Guitars, Cadillacs, and Hillbilly Music...

Okay, I'm really going to emphasize the latter of the title.  To continue on the hillbilly theme from the Ballad of Jed Clampett, I wanted to also dig a little on hillbilly music.  Really, hillbilly music was called the same thing as mountain music or country music at one point in time, which was later even labeled bluegrass music.  It had rural values incorporated into the songs and also folk values.    I think for my listening assignment tomorrow I will show readers some true hillbillies that I know from the Ozarks of Missouri.  They are called the Homestead Pickers and they play daily in Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri.  I believe their name comes from the fact that they have always played in an old homesteader cabin recreated in Silver Dollar City.  But now they like to joke about their band’s name coming from their age as they have been playing together for over 30 years.  Anyway, I can’t give away too much about them as I will be talking about them again tomorrow.  In the meantime, I will talk about the hillbilly music and not just hillbillies.


These old fiddle tunes were associated with the southern Appalachian region.  As mentioned in class, the banjo was invented in the United States, which gave a whole new rise to mountain/hillbilly/country music.  The acceptance of traditional folk music was necessary to accept hillbilly music, as the traditional music came with settlers and slowly developed into mountain/country music.  “The fiddle tunes were a direct link with the European continent and cultures, which the settlers had departed from” ([1]). The fiddle was the lone instrument often played in America, brought over in the late 17^th century from Europe, replacing the harp, hornpipe, and tabor (a type of hand drum played at the same time as the pipe) at rural dances.  Scottish, British, and Irish tunes were played and other European songs.  Thomas Jefferson was even a noted fiddler and composer, himself (Ryan Bernard).

In the 1800s the banjo was incorporated into the southern Appalachian culture.  Although invented in America, the idea was influenced by similar African instruments.  The first model introduced by slaves was made of a gourd with 4 strings made of gut or vine.  It was an imperative instrument to the development and advancement in this type of music and the gourd was soon replaced by wood and a 5^th string was added. 

Story time! Believe it or not, I’ve tried playing with gut strings on the fiddle I have right now.  I my parents bought it for me at an antique shop in Nebraska after both of the fiddles given to my father by my great uncle had broken; my great uncle used to play the fiddle for dances all the time.  I am very glad he gave them to my dad because it encouraged my start on the fiddle.  But anyway, one broke while I was playing on it, and the other gradually pulled itself apart over time in its case.  My dad was unsuccessful in trying to glue it all back together, the wood clamps only slipped off the curved wood.  But back to the fiddle I have now, it came with cat-gut strings on it, and they would quickly stretch and go out of tune while I played them.  This lasted a very short moment before I restrung it with metal strings.  I supposed back in the day those strings were new, they probably didn’t stretch out so easily.

[2]

So back to the banjo, the addition of the 5^th string completely altered the way it was played and changed it from an African instrument to an American folk instrument ([2]).  It’s popularity increased before the Civil War from use in minstrel shows.  The banjo and fiddle became inseparable in traditional music and minstrel shows.   The Civil War was a cultural shock to many and secular music was accepted by some and rejected by others at first who were used to mostly religious or gospel songs.  But vaudeville shows incorporated the humorous secular music and it became much more popular.  Railroads and the industrialization of the south furthered the communication of “hillbilly” music. 

In 1900, the term hillbilly was printed in the New York Journal as “Hill-Billie” meaning a “free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, whil lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him” (Archie Green).  That biased stereotype being said, you get a better view of early Northern Americans toward “hillbillies” and their music.  But in the 1920s, there was a radio station set up solely for hillbilly music, called WLS based out of Chicago.  It encouraged rural southern values and traditions at the same time.  Other hillbilly music was advertised by the broadcasting of barn dance songs over the radio.  With the creation of recording industries, media was supplied for the already existing style of music, and that is when it was actually labeled hillbilly music.  The musicians were then called hillbillies, no matter what their actual appearance, attitude, or upbringing was.  Hillbilly music of course changed constantly, just any other type of music.  In time it was used to identify folk, rural, country, western, bluegrass, mountain, hill and range, and Dixie tunes.  None of these forms could have developed without the existing diversity in America (Ryan Bernard).  String bands played hillbilly music, involving any acoustic instrument available at the time.  A typical hillbilly group today would, in my opinion, use a fiddle, banjo, and guitar.  If there are enough people, then a string base would be added.  From there, the larger group size can pretty much use their imagination with stringed instruments, including even the hammered dulcimer which I can show you tomorrow. 

One of the most famous hillbilly musicians on radio, phonograph, and stage was “Uncle” Dave Macon, born in Tennessee about 60 miles from Nashville.  He was the son of a former officer in the Confederate army and his parents ran the Broadway Hotel in Nashville where he grew to love music.  At age 15 he got is first banjo (1885).  He didn’t hesitate to reveal having learned his tunes from the “darkies”, and African American music made a clear impact on hillbilly music not only with Macon but with other artists of the era.  The Opry show on the radio (later the Grand Ole Opry) portrayed its musicians such as Uncle Dave Macon as characters similar to Davy Crockett. This helped him and other hillbilly musicians to become more popular and the listening numbers to the Opry became even larger. He partnered up with Sid Harkreader and they recorded with Brunswick-Vocalion Records and that record had the first song with “hillbilly” in it, called Hillbillie Blues, along with similar songs such as Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy.  I only mention that song just because of the humor I see in it and its connection with the band we mentioned in class – Uncle Dave Macon and His Skillet Lickers (Ryan Bernard).  This is all I care to cover right now on hillbilly music, as its advancement in history blurs so much with blues, country, bluegrass, and anything remotely the same as anyone in our Jazz 424 class has found out.

Sources:

Archie Green, “Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol,” The Journal of American Folklore, 78

(1965): 204. 

Ryan Bernard, "A Rise and Fall of the Hillbilly Music: A History 1922 - 1930," Master's Thesis (2006).