of bolero rhythms, trumpet flourishes, and minor-key border melodies. Storytelling is central, whether it's a campfire ballad, a singing-cowboy movie tune, or a rodeo anthem.
History
The Western family crystallized in the 1930s when Hollywood paired the romance of the vanishing frontier with country and folk music, creating the "singing cowboy" through stars like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and vocal groups like the Sons of the Pioneers. It drew on older cowboy folk songs collected by John Lomax (1910's "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads"), Mexican and Tejano music of the Southwest, and the parlor-ballad tradition, fusing them into a clean, romantic, radio- and screen-ready style. By the late 1930s "country and western" had become the umbrella industry term, and the music split between commercial Hollywood cowboy fare and grittier ranch and rodeo songs.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Bill C. Malle, "Country Music, U.S.A."
- Douglas B. Green, "Singing in the Saddle: The History of the Singing Cowboy"
- Western Music Association archives
- John A. Lomax, "Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads"