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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that belts out the greatest hits of history

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Speaker 1: one day at a time. I'm Gay Bluesier and in

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Speaker 1: this episode, we're looking at the country music genres long

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Speaker 1: road to respectability, including the role that music journalism played

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Speaker 1: and shaping how it was viewed and what it was

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Speaker 1: called by the public. The day was March nineteen thirty nine,

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Speaker 1: Billboard magazine began publishing its first country music chart under

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Speaker 1: the title Hillbilly Hits. The chart appeared semi regularly, about

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Speaker 1: once a month until early two At that point, the

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Speaker 1: budding country genre disappeared from the weekly magazine's pages for

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Speaker 1: nearly two years, and didn't emerge again with its own

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Speaker 1: chart until January of nineteen forty four. The term hillbilly

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Speaker 1: can be traced as far back as the early eighteen nineties.

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Speaker 1: It first came into use as a derogatory word for

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Speaker 1: someone from the mountainous regions of the American South, namely

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Speaker 1: the Ozarks and Appalachia. The word had rude connotations from

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Speaker 1: the start, and was generally used to describe a Southerner

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Speaker 1: who was poor, uneducated, and prone to acts of drunken violence.

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Speaker 1: It first came to prominence following the famous feud between

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Speaker 1: the hat Fields and the McCoy's, a pair of rural

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Speaker 1: mountaineer families who waged an unrelenting war with one another

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Speaker 1: for nearly thirty years. That feud received a lot of

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Speaker 1: attention in the press, contributing to the nation's negative view

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Speaker 1: of Appalachian residents. That hillbilly stigma would continue for decades,

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Speaker 1: but the nineteen twenties, the first recordings of Appalachian music

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Speaker 1: finally showed there was more to the region than just

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Speaker 1: moonshine and family feuds. The first European settlers in Appalachia

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Speaker 1: arrived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most were immigrants

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Speaker 1: from the British Isles, particularly from the Scottish Lowlands. They

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Speaker 1: brought with them the traditional music of their native lands,

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Speaker 1: including English and Scottish ballads, hymns, and fiddle music. Because

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Speaker 1: they lived in such remote regions, Appalachian musicians often had

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Speaker 1: to improvise by playing washboards, homemade banjo's, whatever was lying around,

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Speaker 1: even an empty jug. As time went on, the settlers

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Speaker 1: began writing new songs that better reflected their own lives

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Speaker 1: in North America. Aside from its Scottish influences, this new

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Speaker 1: style of music also borrowed from the blues of early

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Speaker 1: African Americans who lived in the Deep South. There was

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Speaker 1: halting sound was something altogether different, and thanks to the

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Speaker 1: advent of radio in the early nineteen twenties, people outside

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Speaker 1: of those isolated communities could finally hear it too. In

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Speaker 1: the early days of radio broadcasting, stations were always in

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Speaker 1: need of new music to play on the air, and

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Speaker 1: in order to attract the broadest range of listeners and

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Speaker 1: therefore the most advertising dollars, they often turned to unusual

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Speaker 1: and unexpected sources for content. So called hillbilly music was

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Speaker 1: one of their most unique finds, and it proved to

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Speaker 1: be a big hit with listeners in large Southern cities

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Speaker 1: like Nashville, and even in the Midwest in places like Chicago.

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Speaker 1: By the mid nineteen twenties, there were entire stations dedicated

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Speaker 1: to playing nothing but hillbilly music, including popular artists such

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Speaker 1: as the Carter Family, Fidland, John Carson, Jimmy Rogers, and

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Speaker 1: the Virginia Reelers. By that point, Billboard magazine been around

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Speaker 1: for about thirty years, having published its first issue way

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Speaker 1: back in eighteen nine. The first music chart wasn't included

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Speaker 1: in the magazine until nineteen fourteen, and since radio hadn't

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Speaker 1: come along yet, it only counted down the most popular

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Speaker 1: songs played in vaudeville theaters. Country music or hillbilly music,

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Speaker 1: because it was known at the time, wasn't represented at

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Speaker 1: all until the January eighty eight issue. It featured a

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Speaker 1: short article about Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys Band,

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Speaker 1: a country novelty act that toward the vaudeville circuit. The

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Speaker 1: Right Up included a photo of the band in full

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Speaker 1: cowboy regalia, and featured the group's mascot, a German shepherd

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Speaker 1: named Rex, front and center. One of the group's biggest

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Speaker 1: hits that year was a tongue in cheek song called

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Speaker 1: Adam and Eve Here's a Taste along Game. Adam had

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Speaker 1: a battle, He pushed drew up the three for to

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Speaker 1: get himself on apple. She got him to and the

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Speaker 1: j Juan ever said, then all the trouble big up.

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Speaker 1: In the nineteen thirties, the invention of the jukebox and

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Speaker 1: the rising popularity of radio prompted Billboard to broaden the

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Speaker 1: scope of its charts beyond just Vaudeville, the magazine started

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Speaker 1: counting down the most played songs on the three major

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Speaker 1: radio networks, as well as the most played jukebox records

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Speaker 1: in the nation and eventually the best selling retail records too.

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Speaker 1: In nine, the magazine launched its first attempt to chart

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Speaker 1: country music with the debut of its Hillbilly Hits list.

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Speaker 1: The artists that charted during this era of country music

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Speaker 1: tend to be overlooked and aren't very well known today.

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Speaker 1: Sure there's Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, and he still

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Speaker 1: has his fans, But Sally Foster, the Delmore Brothers, and

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Speaker 1: the light Cruss dough Boys aren't exactly household names. And

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a shame, because there's some good music

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Speaker 1: buried in there, some of which was surprisingly progressive and

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Speaker 1: even subversive given the era. For instance, a country duo

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Speaker 1: named Lulu Bell and Scottie released a track in nine

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Speaker 1: called wish I was a single girl again. Take a listen.

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Speaker 1: I used to no one whatever with me. Now I married,

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Speaker 1: called my husband. I wish I was a single I

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Speaker 1: wish I was. Although Hillbilly Hits was a semi regular

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Speaker 1: feature in the magazine for several years. Billboard itself doesn't

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Speaker 1: consider it the starting point of its country music coverage. Instead,

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Speaker 1: the company likes to point to January eighth, nineteen forty four,

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Speaker 1: the day the most Played Jukebox Folk Records list first

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Speaker 1: appeared in print. That chart was subtitled Hillbilly Race, Cowboys,

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Speaker 1: Songs and Spirituals, so kind of a catch all for

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Speaker 1: anything even remotely country Western plus all types of music

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Speaker 1: by African American musicians. That's the race part in the title.

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Speaker 1: According to Billboard, that chart is the real predecessor to

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Speaker 1: the Hot Country Songs Chart of today. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: why the company disregards the earlier Hillbilly Hits list, especially

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Speaker 1: since they continued to use the disparaging hillbilly term for

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Speaker 1: the new list into It could be because the first

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Speaker 1: list wasn't a regular weekly feature, or it could be

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Speaker 1: that Billboard just really wants the world to forget the

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Speaker 1: lightcruss dough boys, and mission accomplished. If so either. In

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen forties, Billboard finally took the hint from

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Speaker 1: offended country music artists and fans alike and changed the

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Speaker 1: Hillbilly Records Chart to the Folk Records Chart, then in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties it became the Country and Western Records Chart,

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Speaker 1: which eventually became the official name for the genre. Those

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Speaker 1: incremental changes were crucial to the growth, development, and acceptance

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Speaker 1: of country music, because record chart categories help unproven genres

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Speaker 1: seem more legitimate, not just a passing fad or niche interest.

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Speaker 1: By taking the word hillbilly out of its title, Billboards

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Speaker 1: signaled that the home spun genre had come into its

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Speaker 1: own and could no longer be laughed off as a

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Speaker 1: low brow joke. Billboards Country Music Chart changed its name

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Speaker 1: one more time in the early nineteen sixties, dropping the

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Speaker 1: Western and adding a temperature to become the Hot Country

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Speaker 1: Singles Chart. The change further underscored the WHI wisdom of

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Speaker 1: ditching the hillbilly moniker. As the Hot Hillbilly Singles Chart,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like something else entirely enough set I'm Gabe

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Speaker 1: Lousier and hopefully you now know a little more about

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Speaker 1: history today than you did yesterday. If you have a

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Speaker 1: them directly to me at this day at I heart

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Speaker 1: media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for listening. I'll see you back here

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Speaker 1: again soon for another day in History class