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Tyler Mahan Coe has a thing about county & western being "whatever poor white people from the south listen to" and rhythm & blues being "whatever poor black people from the south listen to" (referring to that late 40s/early 50s period) and I think he's at least partially right, the genres were named after the billboard charts which were set up under these names
― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:40 (one year ago) link
western swing is funny, it's seems to really polarize folks.
it's got the trappings (cowboy hats! steel guitar!) and lineage (the light crust dough boys recordings for vocalion in the 1930s are much more traditional country/folk music.) but i definitely agree that the actual music most people think of as prime western swing is hugely jazz music. people liked to do the popular dances, which i guess at that time meant the rise of swing music? again, not an expert on this area.
― ian, Tuesday, March 14, 2023 5:10 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
Being on a massive bluegrass, flatpicking, and fiddle music kick for the last year, I recently learned that there's a specific style of "Texas" fiddle accompaniment on guitar that is basically just jazz chords. Apparently if you went to a fiddle competition in Texas as opposed to NC or Tenn or Kentucky or wherever you would typically hear this noticeably jazzier accompaniment style.
Bill Monroe's first great fiddle player, Tex Logan, actually started as a western swing player who initially disdained bluegrass, which to me sort of implies that Western Swing was seen as more sophisticated or something.
I'm kind of fascinated by these jazzy, semi-forgotten genres and would love to learn more about how they came to be.
An example where you can hear some of that "texas-style" accompaniment. The heavy presence of rags in bluegrass music is also interesting in itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYWqfYeFXCw