Get in touch!

During the first half of the 1900’s, Country music grew from a small group of naïve country musicians who shared their love of the old songs and the old ways with a country that was coming of age.  As even now, the players that created the music Americans loved came from colorful backgrounds, and gave all they had to the music.  Along the way, some of them gave too much – guys like Hank Williams who died so young and lived such a hard life – come to mind.  The stories they told and created and shared left deep impressions in the hearts of the country – almost like the wagon wheel ruts you can still see in some places out along the prairie.  At the same time, they forged a trail for newer sounds, first Honky Tonk, then Nashville that cleared a path for what was soon coming behind them – like Rockabilly and Rock and Roll.  By the early 1950’s, you began to hear the first chords ringing out. 

Tracks and Interviews In This Episode

• Can the Circle Be Unbroken - The Carter Family
• Wildwood Flower - The Carter Family
• Sitting On Top of the World - The Mississippi Sheiks
• Wabash Cannonball - Roy Acuff and His Smoky Mountain Boys
• Walking the Floor Over You - Ernest Tubb
• When Ernest Tubb Wrote Walking the Floor Over You - from A Celebration of Ernest Tubb
• (See the American Song Facebook page for the link to the full symposium)
• Hello Walls - Faron Young
• Jole Blon - Harry Choates
• Hank and Audrey Williams Radio Interview with Bob McKinnon; 1950
• I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams
• Jambalaya (On the Bayou) - Hank Williams
• If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time - Lefty Frizzell
• Single Girl, Married Girl - The Carter Family
• My Big Iron Skillet - Wanda Jackson
• Stand By Your Man - Tammy Wynette
• Kiss An Angel Good Morning -   Charlie Pride
• How Charlie Broke Country's Color Barrier; Interview with Dan Rather
• God Bless the U.S.A. - Al Greenwood
• A Soldier's Last Letter - Ernest Tubb
• There's a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere - Elton Britt
• Atom Bomb Baby - Five Star
• Marty Robbins - El Paso
• The Jordanaire's Remember Recording with Patsy Cline - Interview
• She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain - The Skillet Lickers
• Crazy - Patsy Cline
• Root Hog or Die - June Carter Cash
• Cowboy, Harry Stephens, Talks About Writing "The Night Herding Song" - Library of Congress recording
• Tumbling Tumbleweeds - Sons of the Pioneers
• When the Work's All Done This Fall - Roy Rogers
• Blue Shadows on the Trail - Roy Rogers
• I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart - Patsy Montana
• Man of Constant Sorrows - Soggy Bottom Boys

Visit Our Facebook Page

If you're enjoying our podcast episodes, you'd probably love our Facebook page!
There, you'll find links to all our research, and many of the interviews we access for our content.    

Join our community and continue your journey through American Song: Visit us on Facebook.

There, you'll get more information, video content, and more about the music and personalities covered in all our episodes.