Western music (North America -2nd part)
From .wikipedia
Mainstream popularity[edit]
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Western music became widely popular through the romanticization of the cowboy and idealized depictions of the west in Hollywood films. Singing cowboys, such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, sang cowboy songs in their films and became popular throughout the United States. Film producers began incorporating fully orchestrated four-part harmonies and sophisticated musical arrangements into their motion pictures. Bing Crosby, the most popular singer of that time, recorded numerous cowboy and Western songs and starred in the Western musical film Rhythm on the Range (1936). During this era, the most popular recordings and musical radio shows included Western music. Western swing also developed during this time.
Decline in popularity[edit]
By the 1960s, the popularity of Western music was in decline. Relegated to the country and western genre by marketing agencies, popular Western recording artists sold fewer albums and attracted smaller audiences. Rock and roll dominated music sales and Hollywood recording studios dropped most of their Western artists (a few artists did successfully cross between the two, most prominently Johnny Cash, whose breakthrough hit “Folsom Prison Blues” combined a western theme with a rock-and-roll arrangement). In addition, the Nashville sound, based more on pop ballads than on folk music, came to dominate the country and western commercial sales; except for the label, much of the music was indistinguishable from rock and roll or popular classes of music. The resulting backlash from Western music purists led to the development of country music styles much more influenced by Western music, including the Bakersfield sound and outlaw country.
In 1964, the Country & Western Music Academy was formed in an effort to promote Western music, primarily in the Western United States. The Academy was formed in response to the Nashville-oriented Country Music Association that had formed in 1958. The Academy’s first awards were largely dominated by Bakersfield-based artists such as Buck Owens. Over time, the Academy evolved into the Academy of Country Music and its mission is no longer distinguished from other country music organizations.
The Western Writers of America was formed in 1953 to promote excellence in Western-style writing, including songwriting.
Rediscovery[edit]
Older music is still available at retail stores in major population centers, through mail-order, or by the Internet. New Western music is constantly written and recorded and performed all across the American West and Western Canada.[citation needed]
The Western Music Association was established in 1989 to preserve and promote Western music, and honors notable musicians by inducting them into the Western Music Association Hall of Fame.[citation needed]
In recent years, Michael Martin Murphey (b. 1945) has almost single-handedly resurrected the cowboy song genre, promoting Western singers and groups and cowboy poets.[citation needed] The singing group Riders in the Sky recorded a mix of Western and Western Swing and have won Grammy Awards for their work with Disney on Toy Story 2 (1999) and Monsters, Inc. (2001).[citation needed]
Western music also plays a large role in the video game Fallout: New Vegas. Furthermore, the Red Dead series of games heavily features Western music, since it takes place in an Old West setting
