Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T05:13:50.975Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Australian country music and the hillbilly yodel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Graeme Smith
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Of the seventy-five tracks issued as a historical survey of Australian country performers from 1936 to 1960, sixty-eight feature a yodelling interlude, and in many the yodelling forms the main part of the performance. The importance of this vocal technique in Australian country music, and its persistence till the present day is a striking feature of the genre. Prominent Australian performers such as Wayne Horsborough comment that yodelling before country audiences in the USA produces reactions of amazement, for the technique has been almost totally abandoned by current American performers. Yet because most historical commentary on Australian country music has stressed textual development, the presence of the yodel, a wordless interlude, is often merely noted, even if with an acknowledgement of the skill of performers in this technique. And for those in the present period wishing to promote Australian country music to a broader audience, the yodel tends to be a source of embarrassment. The country music industry today is preoccupied with ‘throwing off the hick image’ and emphasising the broad appeal of the genre, and to many current propagandists for Australian country music yodelling is an aspect of both the history and current state of the music which condemns them to commercial unacceptability. Yet it has remained popular with audiences and a significant number of performers, and recently a telemarketed album of yodelling songs by veteran country performer Mary Schneider sold at Australian platinum levels (Latta, 1991, p. 150). Country music clubs, which form a backbone of committed support for the genre, frequently organise local festivals where talent quests characteristically include yodelling competitions.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , October 1994 , pp. 297 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aitkin, Don. 1988. ‘“Countrymindedness” – The spread of an idea’ in Australian Cultural History, eds. Goldberg, S. L. and Smith, F. B. (Cambridge) pp. 50–7Google Scholar
Barthes, R. 1977. ‘The Grain of the Voice’ in Image-Music-Text (Glasgow)Google Scholar
Beaumann, M. P. 1980. ‘Switzerland. II. Folk Music’ in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Sadie, Stanley (London) vol. 18, pp. 417–23Google Scholar
Brisbane, Katherine. 1991. Entertaining Australia. An Illustrated History (Sydney)Google Scholar
Butenschn, S. and Borchgrevink, H. 1982. Voice and Song (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Coltman, R. 1976. ‘Roots of the country yodel: notes towards a life history’, John Edwards Foundation Quarterly, 42, pp. 91–4Google Scholar
Comber, Chris and Paris, Mike. 1975. ‘Jimmy Rodgers’ in Malone and McCullohGoogle Scholar
Covell, R. 1967. Australia's Music (Melbourne)Google Scholar
Glover, R. 1993. ‘Col of the Wild’ (on Colin Buchanan), Good Weekend, The Age, 17 04 1993, pp. 10–17Google Scholar
Goertzen, Chris. 1988. 'Popular music transfer and transformation: the case of American country music in Vienna; Ethnomusicology, 32, 1:1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, D. 1977. Notes to Country Music South and West, Recorded Anthology of American Music, New World RecordsGoogle Scholar
Keil, C. 1985. 'People's music comparatively: style and stereotype, class and hegemony, Dialectical Anthropology, 10, pp. 119–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latta, David. 1991. Australian Country Music (Sydney)Google Scholar
Leppert, R. and Lipsitz, G. 1990. ‘“Everybody's Lonesome for Somebody”: age, the body and experience in the music of Hank Williams’, Popular Music, vol. 9/3, pp. 259–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lester, Libby. 1991. ‘The king of country music’, Sunday Age ‘Agenda’, 21 01, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar
Lyons, Martyn and Taska, Lucy. 1992. Australian Readers Remember. An Oral History of Reading 1890–1930 (Melbourne)Google Scholar
Malone, Bill. 1975. Country Music USA (Austin)Google Scholar
Malone, Bill and McCulloh, Judith. 1975. Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriguez (Urbana)Google Scholar
Nathan, Hans. 1946. ‘The Tyrolese family Rainer' and the vogue of singing mountain-troupes in Europe and America’, Musical Quarterly, vol. 32, 1, pp. 63–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, T. 1975. ‘Notes on the historical application of Marxist cultural theory’, Science and Society, 39, pp. 257–91Google Scholar
Saunders, Frederick A. 1977. ‘Physics and Music’ in The Physics of Music, ed. Hutchins, Carleen Maley (San Francisco)Google Scholar
Shepherd, J. 1987. ‘Music and male hegemony’ in Music and Society: The Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception, eds Leppert, R. and McClary, S. (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Smith, Andrew. 1990. ‘Buddy Williams’ in Capital News, vol. 15, No. 11, pp. 18–19Google Scholar
Smith, G. 1992. ‘The Country Voice’, Arena Magazine, 1, pp. 38–40Google Scholar
Sundberg, Johan. 1977. ‘The acoustics of the singing voice’ in The Physics of Music, ed. Hutchins, Carleen Maley (San Francisco)Google Scholar
Watson, Eric. 1975. Country Music in Australia (Kensington)Google Scholar
Watson, Eric. 1987. ‘Country music, the voice of rural Australia’ in Missing in Action, ed Breen, M. (Kensington)Google Scholar
Watson, Eric. 1983. Country Music in Australia Volume 2 (Sydney)Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. 1965. The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth)Google Scholar
Wiora, W. 1958. Jodeln' in Die Musik in Geshichte und Gegenwart, vol. 7, pp. 73–9 (Basel)Google Scholar