Western and Western Swing

During the 1930s and 1940s motion pictures about cowboys and the American West popularized the style known as Western music. Western music grew out of a 19th-century tradition of cowboy songs and string bands that was particularly strong in Texas and Oklahoma. Western music frequently features improvisation and a broad range of instruments, including wind instruments. The lyrics center on life on the Western frontier, especially the often romanticized life of the cowboy. Exemplars of the style include the singing cowboys Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, who acted and sang in Western movies of the 1930s and 1940s.

A variation on traditional Western music called Western swing developed in Texas and Oklahoma in the early 1930s. Western swing was a country version of the big-band jazz music popular during the 1930s and 1940s, a period known as the swing era. Western swing bands combined the string band with instruments used in jazz and blues, including the saxophone and trumpet.

Rockabilly

The economic boom that followed World War II (1939-1945) expanded the opportunities for the entertainment industry, including country music performances and recordings. Radio exposed a wider audience to country music while new, relatively inexpensive recording technology made records available at affordable prices. These forces helped create demand for country recordings in greater diversity and quantity than ever before.

One of the most successful responses to this new urban demand for country music was the style called rockabilly. An early form of rock and roll, rockabilly was a mid-1950s fusion of white hillbilly music and black rhythm-and-blues music (R&B). Generally played at faster tempos than other country styles, rockabilly often features a stand up bass, as well as an electric guitar played with a noticeable twang. Rockabilly was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s by such artists as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and the Everly Brothers.